Woven Delights, The Painted Ladies
er words wound down, and Ava fell silent, settling back into calm stillness, and only then did she realized what she’d done. There was no smile on his face, nothing to answer the one she’d offered him. His whole body shook; his voice cracked.
Ava hesitated.
He was struggling. There was a horrible rictus grin on his face, like someone who’d never seen a smile had tried to draw one onto his features. He was gripping the pillow like it was the only thing holding him together.
Ava felt her chest tighten. Too far, she thought, dizzily. She’d gone too far, she’d said – she tried to wind back, tried to think where she’d crossed the line. When had that faint constraint on his face become something like panic? How had she missed it? She closed her eyes for a moment, just a moment, letting Tom wait, allowing him to try (to fail) to make one of those jokes he liked so well.
Ava did her best to smile at it anyway. She did better than he had, at least she hoped she did; her smile was a faint twitch, but it wasn’t so – horrifying. Was it? For a moment, he looked like he was having a panic attack, like he couldn’t breathe, and Ava felt a tightness in her chest as well. She took deep breaths of her own, slow and steady and even, trying to set an example for him, as if maybe the soft steady rhythms of her breath would help him.
Ava didn’t know what to say; she honestly didn't. She hesitated, holding on the couch, taut somewhere deep inside, not knowing what to do either. Her gaze dropped to his hand on the pillow, twitching and shaking like it had a life all its own. She had touched him, before, touched his hand, and the world hadn’t fallen apart, hadn’t ended for either of them. Ava wanted to go to him, to take his hand, but she thought – she didn’t know. She thought there was a very good chance it would make things worse, not better.
She held still.
“No,” Ava said, quietly. “Forgive me,” her eyes lowered. “Please understand,” she swallowed, looking up at Tom again. “I’ve hated her for years, and she always seemed… invincible,” Ava searched for the right words, not letting herself speak until she was sure wouldn’t trip, wouldn’t stumble. “It’s like a flicker of hope in the darkness, this,” a little smile trembled on her lips like a flame, caught, held for a moment, shuddered out again. “If I’m too eager, it’s not that there’s any need to hurry, it’s only that I’m not used to… hoping.”
A faint, soft meowing trickled down into the room, echoing through the empty space her words had left.
Ava looked over at the hangings that hid the staircase. She smiled a little at Tom. “Just a moment,” she said, apologetic. She thought they could both use one, in any case.
Ava rose, careful of her skirt – it wasn’t wrinkled at the back, either, for all she’d been sitting. She crossed to the door to the shop, closed it first. She smoothed it out, crossing to the stairs, and the soft sound of her footsteps would be faintly audible, the quiet click of the hatch. Silence, a few moments, and then footsteps again, and Ava reappeared, out from behind the hanging.
There was a quiet thud on the stairs behind her, a soft little slippery whisper.
Ava sat again, carefully, the motion no less graceful for being precise.
A small gray cat wound out of the fabric, tail raised high like a banner, strutting across the room. He was sleek and gray, with bright yellow eyes, and he looked as comfortable as if he were in the room nightly. Ava watched him, smiling, wondering how she’d ever keep him out now.
Within a few feet of the couch, though, the cat – bristled. His back arched, the fur standing straight up, his tail too, shooting up into the air; he leapt back, fumbling against the ground, and he hissed, shaking, all his focus on Tom, and let out a low sort of growling, snarling noise. After a moment, the sleek little body turned and fled back up the stairs, once-graceful claws scrabbling against the wood.
“What…” Ava’s eyes were wide, and she stared from Tom to the space where the cat had been – back again, utterly speechless.