Page 102 of Cackle

I realize she isn’t going to elaborate.

So I surrender to the night. I surrender to dancing wildly and to blackberry wine. I pour a drop out for Ralph. He drinks it, hiccups, stumbles a few steps, then passes out on his back.

Just shy of midnight, Sophie leads me out to the backyard. There’s a bonfire. I’m drunk, and through my eyes, the world is opaque, the sky velvety, lush, constellations like strings of pearls. I watch Sophie lay wreaths of winter jasmine. She circles around the fire like the obedient hands of a clock. She’s barefoot.

There’s this moment when, through the fine ribbons of smoke and curtains of yellow flames, I think I see her, though I also feel her next to me, braiding flowers into my hair.

“There’s someone else,” I tell her. “Who is it?”

She isn’t there to answer. Only her shadow. Beside me. Somehow independent of her. Untethered, tucking a pansy behind my ear.

—

I wake up the next morning with a dry mouth and a hangover.

“Dear, dear,” Sophie says, looking particularly radiant over a breakfast of eggs and fresh biscuits. She can’t have slept much, so I don’t know how she looks so well rested. She made me a face cream with rose hip and orange peel. She said it was the one she used, and it made my skin soft, but sadly, it did not make me ethereally beautiful.

She brews me an herbal tea that I’m hesitant to drink, considering the last time she gave me a home blend I hallucinated. She insists it will alleviate my hangover. I relent, and she’s right. I do feel better.

“What are your plans for the week?” she asks me.

I sigh. “To be either drunk or asleep, ideally.”

“Why don’t you stay here? Stay the week. I can give you clothes. You have a toothbrush. What more could you need?”

“Nothing,” I say. “Nothing at all.”

So I stay with Sophie. I stay with her through New Year’s, the decorations and champagne back at my place pointless.

I don’t mind. I’m happy to be with Sophie. Happy to be occupied.

And most of all, happy not to be alone.

Like Sam, Sophie doesn’t understand my enthusiasm for New Year’s.

“I’ve been alive for so many years,” she says. “I think it’s made me a bit indifferent. Besides, I honor the passing of time on the solstice.”

“Oh,” I say.

“But you enjoy New Year’s, so we shall celebrate!”

“We don’t have to.”

“We don’t have to do anything, darling. We’re free,” she says. “And freedom means doing what you want. I think I’ll make duck.”

She makes us duck and brussels sprouts. She makes us flower crowns. She has us write resolutions on pieces of parchment with quill pens, fold them and burn them over a special candle she made and placed inside a pewter bowl. The candle smells like sage. When we burn the parchment, the flame turns purple.

“Is that good?” I ask her.

She doesn’t answer.

I have a lot of lofty resolutions, like being more patient, like not forgetting to put on deodorant, like learning to make things the way that Sophie makes things—food and soaps and tonics and balms.

Like overcoming my uncertainty and figuring out how to wield whatever power I had that night at Rhineland.

Like finally getting over Sam.

As midnight approaches and we sit watching the grandfather clock in the library, I confess to her my sadness about not having anyone to kiss at midnight.