Keep your silence orI couldn't get all of the writing off my arms and so I was forced to wear a cardigan with my dress today, which brought comments from Caleb within minutes of me walking through the door this morning.
Reach for life beyond the stars
Save your mercy
For someone who needs it more
I'm the guilty
All the feelings come crashing down on me
I'm taking you with me
How long, exactly, is the Ringmaster's speech, Princess?
Seven minutes, sometimes as short as five, I reply.
And what did you generally do while he gave it?
I was still in makeup, usually.
He stands there staring at me for several uncomfortable minutes and then asks to see the words so I shrug out of my sweater and stand on display while he makes two circles around me, frowning, his head cocked dangerously to one side so he can read all of it, though it is faint now from the thorough scrubbing I did in the shower last night and again this morning. Lochlan's handwriting is gorgeous and illegible and hasn't changed at all since he was sixteen because he isn't a book-learner so things like penmanship and cursive writing are afterthoughts instead of efforts. He spends nothing on them and so he gets little in return.
Caleb swears under his breath and instructs me to put my sweater back on. He holds his hands out as if to take it and hold it up so I can be put into it. I ignore his hands and pull it on without help. He's in a hurry to cover up any trace of Lochlan's predictable defiance.
Aren't you a little old to be writing on each other? Says he who wrote oblivion on my fingers and Neamhchiontach across my back, one very recently and one decades ago.
No, I reply in a dull voice. This subject is off limits. I'm not doing this today.
Today my task is to file all of Caleb's souls by Justification for Purchase. It's cross-filing, since they are always filed alphabetically immediately upon acquisition. He likes to peruse the arguments, he likes to absorb the lingering desperation and he delights in the elation that emanates from those he enters into transactions with before they can realize the true gravity of what they've done.
These contracts are kept locked up tight. None can be broken, none have ever been dissolved, for he is the Devil and once you give him something, you can't ever take it back. I have the key only as long as it takes me to get the job done and then I will return it in exchange for unparalleled, unwarranted attentiveness.
I'll sit here in the semi-darkness and make neatly-printed labels for the multitude of color-coded files spread out on the floor around me in an ever-widening circle. Labels that say things like Financial Independence, Talents, Indemnification, Vanity, Comfort. There is also a label that reads Innocent, and it is the thinnest, for the one file that rests within it, the one with my name on it. Because the Devil not only purchases souls, but he can acquire them through other means, by mere proximity to someone young enough to not understand that their soul must be protected.
He can appropriate it when no one is looking and keep it forever, but the price he pays is that the soul's original bearer gains access to everything he has to offer. They will hold those respective positions in a virtual deadlock for time eternal, with holes forming on both sides at various intervals throughout their lives through which coveted promises fall. Currently he doesn't have the loyalty part of my soul and it's been a hell of a long time since I've had any comfort, and that's just where we stand right now.
But by far the thickest file is Requited Love. As I thumb through it I see all of my boys' names, alphabetically from Ben right through Jacob and everyone in between. Because in their rush to exchange what seems like a valueless anchor, a myth for something they desperately want, they fail to obtain the most important thing: the definition of what they are asking for, for all love is not created equal.
Some love is brotherly, some fatherly, some distant and some benign. Because vanity means different things to different people, and comfort comes in so many forms if you have something in mind, you might just be disappointed. Each of these things the Devil can twist and shape into something that barely resembles what you wanted most. This is his greatest deception.
And so by the time you realize what you have done, it's usually too late.
No, wait.
Let me correct myself.
It is always too late.