Caged

Chapter I

With you gone, the life in my world is gone. The world lacks color while I lack you.

February 1854

"And the guillotine's blade fell upon his neck, splitting his head clean off of his body. It bled deep into the scaffold, staining the steps to the mechanical murderer, and ending an era." Gray eyes watched from beneath the bed sheets as they listened to Henri’s descriptions. They had slept in the same bed since they were young, while their older brother Brandon had his own bedroom. Once Brandon moved out, they would have their own separate bedrooms. But for now, they would stay under the sheets with Henri telling stories and Avalyn listening with their eyes the only things visible above the sheets.

"He died? Just like that?" Avalyn pulled the sheets down so her frown was visible. "But he wanted good. He wanted France to be better, didn't he?"

"Yes, he did, but he didn't do a very good job."

"Was he handsome?"

Henri rolled his eyes and rolled over with his back to Avalyn. He blew out the candle.

"Why does that matter?"

"Because if he had been handsome he might have not died like that, don't you think? If he had been handsome he would have been liked better." She stared at Henri's back in the dark.

"You shouldn't think about the world like that."

"There has to be more about Robespierre. Did someone succeed him?"

"Napoleon. Goodnight, Avalyn."

When Henri said goodnight, his stories were over. She turned onto her back and stared at the ceiling. She thought about Robespierre and the French revolution. Henri had said that Robespierre had been chosen to give a speech to the King after his coronation, but the King and Queen stayed in their carriage, out of the rain, and left as soon as they could. Avalyn imagined the young, soaked and disappointed Robespierre, waiting for the King Louis XVI. Robespierre had been so proud of his speech. How could no one feel pity for Robespierre after such a diluted experience?

Her eyes opened and closed, blinking back sleep, but eventually she fell halfway between dreams and reality. She saw the thin thread of the guillotine blade above her head, and suddenly it fell. She woke up with a jolt and the bed shuddered. Henri felt nothing and hardly stirred, most likely used to her midnight wakings. His stories had given her nightmares ever since she was little. Although the nightmares continued, she always liked to hear her brother’s storytelling.

She laid back down. You shouldn't think of the world like that. But that was how the world worked. If you were beautiful, you were well liked. Robespierre had failed on some part because he had not been. Avalyn turned in the bed and pressed her hands against her face. Her hands were cold.

She went to church alone. Her family had never been religious. Religious inspiration had come to her by Henri who had read her the bible while she was small, not out of allegiance to God but by boredom. Avalyn thought she understood God, and it put a rift between herself and her parents. Henri encouraged her to keep going to church, to keep trying to understand God and the world. Avalyn put on her best dress, which was still repaired and resewn from its past tears. With Avalyn’s father being the town physician, her family was well with money, but they were very frugal. Her mother and father hoarded their money as though waiting for the perfect thing to spend it all on.

The church was restless that morning. Everyone seemed to be itching to return home. Avalyn sat above the congregation with the choir. She watched everyone look everywhere except at Father Logan.

Avalyn loved to sing. She wasn't sure where it had stemmed from, but when she had visited church for the first time, she remembered hearing Guinevere, a soprano in the choir, and Avalyn wanted to sing like her. She still admired Guinevere, who had grown older but still retained perfect beauty and grace with her age. She was wife to a man whom Avalyn did not know, but he too seemed perfect. Avalyn's mother always wanted Avalyn to get married to someone like Guinevere’s husband.

Both Avalyn and Guinevere were singing solos that day. Guinevere was before Avalyn. There was almost no comparison between their voices. All Avalyn could do was admire her. Guinevere could do what Robespierre tried and she could succeed. Guinevere could start a revolution.

Avalyn’s family was the only family in Wrennes that did not attend Church. Avalyn could feel an air of disdain from the people who thought it was unnatural and strange that Avalyn went to Church on her own. That Avalyn could survive without being raised by religion. Henri understood it and had faith in her going to church, but neither of her parents did and saw it as a waste of time to hear preaching that, in their opinions, went unheeded. Avalyn guessed it was their heritage that made them that way. The Gildens had come from Paris. When the revolution began, they escaped. Then the Napoleonic wars began, and half of the family was lost. Avalyn's father held more empathy, but Avalyn's mother was hard and unwilling to think of the world as anything less than unforgiving. Brandon was different in that he enjoyed the knowledge and life, experiencing as much as he could in the small town.

Brandon had taken much after his father with a sharp face and clear eyes. Mr. Gilden was one of quiet intelligence, contrasted to Brandon’s boisterous curiosity. Lately, her father had limited himself to mostly work and helping Henri with his studies. When Avalyn entered her bedroom, she saw her father overseeing Henri's readings, questioning him on anatomy and what he had learned from his assigned readings, as well as how he thought of the sessions with patients. Henri was stiff and his answers were clipped. She gripped the door frame as she watched. If he had not voiced aloud any worries to her, there couldn’t be anything to worry about.

Avalyn entered once their father left.

"Why don't you ever use your desk? You'll fall asleep in bed."

Avalyn's father was always very serious with Henri. He expected Henri to become a decent physician like himself and take over his own profession.

"Are you stressed?" She asked, looking over Henri’s shoulder at the book he read. Pictures of the human body were displayed on the page. Henri shut it once he caught her looking.

"Two hundred pages I need to review before Wednesday." He sighed. "You would think he would be a little lighter on the workload with his own son."

"Are you enjoying the work, at least?"

"Some of it. Not this part." He looked up from his book. "But I enjoy seeing patients and helping people. I think father does, too."

Avalyn looked upon his book and brushed her fingers against the book page, trying to feel the bright reds and peach.

"What are the appointments like? What are the people like?"

Henri smiled at Avalyn.

"Sometimes scary. When someone is really sick, I’m afraid I'll get sick, too. But father has sort of lost that sense. He doesn't seem to be afraid of anything.”

"Try not to let him work you too hard.” She rose. “You'll be a good doctor without all those studies anyway. People can't help but like you."

"Cure them with all smiles, you think? I don't think that's how it works."