the devil take this orpheus

Aldric watched Johann point out the sentences that were hurtful. At once he began to feel impatient, but his expression did not change—he recognized how important it was not to make Johann feel even more attacked than he had for the last two centuries.

“I see,” he said. “May I?” He held his hand out for the notebook, and after a moment, took it back so that he could reread the entries himself.

“It paints a hurtful picture because you are taking it out of context.”

He was careful to keep his voice even despite the mounting frustration growing inside of him. It wasn’t fair—Johann wasn’t being fair. Johann wanted to cling to what he thought the truth was, instead of seeing the truth for the truth. Aldric knew how two centuries could cement an idea, and knew the value of being discerning, but this level of stubbornness was outright ignorant.

[“‘I worry about Johann; for the past few days he has been acting strangely, for a reason I cannot decipher,’”] said Aldric. There was a slight edge to his voice. It was one thing to share his journal in silence, and another thing entirely to read it aloud so that someone other than the intended audience might hear it. His voice was low, and hurried.

[“‘I have feared perhaps he means to quit and live his life elsewhere, yet he does not know how to tell me of his decision. I have thought to ask him, yet every time I try I cannot bring myself to utter the words—it frustrates me greatly that I cannot, as an employer, complete so simple a task in regards to my staff. But it is not so simple: I surmise, if he left, that I might feel a great rage, and a great jealousy; I have grown so accustomed to his presence, to his unyielding loyalty, that without him here my home would feel even more ghastly and hollow; if he left it will be as if all life has exited from this estate. I have favored him above all others these past years that I shudder to think of someone else favoring him as I have. If he should desire to leave, I cannot keep him—but should I tell him what I know? If I did, he might think I am lying to keep him close to me, and he would come to resent me in some form, I am sure of it. If I do not tell him, he will die, and I am equally sure of this. There is no guarantee he would believe the truth, and I cannot fathom disrupting his life—happy as it seems—to inform him of a fate that may not befall him for years and years to come. This entire ordeal is a mess; how dissatisfying that good intentions may have ill consequences, and that there is never an easy answer. I will not decide tonight; I pray I still have time before I must let him leave so that I may decide the proper course, and I pray my decision will be the best for him.’”]

Aldric shut the journal. There was a moment of finality in the soft sound of the heavy leather cover meeting the pages. He had never read his thoughts aloud, and until this moment, never imagined that he ever would.

“Still hurtful?”

Johann didn’t answer. Instead he stood, as if he couldn’t sit there any longer, and began to walk away. Aldric stared after him, following with his eyes. Forgive me, Johann had said, and Aldric recalled his impatience, his frustration, the edge to his voice—he felt, at once, like a parent who’d manipulated a child through punishment.

That was not entirely what he’d done—he was not Johann’s parent, and he had not been so harsh that he would call himself cruel. He needed Johann to see his side, but was he going about this the right way?

Standing slowly, Aldric tucked the chairs under the lip of the table and followed where Johann had gone. No more than a minute had passed, but it felt like much longer. He picked up his journal and followed Johann to where he’d gone.

“Johann,” he said. His voice was soft.

He waited a moment. He didn’t want his presence to result in another meltdown like what had happened in the infirmary.

“Would you like me to leave?”

When Aldric thought of Johann—which after his death had been often, and then more seldom as the years dragged on—he thought of someone elegant and eloquent, whose unquestioning loyalty and capacity to learn astounded him at every turn.

But now all of it was different, altered by circumstance. High emotions rendered each of them inarticulate, unable to say the correct thing in the correct tone of voice without somehow chipping away at the other’s reality.

When Johann raised his hand, Aldric found himself bracing for the worst—but no books flew off the shelf and toward his head.

“[This has been your world for two hundred years,]” he said. “[No one can undo two centuries worth of pain in what little time we have been reunited.]”

It was a hard truth that Aldric did not want to admit. He had wanted Johann to reach a sudden clarity, to come to an immediate understanding—he had hoped, in a selfish and impossible way, that his journal alone could cause a revelation.

“[Perhaps I… expected too much of you,]” he admitted. “[I want terribly to prove my innocence. I was willing to force my innocence upon you at whatever cost—this is wrong. I cannot do it this way. I’ll endeavor to find some patience; God, at least, knows what happened that night.]”

Aldric looked down at the journal in his hands. He didn’t want to leave it. There were secrets in here he could not bear to leave in the hands of someone else. And yet—

“[You said, before, in the infirmary, that I was unknowable. I want to leave this with you. I hope it will make me more human to you.]”