The Tearsmith: A Novel

Those with springtime in their souls

Will always see a world in bloom.

Rigel had left me in complete disarray.

For the next two days, I was unable to shake the feeling of him, the feeling of him infused in my blood.

Sometimes I was sure I knew everything about him. Other times, there were so many shadows circling around him I was convinced the opposite was true.

Rigel was like an elegant beast dressed up in his best clothes. But lurking inside him was a wild and unpredictable soul, frightening, and dangerous to approach.

On the other hand, he had always done everything within his power to make sure I wouldn’t understand him. Every time I got too close, he snapped at me, and warned me to stay away, like he had done that evening in the kitchen. And then illogical, contradictory situations would arise, and I would be unable to make sense of his behaviour.

He confused me. He disturbed me. He was sinister, and I would have done better to heed his warning and to steer well clear of him.

Aside from my relationship with him, though, I couldn’t say that things were going badly. I adored my new family.

Norman was bumbling and kind, and every day Anna seemed more and more like something from my childhood daydreams. She was maternal, attentive and caring, and she was always worrying whether I’d eaten enough and whether I was doing all right. I knew that I was very thin, that I didn’t have the rosy, healthy complexion that other girls my age did, but I wasn’t used to receiving that sort of attention.

She was a real mom, and even though I wasn’t brave enough to tell her, she was becoming as dear to me as my own mom.

The little girl who used to dream of embracing the sky and finding someone who could set her free was now beholding that reality, enchanted.

How could I avoid losing it all?

—

I left my room after another afternoon of homework. I studied a lot, and it was very important to me to be good at school. Above all, it was important to me that Anna and Norman were happy with me.

To my surprise, I bumped into something on the landing.

It was Klaus. He had decided to show up, once and for all. I was delighted to find him outside my room, because I loved animals, and interacting with them made me very happy.

‘Hi,’ I whispered, smiling at him. I thought he was a really beautiful cat. His lovely dusty grey fur was as soft and fluffy as cotton candy, and he had wonderful round, yellow eyes. Anna had told me that he was a distinguished ten years old.

‘Aren’t you lovely…’ I gushed, wondering if he would let me cuddle him. He stared at me suspiciously. Then his tail stood up tall and off he went down the stairs.

I followed him like a little girl, watching his every move, enthralled, but he threw me a scowl, giving me the impression that he wasn’t happy with my actions. He jumped out the window and landed on the ground, leaving me alone on the landing. He really must be a solitary sort…

I was about to move on when a noise caught my attention. I didn’t realise straight away, but it was a rasping noise coming from the room next door. But it wasn’t just any room…

It was Rigel’s bedroom.

I realised that the sound was him breathing. I knew I shouldn’t go in, but hearing him breathing like that made me momentarily forget this. The door was ajar, and I looked inside.

I glimpsed his imposing figure. He was standing in the middle of the room with his back turned. Through the crack in the door, I managed to see the swollen veins on his stiff arms and his fists clenched at his side.

They were what caught my attention. His skin was tight over his knuckles and his clenched fingers were bone-white. I noticed the tension running through his arm muscles up to his shoulders, and didn’t understand what was going on.

He looked…Furious?

The floorboards creaked under my feet, betraying me before I could get a better look. His eyes darted towards me and I jumped. Instinctively, I stepped backwards, but a moment later the door slammed shut, cutting short my speculation.

My mind was whirring as I stared at the door. Had he seen me there? Or just that someone was there? I felt a stab of humiliation in my chest to even be wondering. I bit my lip and backed away. Rushing downstairs, I told myself to stop thinking about it. Rigel had nothing to do with me. Nothing at all…

‘Nica,’ Anna called to me. ‘Can you help me?’

She was carrying a basket of clean laundry. I pushed my worries to one side and immediately went to her, as jittery as I was every time that she spoke to me.

‘Of course.’

‘Thank you. I’ve still got some things to do, if you could help me put these away. You know where they go?’

I took the basket of fragrant laundry from her, reassuring her that I’d be able to find the right drawer for her lace doilies.

The house wasn’t too big, and I walked from one end to the other, stopping every now and then to fill a drawer or cabinet. I had learnt where some things went, and now I had the chance to enhance my knowledge of the house. As I put my clothes back in my room, I felt ashamed that Anna would have seen how old and threadbare they were.

When I left my room, I realised that the only things left in the basket were a couple of short-sleeved shirts.

They were men’s shirts. I touched them thoughtfully. I doubted that Norman would wear such shabby clothes. In fact, I knew that he wouldn’t.

They were Rigel’s.

I turned towards his bedroom door. After what had happened only a few minutes before, the idea of approaching the door made me freeze. I didn’t know for sure that he had seen me, but I absolutely knew that I didn’t have permission to go in. Rigel had been extremely clear about that.

But I was doing Anna a favour. With everything that she had done for me, how could I refuse such a tiny gesture? I had promised her that she could trust me with a simple chore like this, and I didn’t want to have to eat my words.

I hesitated, indecisive, but eventually I found myself in front of the door.

I swallowed, then lifted a hand, mustered my courage and just about managed to knock. I received no reply.

Had I knocked too quietly? The thought that maybe he wasn’t in his room any more lit a little flame of courage in me. Rigel had told me not to go in, and I had done my best to listen to him, but maybe I could take advantage of his absence to leave his clothes in there without having to run into him.

I took the door handle in my hand and turned it.

I jumped when the metal slid out from under my fingers.

The door opened and all my hopes shattered.

I was caught under the spell of his dark eyes.

He was right in front of me. My legs started to tremble.

How could a seventeen-year-old boy burn you like that?

‘Would you care to inform me what you think you’re doing?’ he drawled chillingly. There was nothing promising about his expression. My eyes dropped to the laundry basket, and his quickly did the same.

‘I…’ I stammered. ‘These are yours, I just wanted to leave them for you…’

‘What,’ Rigel snapped, ‘part of the phrase “don’t come into my room” wasn’t quite clear to you?’

I swallowed and felt myself withering under the indisputable rage radiating from his eyes.

‘Anna asked me to,’ I explained. I felt the need to assure both of us that nothing would have persuaded me to go in there but a sense of duty. I realised only too late that it sounded like a lie. ‘She asked me a favour. I’m only doing her a favour…’

‘Do yourself a favour.’

Rigel abruptly grabbed the basket out of my hands. His biting, threatening glare rooted me to the spot.

‘Clear off, Nica.’

He always called me Nica, not little moth, when he was growling at me like that, as if using my name made his words seem more serious.

He was already closing the door and I wrung my hands, feeling the tackiness of the Band-Aids on my fingers.

‘I was just being kind,’ I said reproachfully, pointlessly trying to match his scornful attitude. ‘Maybe you find that hard to understand?’

The door stopped moving.

I saw a shadow pass through his dark eyes as he murmured through incredibly still lips, ‘Just being…kind?’

I stiffened. Rigel started to open the door further, and one by one my muscles tensed.

He took a step forward, and I swallowed dryly as he put his hand against the doorframe, just above my head. He was looming over me, tall and intimidating with his icy stare.

‘I don’t want…your kindness.’ The words dripped slowly and threateningly from his lips. ‘I want you out from under my feet.’

His deep voice moved me intimately. It was infused into my blood. I jumped away and his eyes followed me with startling precision.

I stared at him, frightened by my reaction. For once in my life, I wished I could feel anger, spite or resentment about how he was behaving, but my chest stung with something much deeper. It was almost painful.

The next moment, he closed the door and silence swallowed me up once again.

I bit down hard on my lip and found myself clenching my fists, trying to chase those feelings away. Why did I feel so wounded? He had always been like this. That was just one of many arguments we had had. I had been a fool to expect anything different.

Rigel had been snapping at me his entire life. He had never wanted me to touch him, to get near to him or to try and understand him. He wanted nothing from me, but at the same time, he knew how to torment me like nobody else. He consumed me. Sometimes it seemed like he wanted to ruin me, other times like he hated my very presence.

He was a wild, mysterious and shadowy beast. The wolf.

He was as alluring as the night, and his eyes were as cold and distant as the star he was named after. And I…I had to stop hoping that things would change.

I went back to Anna and told her I had finished, trying to hide from her how I was feeling. In response, she thanked me with a brilliant smile. She asked if I wanted a cup of tea and I accepted, my heart sighing. I ended up chatting with her on the couch, our hands wrapped around our steaming mugs.

I asked her about her store, and she told me about her assistant, Carl, a nice young man who gave her a hand. I listened to her, enraptured, trying to take in every single detail about her, and once again I was enchanted by the light emanating from her smile. Her voice was like an embrace, a glove that made me feel warm and protected. Her light hair and soft features were shining with a luminescence that I felt only I could see.

In my eyes, Anna sparkled like a fairy tale, and she didn’t even know it. Sometimes, as I was gazing at her, I thought of my own mom, her sweet eyes and how she whispered to me when I was little, ‘Tenderness, Nica. Tenderness, always…Remember that.’

I liked Anna so much. And not only because I felt a desperate need for affection, not only because I had always dreamt of smiles and hugs…but also because she was more sensitive and thoughtful than anyone I had ever met before.

After we’d finished chatting, I went up to my room to fetch the encyclopaedia she had lent me. Downstairs there was a room with a bookshelf covering an entire wall. I approached it with the large book clutched to my chest, and took a moment to appreciate the light seeping in through the white curtains. The last rays of sun created a warm and welcoming atmosphere. The grand piano gleamed in the centre of the room like a throne without a king.

I approached the bookshelf and put the encyclopaedia back in its place. I had to stand on tiptoes because the shelf was a bit too high, and the book almost fell out of my hands, but I managed it in the end.

I turned round, and my heart jolted.

Rigel was leaning in the doorway, staring at me. His imposing figure cast shadows over the warm light that had been enveloping me, and instantly sent my skin crawling. His sudden, unexpected appearance made my heart race and my lips part. His gaze was alert and intense, like a cat studying its prey.

I wished I didn’t always have that reaction to his presence. The intensity of the discomfort I felt was matched only by the perverse attractiveness of his angular face. His straight nose, his perfectly proportioned lips, his sharp jawline and delicate, harmonious features…and then his eyes. His slanting eyes shone under his arched eyebrows with a destabilising and provocative confidence.

‘It’s going to be like this forever, isn’t it?’

I was the one who spoke. I could no longer hide the subtle note of melancholy in my voice.

‘Our relationship…won’t change, not even now we’re here.’

Then I noticed that he was holding a book by Chesterton in his crossed arms. I’d seen him reading it in the last few days, so I guessed he had finished it and come to put it back.

‘You say that as if you’re sad about it,’ he replied silkily.

I withdrew slightly, even though he was standing far away, because that tone of his had a strange effect on me.

Rigel slowly and cautiously looked down at me. ‘Do you want it to be different?’

‘I want you to be less hostile,’ I hurried to say, and wondered why it sounded almost like a prayer. ‘I want you not to always look at me like…like that.’

‘Like that…’ Rigel repeated. He always did that. Turned my statements into questions, modulating them in that slow and sinister tone, twisting my words around on his tongue.

‘Like that,’ I said stubbornly. ‘You look at me as if I was your enemy. You know so little of kindness that when you see it, you don’t even notice it.’

What I didn’t want to admit to myself was that it hurt me.

It hurt me when he spoke to me like that.

It hurt me when he snarled at me.

It hurt me when he didn’t give me the chance to improve things between us.

After all that time I should have been used to it, I should have recognised that I was scared of him and left it at that, and yet…I just wanted to fix everything. That…that was just how I was.

‘I notice kindness. But I think it’s hypocritical.’

Rigel was now watching me with serious, contemplative eyes.

‘It’s performative…useless and sanctimonious.’

‘You’re wrong,’ I objected. ‘Kindness is sincerity. And not asking for anything in return.’

‘Oh yeah?’ His eyes sparkled through his half-closed eyelids. ‘I have to disagree. It’s forced…especially when it’s directed at just anyone.’

I thought I could sense something lying beneath his words, but I concentrated on what he was saying, because I couldn’t understand. What did he mean?

‘I don’t get what you’re trying to say,’ I breathed, admitting my confusion. I tried to make sense of his reasoning, but Rigel stared fixedly at me, with those eyes that gave me goosebumps and pierced my soul.

I started feeling my heart thumping in every part of my body, and felt panic rising within me. I realised that it was all because of how he was looking at me.

‘For you, I’m the Tearsmith,’ he exclaimed. ‘We both know what you meant. “Don’t ruin this,” that’s what you said to me…I’m the wolf of the story, aren’t I? So, tell me, Nica, what would you call kindness towards someone you just want to disappear, if not…hypocritical?’

I was taken aback by his bitterness. Kindness, for me, was a virtue, it was a form of tenderness, but he had capsized everything with a reasoning that was so twisted that it seemed to have its own logic. Rigel was sarcastic, scornful and shrewd, but I would never have thought that this was because of such an acidic way of looking at the world.

‘What do you want me to be?’ His voice roused me.

I was alarmed when I saw him moving away from the door towards me.

‘Our relationship…how should it be?’

I retreated until I felt the bookshelves jabbing me in the back. His voice was silky, it was always halfway between a hiss and a snarl, and sometimes I found it difficult to work out whether he was trying to contain his anger or make himself as creepy as possible.

‘Don’t come any closer,’ I ordered him, poorly disguising my agitation. ‘You tell me to stay away from you, and then…then…’ My words withered in my mouth. Rigel was now towering over me, with his overwhelming good looks and his eyes lowered to mine. In the sunset, his black hair looked like it was oozing venom.

‘Go on. Tell me,’ he whispered fiercely, slightly lowering his face. I hardly came up to his chest, and the air between us was throbbing like a living being. ‘Look at you…even my voice scares you.’

‘I don’t know what you want, Rigel. I just don’t know…One minute you’re snarling at me and the next…’

You’re breathing all over me, I wanted to say, but my heart prevented me from speaking. I felt it in my throat, like an alarm warning me how close he was.

‘You know why fairy tales end with “ever after”, Nica?’ he whispered mercilessly. ‘To remind us that some things are destined for eternity. Some things are immutable. Some things won’t change. It’s in their nature to stay as they are, otherwise the whole story falls down. You can’t disrupt the natural order of things without disrupting the ending. And you, with all your daydreams…with all your constant hoping…you’re so desperate for your happy ending, but are you brave enough to imagine a fairy tale without a wolf?’

His voice was a ferocious, deep whisper that terrified me.

I shivered before him, and Rigel looked deep into my eyes, watching me through his long eyelashes for what seemed like an eternity. His words created a disordered feeling in me, like dust swirling in an unfathomable galaxy.

Then, all of a sudden, he lifted his hand. He brought it close to my face and I closed my eyes instinctively, as if I was scared that he would hurt me. I sensed him stretching his arm forward and…

Nothing happened. I opened my eyes wide, my heart still flailing, but Rigel was already far away, disappearing through the door. In a moment of intuition, I turned around to see that he had simply placed the book back on the shelf behind me.

I tried to slow down my heart rate, but I was too confused and upset to think straight.

How should I have interpreted his actions?

And his words? What did they mean?

I noticed that a bookmark was still inside the book he had borrowed. I was sure that he had finished it, so after a moment I lifted my hand to reach for it and opened the cover.

A passage on one of the pages caught my eye.

Someone had underlined it in pencil.

As I read, my heart sank, dissolving into mist, eventually evaporating into nothingness.

‘Are you a devil?’

‘I am a man,’ answered Father Brown gravely. ‘And therefore have all devils in my heart.’