Faramir Fiction Archive

Simulacra (NC-17)

Written by Vanwa Hravani

09 November 2011 | 30013 words | Work in Progress

XXV

Dusty velvet and rose petals. His mother’s wardrobe always smelled this way. Smiling, he pressed his face into the softness of long abandoned gowns that hung, shoulder seams straining under years of unrelieved weight, waiting for a familiar body to come again.

Running his hand along the dark wood he imagined he could feel the vibrations there of voices long silent — her melodic laughter as she gathered him to her skin, the songs they lifted up together, joined on a good day by Boromir, whose singing voice had later raised only bawdy soldier ballads, but had once been as sweet and joyful as his own had been innocent. Another harsher voice, ever an intruder in these chambers, and their gentle whisperings as they comforted one another afterward, he and Findulas.

He had taken refuge in her rooms because he knew no one would look for him here. It was quiet and sunny, and with the air so long unstirred by opening doors, he knew warmth would be waiting for him there. It was always waiting there, peaceful and untouched as a refuge should be. Sometimes he wondered whether he even remembered her anymore, or whether the comforting presence he felt had more to do with the room itself.

With its door open the wardrobe provided him a low seat, recreating the vantage point from which he had so often seen this room through the crack of the hinges. How many times had he hidden amongst his mother’s things, either to escape from others, or simply to be near her without interrupting adult activities? It had been their secret. She had called it his ‘nest’, and sewed him an extra quilt made from her discarded gowns to pad his favorite corner and to nap in when sleep overtook him. He remembered rubbing small fingers on his favorite squares – one of crimson satin, another forest green and soft, one made from a royal blue velvet he could still picture on her. It had seemed to him as a child that the squares had somehow captured magical moments of her life, days when she was beautiful and happy, the transcendent center of all their lives. His earliest images of her were in those dresses now preserved in the quilt. Did he remember those moments for themselves, or because he had the dress scraps to make them real? Or had he simply overlaid these fabrics on his imagination’s own nostalgic echoes? He was never sure if it even mattered what was real and what was projection. In their own ways they were both true.

Although her ladies’ maid knew of his hidden presence, few others did, assuming him to be in the nursery as was appropriate. But from his hidden squirrel’s nest, he had watched his mother sewing, entertaining, pressing courtiers’ suits to Lord Denethor, and managing those aspects of court and city affairs that she could negotiate without the Steward’s interference. He had also seen other things he wished he had never seen. But unlike the images of his mother in her jewel-tone velvet dresses, he could not pretend those pictures in his head were imagined, no matter how hard he tried.

Today he came to talk to her. He needed his mother. His friend. He needed to know whether it was okay to go on. Not to forget, but to let go. She was, of course, the wrong person to ask. She had not gone on. She had quit. She had cried, and asked his forgiveness, but still she had quit. Though he begged her, pleaded, wanted to pummel her with his tiny fists for leaving him, he could not make her stay. Whether he had failed her or she him, he did not know. But he had hidden the half empty packet away in his secret quilt because it was hers, and curled into her arms, giving her what comfort his small body could as she stroked his hair, and held her as she slipped away. In fact, he had held her many hours after that, long after his own sobs had turned to shudders, then silence.

The maids had thought them to be sleeping, and left them undisturbed. Finally one grew concerned at their long slumber and shook her lady’s shoulder to waken her. To her horror, the body to which the tiny boy clung had grown stiff, warm only where he pressed himself against it, seeking perhaps to follow where she went. When the maid pulled him from the bed, his eerie silence erupted into anguished screams that rent the night and brought the Palace Guard and the Steward running. After the bustle, silence descended again. The room had been quiet since.

‘Mother,’ he began in a shaking voice, addressing the place on the daybed where she had so often been, where he had last seen her ethereal face. Somehow speaking aloud always seemed right here. As if it called forth her presence as a real thing. Not inside his head.

‘Mother, I need your help. I do not know what to do. I…I do not know how to live. So confused Mother. I want to love this man. This elf. Haldir…I know I am not supposed to.’

He swallowed as a fist squeezed at his heart.

‘But I want to love him. I do love him. I am scared. I am so scared that I will end up hurting, worse…’

He leaned his head against the side of the solid wardrobe and contemplated the sunbeams made visible by the long unwashed window. Through his damp lashes they seemed to glisten, to waver in recognition. An unseen breeze stirred the room, making him freshly aware of the cooling streaks on his face.

‘…And I do not want to leave you. I… I have wanted to all my life to join you. I have tried. But I cannot…I am sorry Mother. I did not mean to abandon you. I know I have failed you, left you alone there. I was…am afraid. I should have. I should have come right away. I…’

His hand strayed to stroke again the soft squares of the hidden quilt. He knew them by feel. The forest green one, so soft. The blue velvet that had tied at her waist and fallen like a heavy waterfall about slim hips. Hips like his own. He felt for the paper, as he always did, folded over to keep its contents safe.

He could not say he did not know how. He could only say he was afraid. She had left him enough, and he had failed her. Who was he to say he loved, when he had so clearly failed his first love, the one he should have followed without question? How could he make promises to another when his every day was proof he could not be trusted?

He withdrew the packet from its hiding place as he had so many times before. Slipped his finger under the fold, and inside. He told himself he was just checking the contents, though he knew it was untrue. He pulled out a finger dusted with gray powder and considered it a long moment. The powder had once been dark green, he remembered. Now it had aged to sick slate gray, the shade of graphite without the sheen. More like a looming cloud, portent of a storm vicious yet not cleansing, swallowing light and air and life within it, without the amber afterglow that made summer squalls forgiving.

Without thought he brought the fingertip to his lips, where his tongue darted out to meet it. To touch and taste. To keep. As he had done so many times before.

He always expected it to be sweet. To taste of memory — pungent, cloying, yet enticing. Yet always it burned more than he could remember, the bitterness sharp against his skin, quickly spreading through his mouth, urging him to spit, though he swallowed. The trace of it down his throat made him gag and he struggled not to vomit as his body tried to expel what was foul. He clenched his teeth to keep it down, to take his fair share of what his mother had swallowed with so much grace, beauty even. She had never grimaced, he remembered, never flinched. So much braver had she been. So much more ready. And so he waited still.

He folded the packet and tucked it back in its place, smoothing the quilt, her quilt, down over it, safe.

He rested his head against the wooden doorframe again, closed his eyes.

After long moments, with a deep breath, he stood. He turned his back to the bed and closed the wardrobe door, watching as its contents were folded again in the darkness, secret again.

Forgive me.

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