Page 22 of Her Creation

Her father let out a hearty laugh so loud it startled a flock of blackbirds from their hidden perch in a distant tree, flying out in a haze of black, shrieking dots.

“A heart comprises much more than tissues and vessels. It forges the essence of a man’s spirit. The organ has the soul of one’s capacity to love and be loved. It could never be replaced, even if the structure might allow it.”

Victoria’s eyes traced her father’s face, pausing on the deep creases that pleated near his eyes so often when they were together.

As they walked on their usual path, a warped and decaying log patterned with moss and lichen blocked the trail, having fallen from a nearby oak. She lifted her skirts and stepped over the obstacle, while her thoughts touched humorously on the similarities of the deciduous log and her once grand and stoic father. As her foot swung behind, her toe kicked the wet log, and it crumbled and broke. Her eyes flickered with heat once she realized the comparison wasn’t all that funny after all.

She held out her palm once she was on the other side to help her father over. He approached the dampened log and glanced at her with a slight scowl that glittered with a whisper of humor. His chin lifted, and the setting amber sun glinted off his spectacles, casting his face in light as he made a dramatic show of stepping over the log without her help.

“I’m not an invalid yet.”

Victoria’s mouth twitched as she fought back a smile, but her eyes glittered with love for her stubborn father. He was like the log, she thought: stubborn, old…and once as tall and as formidable as the sky, as impressive and vital to her world as the oxygen it produced…and now was reluctantly falling apart despite his resistance.

She kicked her black boots through the blanket of fog ghosting the dark forest floor. “You know, women are required to accept hands of assistance regularly, but that does not make us invalids,” she retorted with a teasing, challenging glance at her father.

His chest shook softly as he pulled a brass pocket watch from his vest and clicked it open. His chin tipped up a notch to look down through his spectacles before he looked at Victoria and gave a small nod. It was the signal they needed to stop their dawdling and return home for dinner.

Victoria frowned, wishing, just as she always did, that she could have more time in the quiet, undemanding forest with her favorite person. Tonight, her father had called for them to return earlier than usual.

“No, women accepting help does not make them invalids,” he agreed. Their heads snapped to the right at the sound of branches snapping. “But, like many other things, including the medical field, women are far too important and complex for ordinary men to understand.”

“You understand them both,” Victoria argued.

Alphonse absentmindedly pushed on the side of his hip as they walked. He denied it, but it was obviously still giving him pain despite his protests. His legs had been bothering him to the point of disturbing his sleep for the last few weeks. Victoria knew only due to the sound of his pacing throughout the night. When she pressed him, he denied it, saying he felt great.

“I have no more understanding of the two than the common man; the only difference between me and the said common man is that I try. With either women or medicine, I am incapable of believing there is not more to be understood. Man tells us that diethyl ether is for a frolic of euphoria and laughter, not sedation, as you and I have discovered. We simply learned to try something they hadn’t. We pushed forward when they remained stagnant. Like women, men’s interest in the substance stopped and did not bother to go further after they found it brought them a good feeling.” He wrapped an arm easily around her shoulders and squeezed her tightly. “I believe, though, like medicine, women have the power to dismantle any man, whether or not they are aware of it.”

Victoria’s chest squeezed, and she mirrored his movement, wrapping her arms around him. Sometimes she thought the love she couldn’t give physically to her mother had doubled and overflowed into the love she held for her father.

“How are you feeling? Have you recovered from the party? Have Greta make a peppermint water with dinner,” Alphonse instructed.

Victoria’s cheeks flushed a darker shade of pink at her father’s questions. She tightened her arms around her chest, tucking her gloved hands under the warmth of her arms.

It was November, and the weather remained unseasonably warm, though the rules seemed not to adhere to Mother Nature’s whims. The forest that surrounded the castle kept things so quiet that it was as if it were a town all its own. Many patients spoke of the fears they had when passing through the dark and winding forest to reach the ominous fortress-like castle. They were not alone; no one seemed eager to step foot into the always dark and foggy forest. No one but Alphonse and Victoria, that was, who ventured into the woodland near daily. Perhaps through their medical training, they had become immune to the common fears of men and instead found solace and knowing in the mysteries of the darker parts of nature.

“It’s been nearly four days, Papa. I’m fine. I told you I had too much glühwein, that’s all,” Victoria muttered into the rough collar of her wool coat.

“Yes, yes, it’s my experience that anyone who says they are fine forty-seven times and blushes is doing great—fine even.”

Victoria cast her father a sideways glare. “Papa,” she whined softly. “You’ve asked if I am okay at least ninety times. My blush has been incited by your nagging, and for the record, you yourself have admitted to being fine at least ten times just on this walk.” The corner of her mouth lifted.

“Oh, I have not.” His brown eyes were bright and playful despite the small signs of tiredness that swelled beneath them. “I am sorry for the shorter stroll tonight; my legs are cramping ceaselessly.”

“What is Rosamond making for dinner tonight? Did you request rabbit stew like we spoke about yesterday? If it is you who asks her, she will certainly agree.”

Alphonse looked at a patch of wrinkly blue-gray lichen attached to the bark of a nearby tree. “You know I try to avoid both her and Greta if I can help it; they pester too much for my liking. You make the request. They get all clumsy and fidgety when I speak with them.”

Victoria stepped to his side to examine the same lichen. “Phaeophyscia orbicularis,” she stated. “See the small white dots of soredia on their surface?” The finger under her black glove pressed into the lichen. “And Greta and Rosamond get that way because they are frightened to death of you, which is precisely why she will most definitely make the stew if you request it.” Mischief danced in Victoria’s eyes. In the forest’s light, they looked as black as her dress and coat. The near luminosity of her skin offset the shadows of the forest and caused her to look quite frightening—or it would have to anyone other than Alphonse, who nearly matched.

“I believe we are having ham,” he replied as they came to the edge of the dark forest. The remaining light from the sky lit up their faces as it softly pushed the shadows back along the forest line. They continued up the narrow path, past the grand-looking stables that housed only their two modest horses and a gelding that belonged to her father’s valet. Only Greta, who’d been with the family before her father’s success, stayed overnight in Thousand-Sword Castle.

“I hate ham,” Victoria breathed as she climbed the steep incline of the hill toward the castle.

“You hate everything. Never in my life have I seen someone dislike food the way you do. That’s how I can tell how anxious or stressed you are, even if you won’t tell me.”

The dirt and leaves shuffled beneath Victoria’s feet loudly as she turned to her father. “Me? I eat everything!” she argued, feeling the warmth of embarrassment tint her cheeks.

“Fish,” her father stated flatly as he continued on without so much as turning his head.