J. Redmerski - The Swan and the Jackal

Her hands move up to the sides of my neck and her touch sends a warm shiver through my body as if I’d just downed a shot of whiskey.

“But I’m here now,” she says, looking into my eyes with all of her dark passion and love and sincerity—all of the things about her that I’ve hungered for for so long. “I’m here now and we can be together again. We can be like we used to be.” She grasps my shirt tighter with emphasis. “We are a one of a kind pair, Fredrik. There is no one else out there like us. Apart, we’d die alone. Together, the way we were meant to be, we can be happy again.”

Like the angel on my shoulder telling me to do the right thing no matter how sweet the wrong thing tastes, I see Cassia again. Cassia’s face in front of me speaking with Seraphina’s delicious, poisonous lips.

And I know that nothing can ever be the way it was.

Finally, I manage to pull away from her, shaking my head not only at the words coming out of her mouth that I want nothing more than to believe, but at myself for giving them too much thought.

Her bright brown eyes narrow suspiciously.

“Who is it?” she asks with acid in her voice.

Stunned by her sudden change of attitude, I just look at her.

“Who is what?” I finally say.

“Was it—”she rears her head back, her eyebrows thickening in her forehead—“was it the old woman? Did you forget about me and replace me with an old woman ?”

“No,” I say with my hands out at her, trying to calm her down.

But I’m stunned again when instead of shouts and anger and accusations, she cries.

Seraphina falls to her knees, her face buried in her hands.

“I’m so sorry, love,” she says in a shuddering, tortured voice. “I shouldn’t have left you. I shouldn’t have given myself to that man—I can’t even remember his name.”

“Marcus,” I say it for her and I’m no less bitter about it today than I was six years ago.

“It’s my own fault,” she says. “I was afraid of love. I was afraid of you .”

I kneel on the floor beside her and pull her against me wrapping my arms around her. This isn’t the Seraphina that I remember. This isn’t the woman I fell in love with. Seraphina was strong and proud and the only time I ever saw her cry was that night she killed that woman in my interrogation chair because she thought she was someone else.

Because she thought the woman was Cassia.

“Seraphina?” I say softly into her wet hair. I squeeze her tighter and stroke her back. “It wasn’t Greta. I didn’t fall in love with Greta.”

Seraphina lifts her head from the crook of my arm and peers into my eyes.

I take her face into both of my hands and lean in kissing her softly on the forehead.

She appears confused. Worried.

“I fell in love with Cassia,” I say.

Her whole body becomes rigid underneath my hands. Her eyes widen and lock in place as if she’d just seen the most traumatizing thing ever.

Then she shoves me away and jumps to her feet so fast that all I can do is jump back to mine.

“CASSIA?!” she roars. “You love Cassia ?!”

I reach out grabbing her by her upper arms.

“YES!” I scream into her enraged face plagued by the worst betrayal. “You are Cassia! Don’t you see?! Please tell me that you understand!” Tears are burning the back of my throat and the backs of my eyes, but I won’t let them fall.

I shake her again, roughly, as if I could shake Cassia back to the surface again, but I know deep down that I’ve lost her.

I’ve lost her.

I’ve lost both of them, every part of the only woman I’ve ever loved or ever will love.

I’ve lost her…

“She betrayed me, Fredrik!” Seraphina shoves her body against mine, but I hold her still. “I spent years of my life in a goddamn mental institution because of her!”

“You are her!” My hands tighten around her arms so harshly that I know I must be hurting her. “You. Are. Cassia!” I want to make her understand. I just want her to be normal, to be…she can never be normal.

“Don’t do this to me again,” I say through an anguished voice, though I don’t know what I’m saying—it’s my heart talking, not my rational mind.

She breaks away from me and runs toward the bedroom door, but I grab her around the waist before she gets too far away and I wrench her back into my arms.

“Let go of me!” she screams.

“No. Not until you tell me who you are.” I hold her close with her back pressed into my chest, my arms tight around her warm, naked form, my lips near her ear.

I want to cry.

“You know who I am! Now let me go!”

“Tell me your name.” I can’t open my eyes. I just want to savor this moment with her.

I just want to savor it.

My hands are shaking. My heart is alive again, but I know not for long. It’s afraid. Afraid of what’s going to happen to it when it knows she’s gone forever, when every part of her is gone forever.

I squeeze her tighter, clutching her naked body against mine as if it’s the last time I’m ever going to see her again. The tears are burning. Fucking burning!

“I’m Seraphina! You know me, Fredrik! I’m your wife! The only woman who has ever loved you!” Tears roll through her body and her struggling begins to subside. “ Please ….”

Suddenly she melts into me, surrendering not only to me but to the pain my words have caused. The weight of her body begins to drop as she slides down.

“Why would you love her,” she says through uncontrollable tears, “of all the people in this world, why Cassia?”

I hold her tight and we’re both sitting against the floor, her still wrapped in my arms, but now wanting to be here. I stroke her hair and kiss her temple and still the fucking tears are burning.

“Because she is you,” I say softly into the side of her face. “And because you are her. I can help you if you’ll let me, but you have to let her go. You have to let Cassia go.”

Please let her go…

“I killed that woman in the basement,” she says about Greta and even though I had a feeling she did, it’s still difficult to hear her admit it. “I killed her because she wouldn’t set me free.” She sniffles back her tears. “I strangled her with the chain around my ankle. And then I took the key from her pocket to unlock myself.”

“You didn’t have to kill her,” I say calmly, but I am anything but calm inside.

I continue to stroke her hair.

“Yes I did.”

“Why? Why did you have to kill her?”

She turns around, her fingers clutching the sleeves of my shirt.

“Because she kept calling me Cassia.” Her voice is calm and distant as though she’s remembering it. “And because she wouldn’t set me free.”

She looks up into my eyes and it takes everything in me not to break down in front of her.

“I love you, Fredrik. I always have. You’re the only person in this world that I’ve ever loved.”

I choke back my tears and crush her against me. She cries into the side of my neck. I picture the two years that we were together, two short years that felt like forever. How she helped me and molded me and made me a better man and loved me. I picture how she loved me.

“Tell me your name,” I say once more, hoping that this will be it, that she’ll understand. “Just tell me your name and everything will be OK.”

The silence between us seems like an eternity as I wait for her answer. My heart has stopped beating. My breath is caught in my lungs.

Please let her go…

“My name is Seraphina,” she says and my heart fades to black and my breath releases in a long, drawn-out breath of anguish and sorrow.