There was no point in deigning that with an answer. Instead she decided to ask the more obvious question, the one she should have asked first. “You have a job?”
Emil looked pleased she had asked. “Of course. There are only so many favours we can call in.”
“That is it.”
Coleen was not sure if she wanted to look away from the stove top long enough to acknowledge Emil. Knowing he would continue to speak either way, she decided against it as she added the paprika.
“Your being quiet is one of the creepier things I’ve ever had to deal with.”
Coleen was red.
Coleen realized she did not know whether she still thought of herself as Faith or not. It seemed to her that everything Faith had done that she liked was done by someone else. The Faith of now. When Faith did something she could not stand… (Lizzie Lizzie Elizabeth!)
Well, then it was Coleen. It was all Coleen.
She had been trying so hard not to think of Elizabeth.
Someone else had been her first and last friend. Emil therefore was not her friend. What he was… was the last thing she could cling to before he pushed her off into the wild seas. He was her last harbour. He was not safe (that had been Lorene) and he was not protecting her (that had been Alton). He just was.
All her feelings tumbled around her. She drowned.
But she could not die, so she had to resurface again.
“Now that was silly of you.”
(Underneath his comment, the unspoken “are you all right?” that meant she was not. She never would be and he was the only one to ever truly understand that.)
He made her yank out weeds. Coleen only did as much as he made her, hating the feeling. These gloves didn’t fit her hands well. If Emil wanted her to do more of this she would have to make better ones. Or come up with another way to not be roped into this. She should not have to weed the backyard. She could care less how the place looked.
“Aren’t you going?” she asked. Emil stared at her and she continued. “Might as well enjoy the free food. They might have real chocolates.”
That caused him to react. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”
It was the first anniversary of her death. Coleen might have forgotten, but their new neighboring town had a celebration about it. Down with the corrupt king and praise to the Faith who had saved them all.
“Could you just see their faces if you went down and joined the festivities?” Emil asked as he took another piece of chocolate Coleen had made off of the plate. He ate it very slowly, likely by forcing himself. If there was one thing Coleen had managed to uphold in this new household it was the rule of no buying chocolates.
He probably ate some while he was out, but there was only so much that Coleen could do. Emil had not started up a new garden yet. Maybe next time they moved she would remind him about greenhouses and they could find a place with one where he could work in it all year long.
Coleen pushed Emil’s feet off of her. “Would be a waste of a death.”
Emil didn’t really suggest he go. He just said what he wanted, as he usually did. He really needed to figure out how to be more tactful to live as a mortal. Some people wouldn’t like him talking to them like that.
“Yes, because after something as public as your death, the first thing they will think is that it is the real King Cole.”
It would not be the first time someone called her a demon.
Coleen was content with feeling empty.
This was the feeling of fulfillment. She accomplished what she had set out to do. Of course she had not died, but that would have been too good for her. This way she got to see her world realized and her name smeared as far as she had been able to defile it. She would hear word of Ami through Emil’s lips and she would just live.
Not that she had a choice.
The numbness crept from her heart and into her limbs. Maybe she would never be able to do anything more active, she had never been good at that in the first place. Different than her will pushing her onward. She did not need a strong will. She could keep moving on because she could not feel.
Someone had once asked if she felt anything. Now she could truthfully say she did not.
Whoever had asked would never known. Coleen didn’t remember who had asked.
“The roof needs to be repaired,” she told him when Emil finally came out to see what the sound had been.
“Oh. What gave you that impression?”
The knife that pierced through the hard shell that was supposed to be their shelter. That was how the strong took down the weak. Some had forgotten that people wanted the weak to survive. Why else could they then call someone else to get this sort of thing fixed?
“I will have to be elsewhere,” she said. She could not risk everything on a single sight.
“Where should we move to?”
Coleen was not sure how he had come to that conclusion, but did not try to reiterate herself. They did not have to move anywhere. Though perhaps she should. Another place. Somewhere that might not know her face.
But everywhere did. She had made sure of that.
A. A. MacConnell 