Chapter Text
Helena
I never was quite sure what happened to my life. One moment I was doted on every second of the day by a mother more beautiful than the taste of sugar but absent as a cloud in the desert—and the next, thrown out like the evening garbage after consumption, left with nothing but the clothes on my back and a head that endlessly spun with confusion and hurt. Now I saw how the years had left me: freezing, defamed, and disheartened. I never seemed to be able to fix my life from the hell it had been swallowed by. Mud clung to the strings of my once-vibrant coppery curls, making them appear twisted and marred like the branches of a tree beaten by a storm and tangled to its roots. My skin was still fair, yet dry, brittle, and cracking around the edges of my face. Dirt caked beneath my nails like an inescapable reminder of the filth I surrounded myself with.
My empty stomach whined out a protesting cry as I pushed myself onto shaky legs. I leaned against the stone wall of the damp cavern between structures that had been my home for the last eight years. I used a fragile wooden comb I had stolen to brush bits of hardened dirt out of my hair despite the wooden teeth snapping under the pressure, burying themselves into the mess. I braided it best I could, holding flyaway curls off of my face. The hair was so stiff there was no need for any sort of rope or ribbon to hold it where it lay.
I looked down at my deplorable attire—but what else was I to wear? I had long abandoned my corset and various undergarments, leaving me in a chemise, a petticoat, and a simple day dress I snagged off an unsupervised laundry line. The chemise, a relic of my youth, was uncomfortably short and outgrown. I hardly had room for such decisions, but nevertheless, to gain some agency, I made the conscious decision that this would need to be enough before exiting the shaded corner.
I hummed to myself as I wandered until my eyes caught sight of my only friend. Germaine was a spinster housed in a brothel, who bought her stay by doing their laundry. She was too old to service herself to disgusting men with full pockets and hopefully-empty beds. To my dismay, however, she told me that more often than not, these men had occupied beds at home. Sometimes they had many other beds too, filled with young, fat-faced children unaware of the sins of their ever-so-loving fathers.
Germaine stood outside the decrepit old building hanging up wet clothes. Her tired face ran with deep lines, showing a lifetime of disappointment and longing for something better. She had long waist-length brown hair full of knots and streaks of white and gray. I waved to her and she smiled cheerily, all evidence of loneliness long gone.
She called out to me in her soft voice, “Helena! Come here, dear girl. I feel I haven't seen you in ages!”
I smiled and blushed slightly at the notion that someone missed me. My posture straightened as I walked over to her, my ragged shoes clicking on the cobblestone. “It has only been a week, Germaine. You couldn’t have truly missed me that much,” I replied.
She simply waved me off and walked over giving me a firm hug, like the one you would receive from a mother or nanny who was especially warm. I hugged her back and pulled away soon after, pressing a single, sweet kiss to her cheek. To me, Germaine was like rich, dark coffee. There was a beauty in her, if only you could get past the bitterness and harshness of her story. Inside, she was an energetic woman dying to spill her love to people who dared to show it in return.
“Nonsense, dear, you know I care for you deeply. Even if your life is admittedly abysmal, I never want it to waste like mine—I enjoy every moment I get to talk with you,” she chuckled, eyes crinkling around the edges as the sun shined down on her through the clothing lines above. If only that same sun could offer any warmth within the crisp wind of February.
“I know, I know,” I said. “Let's not dwell on it, alright? I was planning on pocketing the two of us something from the market today. It’s supposed to be very crowded, giving me a good window.” I really wasn’t fond of stealing, but my wiry frame and quick feet allowed for quite the skill.
Germaine nodded and looked around, making sure no one was looking in our direction before she whispered, “I can give you some fresh clothes if you can get me some bread. Sound like a trade?”
I nodded excitedly and rushed away to go through the market. I walked carefully, waiting for a perfect moment to steal us some food. The people were hurrying around me in their nice outfits as though tunnel vision had taken control and shielded them from the poverty surrounding them. My stomach ached at the smell of ripening fruits and slightly stale bread. One particular stall caught my attention, as it was fairly crowded, which would keep the owner of the stall distracted. I weaved through the dense crowd and scoped out the selection. A moderately-sized loaf of bread was calling out to me and I knew I could put it in the hidden pocket of my dress. I had to act immediately and made sure to nonchalantly feign interest in the array of delicacies.
My nimble, sticky fingers clung to the loaf and turned back into the crowd to hide in their noise long enough to slip it into my pocket. As my eyes moved up they caught the bloated, red face of a gendarme yelling, “Thief!” I made a sharp turn towards the stretch of alleys that promised safety. I clutched my dress, hiking it up off the ground with the bread heavy in my pocket as I sprinted through the crowds. The officer’s shoes clacked against the ground from behind, louder and louder until I knew I’d been caught by the stench of tobacco and corrupted bureaucracy. He grabbed my arm and glared down at me; his grip was tight, and each bruising finger dug into the little bit of tissue left in my arm. I acted on instinct and pure will to survive, sending a flying kick to his shin with enough force that he was made to relent.
Off again I went zipping down the streets breathlessly, nothing in my mind told me that he may have followed me as law enforcement typically avoided this part of the city. For them, to acknowledge it meant that action must be taken and they could no longer wear their mask of ignorance. I made it to Germaine with a wide-eyed, erratic smile and handed her the portion of the bread she’d asked for with a trembling hand. She chuckled while I choked out the words to tell her what had occurred. Her gentle hand rubbed my back while the ringing in my ears slowly began to stop. Even though I was shaken and out of breath, I could admit I felt a bit invigorated with the excitement pumping through my veins. I assumed there wouldn’t be any more interference since the gendarmes typically couldn't care less about what crimes I had actually committed. Most simply found it easy to use undesirables to meet their quota.
When I finally felt peace, less shaken from the interaction, a cracking boom suddenly echoed through the air. I jumped and whirled around, seeing the familiar, bloated officer holding a smoking firearm— he had taken the shot. I felt sick as I grabbed Germaine's hand, taking off into the maze that was the worst of Parisian society. My breath turned rigid and broken as I sprinted.
We continued on like this until Germaine slowed her pace, dragging behind unusually. She was older than me but certainly not enough to have been lagging this far behind me. I turned around briefly and had to look again to be sure of what I saw. Blood had soaked through her dress and was beginning to run… As if a scene from Hell, the bullet intended for me had struck my sole and dearest friend.
Guilt sat in my gut as I pretended not to notice and continued running until we could take cover in a hidden corner of the alley. I laid her down gently and held her hand, using the palm of my hand to cover the wound. It was some sort of pitiful attempt to fix what had been broken, like holding together a million shards of glass hoping that if held long enough, they would put themselves back together.“Oh, God… I'm sorry, I'm so sorry,” I muttered frantically through shortened whines of panic. My chest hurt as I tried to force the river of time to stop flowing long enough to make this better—to drag her upstream to safety where I’d never put her in such danger.
She shook her head, swatting my hand away and urging me to leave her behind. I protested but she grabbed my hand sternly and looked at me. “You have to go. I will be just fine, Helena. I cannot say the same for you if you don’t run,” she said firmly between wheezes. Her panicked, bloodshot eyes darted to the opening of the corner we stayed in. The predatory, clamoring footsteps only gained closer and closer.
Tears formed in my eyes as I leaned down, kissing her cheek and laying my head against her chest. “I can’t leave you, Germaine, I won't have anything! There is help I can get you. We just need to hide until the old fool gives up.” I smiled and lifted my head as I tried to reassure her.
“And how would we pay for that help, dear girl? You’ve got so much left to offer—just stay with me while I go, and then run away from here. Find something better, something warm?” she said calmly and rubbed my back carefully with a weak hand. I nodded, hesitant, and felt her trembling fingers pulling the ribbon from my hair to let my muddied curls fly free. “Such beautiful hair. You have to get into the city, Helena. You have to find a good man to marry you and escape this life before you are too old like me—I know there’s hope for you,” she said, closing her eyes.
“I will, Germaine, I’ll do better than this for both of us. I will make you proud.” The clicking of shoes haunted me like a ticking clock. Germaine looked up with a sad smile as the color drained from her face. She was wheezing, struggling to breathe. “I'm scared, Germaine—” I told her, desperately trying to keep her awake, waiting for God’s mercy to pick us up from this place and carry us somewhere warm.
She cut me off and spoke up. “Don't be afraid, I am not. You get to live, so live.” Germaine smiled and let her fingers graze my cheek before she took her final pained breaths. No less than a few moments after, her body went still and her face was finally at peace. Only in death could she relish the beauty of youth as the lines on her face shallowed and her brows relaxed from their fixed, furrowed position.
My breath wasn't just lost, but stolen from me, and I felt like I’d been kicked between my left and right ribcage, directly in the center. Choked yells clawed up my throat and filled the alleyway. I couldn’t find it within myself to cry for her, but offering a rageful display rather than one of pity seemed respectful.
I stood up, my gaze refusing to tear itself from the corpse as I stumbled from the scene. It felt like I was betraying her by leaving her behind like just another memory waiting to fade from my mind. She’d been the only one in my life for so long, and yet I knew almost nothing of her. I did not know her favorite color, her favorite flower, or if she’d ever owned a cat. I would never know—I knew she was kind, I knew that she was one of the few women in that brothel who knew to read, I knew that she used to dream of a rich man picking her out in a crowd and stealing her away. As well as the most unjust; I knew she never got the happiness she was deserving of. She wanted that for me. To never chase such pleasant daydreams would be a larger betrayal than the one I swallowed in the moment.
The gendarme spotted me, rounding the corner, and it was a fitful chase once more. A dull ache inhabited my bones, burning in my joints with every heavy step I took. Surely this couldn’t be a sign of athletic resilience. I wanted to live and survive this adversity, or Germaine would have died the same way she lived—utterly insignificant. The ringing in my ears was growing by the second and part of me knew that after this long, I must have lost him. A more animalistic part of me kept my feet slapping the pavement without any sign of stopping or slowing down.
Once the sun had begun to set, I turned down a nondescript alley in the heart of Paris and began to seek a safer form of shelter. I leaned back against a brick wall and hunched over to breathe. One of the many off-white bricks gave way behind me. I turned around, shocked, and stared at what appeared to be a strange door swinging on tight hinges. Against my better judgment, I raised a trembling hand and pushed it open, easing inside and gently shutting it behind me. A blanket of uneasiness shrouded me with anxious paranoia. Out of pure human instinct, I whipped around to try and abandon my little adventure, but when I turned to make my escape, there was no door, no light, no latch—not even a seam in the stone to give me a sense of direction. My heart fell into my stomach like a stone coated in honey to lodge it into place; it appeared that I had no choice but to trudge onward.
I had a good eye for traps after living in the woods and on the street for so long, and navigated through the tunnels with little to no interruption. Step after step, I grew foolishly comfortable with my footing and let my mind run wild while I took in the beauty of it all: carved stone made into a labyrinth of repetitive architecture that I was certain I would never escape. I couldn’t afford to doubt, and convinced myself that there had to be an end—and that to keep walking, I might as well reach it. If time lasts forever and forever knocks at your door, who would I be to deny it?
My far-off mind came crashing back down to earth as a hot pain spread through my foot and lower shin. With my breath uneven and my eyes watering, I let myself look toward the root of my pain. A metal bear-trap contraption lodged its teeth deep into my foot and leg. I tried to rationalize how I could escape this, but could think of nothing. I took my weight off the mangled foot and used the stone wall to lower myself to the ground. My head spun but I didn’t cry or scream. I simply looked at it and took it for what it was before slowly sinking into the depths of despair.
I’d cheated death and even sent my friend to her own, and this was how I received my divine punishment? Why had I been so cruelly misled? There had never been any hope for me and there never would be! I was lowly, a product of my mother's infidelity. An unwanted tumor in a world built in the image of our creator. I’d been lucky to make it this long, and I seemed to grow more ungrateful with each agonizing second.
I tried to push away my own whining but to no avail as I moved my shaking hands toward the trap. I felt over the cold metal, hoping to find a latch or something to disarm it. The metal would not give; and so with that, I let out a pitiful groan and threw my head back against the stone wall. It wasn’t all that logical but it felt like a tight pressure was building behind my brain and about to explode. The only solution was brute force.
I closed my eyes and tried to calm myself, beginning to mumble quick, hushed prayers. Prayers for my mother, who never deserved to be plagued with the likes of me; prayers for the father driven mad with heartache and the burden of a child who was not his own; prayers for my friend Germaine, who never had a chance; and prayers for me, the girl that shouldn't have been.
My vision closed in. But as my world became nothing, a new one came to view—a new world in the form of a gaunt man clad in black, resembling a masked reaper of death. Was this the end of me—the end of Helena, the forgotten child? Perhaps it was not an end but the start of something else, something that would transform me, save me.
I had no time left to ponder as my mind drifted away toward better things.