Chapter 3: The Anatomy of a scar
"It has been a week, brother has yet to leave his room. I have also seen the Archives, although not in their entirety, they did not trigger such a reaction from me. Mother sends me to go give brother his daily meals and he is barely eating. He always was an underweight person, this cannot continue. His body needs sustenance. I will take his dinner to his room in a few minutes. I hope he will eat."
Marie-Anne closed her personal journal, the one with a black cover, and always hidden beneath her bed sheets. She descended to the kitchen and collected the tray: a bowl of thin broth, a slice of bread, and a glass of water. The simplicity of the meal was a medical prescription. She did not knock. Knocking was an invitation for an answer that he would not give. The dim room smelled of stale air and unwashed sheets. Charles-Henri was a silhouette laid across the bed like a patient, unmoving. His body was supported by a large pillow, as he is seated on the bed with legs spread outwards, resting on the mattress. His gaze turned to face the window, facing the grayish blue sky, that was the same color as Jean-Baptiste's skin tone.
Marie placed the tray on the bedside table. The clatter of the bowl on the wood was so obscenely loud in the silence. Charles-Henri did not flinch.
"The broth is thin. Mother says it will be easier to keep down," she stated, not expecting a reply.
She did not leave. Instead, she leaned closer, her ash colored eyes scanning his face as if it were one of her writings in her notes. Then she proceeded to sit on the rocking chair that always sat in front of Charles-Henri's bed. This was the chair he would sit on and read his favourite novels and poetry.
"Father says that the fear will pass. That…it must pass," she said. "You look like you haven't slept in quite a long time. Your sclera are reddish, a sign of irritation or exhaustion and the bags beneath your oculi are also very obvious to the eye of others. You look like an old grandmother that lives with her cats in a forest, far from everyone."
Charles' lips twitched. A minute, almost imperceptible reaction, but Marie saw it. Her lips curved into a slight smirk.
"If you're not an old granny in the woods with the stink of cats then don't act like an old granny in the woods with 101 cats," she chuckled.
Charles-Henri turned to face Marie, a soft smile plastered on his face, he was mused. Marie's body froze, she gazed into the eyes of her brother. In her brother's eyes, she felt a gaze from a lurking predator. But that predatory darkness that lurked within those beautiful irises soon receded revealing, albeit small, a light of hope. Charles-Henri slowly opened his mouth trying to force words out of his mouth but Marie interjected before he could speak.
"Brother, you don't have to say anything. I am sure your body does not have the energy required for you to speak for long. I shall feed you the meal and be on my way, so you can rest," she said.
A small silvery streak of water ran down Charles-Henri's face, as he nodded slowly. His hands, tightly clenching the bed sheets. There were no words being exchanged for the rest of the encounter. The only sound spreading across that room was of utensils hitting the plates and, embarrassingly enough for Charles-Henri, the sound of food being swallowed by a throat long starved.
"Well, you ate the entire meal. I should now take my leave and go dispose of Gabriel's food that mother dished up," Marie said as she stood up from the chair.
"...sorry you have to…" his voice could barely reach Marie's ears but she also wished for the sentence to not be finished.
"Now, now, please sleep. You look like you're inches away from adopting 101 cats," she chuckled and headed towards the door.
When Marie reached the door, she turned around to gaze at her brother once more. Charles-Henri laid on the bed, the lower third of his naked body covered by dark emerald bed sheets. His deathly white skin is visible from such a distance. The white silvery hair hides most of his facial features, but not his silver eyelashes as they are tightly closed. Marie had heard the saying the town girls passed among themselves: "death has never worn such a pretty face." It was at this moment that she could vaguely understand what they meant. But to her the saying took a different form: "A scar so beautiful it is not allowed to exist anything else."
As she exited Charles-Henri's bedroom, she saw that Jean-Baptiste was standing by the door listening to the siblings' interaction. In his hand was what is supposed to be a white handkerchief but is now painted with red streaks and smudges. He turned to look at Marie as she scanned the handkerchief in her father's hand.
"How strange. The blood is lighter and seems to be in a more liquid state than normal blood," she thought. "Good evening, Father."
"Yes, hello Marie-Anne, my daughter. How is–" Jean-Baptiste's sentence was cut short as he burst into a fit of violent coughs. "...my apologies dear, you shouldn't have to see me like this. How is Charles?"
Marie-Anne felt a small stinging begin to surface in her eyes. Was she infected by Father's unknown illness?She knew that this was not the case, yet she hoped it was.
"Brother is quite alright. With a little rest he'll be back to norm…to his old self. Now please excuse me father, I must go and deal with the extra plate at the dinner table," she said and quickly turned to dash towards the kitchen.
She wasn't infected by father's disease, she hoped it was. But the tears that streamed down her face wiped any thought of it being so. She burst into the kitchen and saw her mother staring at a plate filled with food. Marie-Marguerite Sanson, her mother, turned to look at her. Marie-Marguerite quickly ran towards her weeping child. Kneeling on the tiled floor, she held Marie-Anne's face.
"What's going on, dear? Is something the matter?" she worried.
"No mother, it's okay. I was simply rushing and a speck of dust entered my eyes. They…they are quite painful now."
"Oh, thank goodness," she heaved a sigh of relief. "I've been so worried lately, with Charles and mostly with Gabriel not eating his food and locking himself away in his room. Marie-Anne, my love, please go and try to speak to him, won't you?"
Marie-Anne gazed at the plate of food behind her mother's figure. Nodding, she slowly took the plate and ventured into the hallway once more. The sound of her low heels filled that space. She walked past the bathroom, storeroom, the study, the indoor library and not once, not once, did she come across a room for her brother Gabriel. She went outside and poured the food in a poorly made wooden dish. As soon as the food hit the dish, stray cats began to appear from the nearby forestry. The Sanson Residence was isolated from the rest of the town. Hidden deep within the green of trees and the blue of rivers.
Marie-Anne simply crouched as she watched the cats devour her brother's food. She paid attention to one cat in particular. It was a cat with a limp on its hind legs. Marie-Anne didn't have to see it, as it was hidden by clumps of fur and dirt, but she knew the cat was injured somewhere on its legs. That's the most troubling thing about some scars. You can never see them but the pain they release out of every pore can be felt. A hidden scar will always be a scar, maybe even the most painful out there.