{ WARY OF CROSSING }

don’t you ever, ever, says duchess, and the devil. i will do it myself, says duchess, pulling out a stitch.

darling looks out the window. she ought not. darling looks at the velvet flocked walls. touching them brings her back where she started: her fingers flitting over the pattern, reading an inscription, a kind of variety burdened by busy tasks. she looks at duchess through the wide open door: duchess drawing the chandelier towards her with a hook, lighting each candle. her restless aching, pacing — her need to fill the house with objects past her ability.

i have things i have to do, says duchess. darling flattens herself against the wall to let duchess pass. candlelight swarming all over them.

darling turns to face the wall, the window past her drenched with rain. duchess pauses and observes the shape of the garden, the forest in the distance huddled round the house. her breath swells across the glass and she lifts her hand to write a word in swiftly clearing mist. duchess says, does it disturb you?, wiping her hand to cancel out the worst. darling moves, taking duchess by the elbow and spinning her so the trees beyond blur them into one white body, one white dress blown out, the dark hallway sinking, flames shuddering, spitting out wax. duchess wobbling in darling’s arms, her tongue limp: the worst place. the woods swollen, the birds torn and small and stained and cruel.

nothing is wrong, says duchess.
what is supposed to happen in the woods? says darling.

i arrive at the house on the path through the the neatly gathered trees. a thin cloud drapes the mouth, over the door. the closer i get, the more simply i see them, locked together, hands and knees entwined.