Sea Foam Body: Final Draft
Once a ballerina, always Daddy’s little princess. Daddy’s little princess needed to be protected, shielded away from the cold, hard world, held in her expansive room with her fairytale books, with her collection of dolls and clothes, with soft, down feather pillows and silk and cotton blankets. What more could a little princess of nineteen years want? Perhaps to leave her room. To see a sight other than the large pines and birches looming out her window. To see the airships that her family is apparently so well-known for. Perhaps, if she was ever so bold to ask, for a cure for this damned illness that was the reason that her body betrayed her on a daily basis.
Lavender Hadegonia had spent seven years of her life confined to this wretched bed, to her own wretched room because of her illness that stripped the hair from her head and the colour from her cheeks. She was left a hollow shell of herself, unable to move for too long without her bones aching, her head pounding, and maids rushing at her from every side to make sure that she did not hit her head upon fainting. She hated herself with every ounce of her being, and this feeling often boiling over into hot tears and wails into her silky pillows. Her father, always one for cupping cheeks and tapping noses, would smile at her in these rages and say, as soothingly as a man who’s never worked a day in his life can, “Don’t worry, my little princess—this, too, shall pass. Just you see.”
But it didn’t, it never passed, not once—it never lessened, it never got better, her brace was never not needed in order for her to stand without hobbling and wobbling and falling over, and every item in her room made her hate herself, hate the disease that she’d become, so much more. From the beautiful dresses that her father bought to substitute for affection to the dolls that her mother imported from all over the world as a reminder of what she once was—all beauty and grace, with long languid curls of black silk that her mother once loved to comb when she was a little girl, plump blushing cheeks and wide dewy eyes, with lips curled into a demure, ruby red smile. Now, now she had to replicate the effect, sitting at her vanity, washing her face with foundation and brushing at her cheeks with coloured powder, painting her lips with red ink. Then, then her parents would smile, pinch her cheek (careful not to smudge the illusion), and coo, “Our beautiful little girl” before handing her another box that contained another dress or another doll, or another book. She knew, deep down, that they saw and they missed the little ballerina girl they had raised, with bouncing curls and fleeting smiles. Lavender also knew, due to illness, due to her damned knee, due to a tendon stretched too close to snapping, she’d never be that girl again.
The books she did not mind too much, for they contained hope in the way that only a book could, with stories that her mind remembered raw and wished against wishing that she was in the place of that princess in a tower or the maid with glass slippers, anything to make her forget, to lessen the ache, to push it to the back of her mind. It was an escape, a lonely one that she held with no one at all, holding onto hopes that an equally lonely boy would visit her tower window one night and ask her to come away, second star to the right, or deep under the sea where pretty, petty dresses could not bind her and dolls could not hold a candle to her.
But equally lonely boys never came to her window, no matter how long she tried to stay up, and the only ones that did came sauntering through her bedroom door clad in confidence and medals, war heroes coming to claim their prize like Westley Pierce, or rich boys like Sebastian Prouvaire who sat awkwardly at her bedside, his daddy and her daddy speaking for him, telling tall tales of his kindness and creativity, how he was such a poet, an artist. But as soon as their voices faded down the hallways and into her father’s study, the lonely boys, whether they be rich or heroes, would always lean in and whisper, as though afraid to be overheard, “so, have they ever taught you to… you know,” and when she would act dumb to hear them, to HEAR them say it, they’d laugh and straighten, content with such a dumb and rich trophy with heavy gold clinging to her surname as thoughts flood their mind: ‘of course she has of course she has’, while pressing their hand high upon her thigh. “You know,” they’d continue, cocky smile on thin iced lips, “to pleasure your husband.”
And she would send then howling, not from pleasure, and her father, frustrated and disappointed, would always find her in her bed, having not moved an inch, picking bits of face out from under long nails.
Her father pleaded with her, got on his knees beside his princess’ bed, insisted that the men he deemed good enough to have his daughter were simply nervous, and it was cruel, so cruel to hurt them so, and did she know what that would do for business? Did she know that they were sons highly looked up to, more importantly with boisterous fathers with boisterous companies at their back? Every time, she would nod and nod, but when she told her father of what the sons said, he’d smile, and laugh. “Now now, my darling sweet,” he’d coo, “that’s not so bad.” But it always was.
“M’lady,” her maid asked—one miss Felicity Jones, small and thin of body, with tawny brown hair that reminded Lavender of a doe’s; she was one of her favourites, if only because the woman barely older than her actually spoke to her when she handed her her pills and her food and her tea—“M’lady.” She called again, and made Lavender lift her head from her book, the story she’d read a million times over, “The Little Mermaid”. The heiress stared at her, eyes dazed and seeming to see right through her as though she were made of glass, and a silence passed between them when she realized she was expected to answer.
“Yes?” Curt and quiet and sweet.
“I have your food, m’lady. And the coffee you wanted, though I don’t see why you’d have a hankering for the foul stuff.” Felicity set the tray filled more with china and less with food at the foot of Lavender’s bed, only to relocate its contents to her bedside table, setting the cup of coffee on its ornate platter with a soft click, and emptying a small box of different coloured and shaped pills onto china, surrounding the cup like small beads. The plate of food—two-parts rice and one-part a sweet gravy that her mother used to make, when her mother still cooked for her—was moved into Lavender’s lap, a definite reminder that, yes, you need to eat. She looked at the poor excuse for a meal with distaste, curling her lip before she chose to focus on the pills, plucking three of the eight up to hold in her palm as she picked up her coffee with the other. Laying the pills out on her tongue, she brought the coffee to her lips, but paused in her drinking when Felicity interrupted, hand on Lavender’s:
“That can’t be good to take with your pills.” She didn’t exactly care—if worst came to worst, the combination would implode her stomach in a frothy mess, and that, Lavender thought, would be a most welcome effect. Lavender sipped at her coffee and swallowed the pills, blanching a bit as she pulled the cup from her lips.
“… It tastes terrible.” Felicity shrugged loosely, pressing the tray to her chest as she watched, almost ready to startle and bound away like the doe Lavender thought her as, should the worst come true and should she be covered with the messy remains of her young m’lady. More pills swallowed down with the assistance of the disappointing coffee, and the maid seemed to relax, even giving a rare, small smile.
“Would you like to hear your schedule for this week, miss?”
“Not particularly.” Not one to be deterred by this, her maid went to her closet—despite Lavender’s quiet “hey”s and “don’t touch that”s—and picked out what she thought would be her best dress, and laid it at Lavender’s feet, her fingers brushing over the fine cloth thoughtfully. Distracted, she began to speak as though reciting from a list of things she had prepared mentally before she entered the door. Still looking down at the dress, she recited:
“Mr. Hadegonia had planned a visit for you later today; Tuesday is a free day, and you shall spend it however you wish, as long as it’s quietly, here—there will be an important meeting in your father’s office, and he’d like some silence.” Lavender scoffed—she was only ever always silent, meetings or no. “Wednesday is free, I think, and on Thursday, you have a doctor’s appointment. The rest of the week is free.” Felicity looked up from the dress, and flashed a smile that wasn’t quite all there, not at all. The heiress shifted in her bed, moved the pillows round her back to help support her, mind whirring though her mouth stayed pursed.
“Are there no suitors this week?” The maid reacted as though she’s been slapped, hit so harshly by the fake princess’ words that her head snapped up, away from the apparently mesmerizing ribbons and lace of the dress that she had picked out for her small and bony frame, eyes wide and almost fearful. Lavender knew. She’s heard the wails, of her own and the other suitors as she’s flown into her rages, and how quickly she can compose herself from one, an explosion immediately sucking inwards and calming on the surface, and she saw the flicker of Felicity’s eyes to her nails, the one given defense for such a weak girl. She’d never hurt the maid, Lavender knew, but there was a shameful cage inside her that rattled with laughter and pride, that the thought had even crossed her mind. Quietly, she slipped her hands and her French manicured tips under the blankets, sank back in her pillows and letting them swallow her. Lavender was no threat. She didn’t want to be one.
She saw Felicity shift and make a visible act of calming herself, looking now shamefully to the wooden floors to avoid Lavender’s gaze. “I… Wouldn’t call him a suitor, exactly.” Her hands picked absentmindedly at her apron, at the loose threads around the ruffled hem that really, Mr. Hadegonia had plenty of money to replace.
“Then what, exactly, is he?”
“Your father, ah. Well. It seemed more like joint decision between your father and your mother, actually, probably couldn’t afford the, uh, the…” The maid trailed off to make vague scratching motions towards her face before continuing. “So they… They picked one for you. He’s supposed to be a charmer, I hear—looks sweet enough. Strawberry blond, nice eyes—I-I know I wasn’t meant to hear but the Missus was so against the idea, you see, and her voice so loud I could hear her from the balcony—”
“I haven’t met him.” Lavender clutched at the skirt of her nightgown tightly, her nails scratching at her legs as her hands balled the fabric into her fists. The thought boiled in her head, bubbling, and she found her fingers uncontrollable, found them clawing at her thighs with a pain she didn’t quite notice. The thought of it. A stranger, already her would-be husband just because her father liked the name and didn’t want to risk another bloodied face. Her voice, when she spoke, was shill and hushed, all tightness pooling at her chest and constricting her, making her push the noises out. “I haven’t met him! I haven’t even met the bastard and now, just—just because of my father’s wish, we’re supposed to wed?” With a frustrated shriek, the fake princess’ hands flew from their banishment under the blanket and grabbed at the china plate, hurling it from her and at the wall opposite of her, causing the food to splatter and the plate to shatter into sharp shards that Felicity immediately began to pick up, wearily, carefully, her eyes always on the heiress, as though she would be the next shattered victim of Lavender’s outbursts.
But she wouldn’t, no, Lavender wouldn’t dare. She didn’t want to.
Hours passed and Lavender’s father came and went. Her fiancée—her father dared to use that word,fiancée, as though it were a loving engagement and her chosen suitor had sat at her side during the worst of this damned illness, whispering and murmuring that he’d love her no matter what—was supposed to be a joyous surprise, she was supposed to be happy that her life was constructed of paths that her family chose for her, and he gushed on and on about him, how his name, Remo Morgan, meant ‘strong sea warrior’ and how he was the shining son of a baron who strongly endorsed their airships that Lavender never once saw and how oh, this will be SO good for business, and aren’t you happy, Lavender? When she’d reply, no, she wasn’t, her father would pout like a child and then smile, lean in to tweak her nose in a way she knew was not supposed to hurt as much as it did, and said, “But my dear! He’s a lovely chap, won’t you give him a chance? A real one.” After a moment of silence passed between them, when Lavender did not comply or sneer or even reply at all, he nodded, patted her head which caused her wig to go askew, and as he left, told the maid to clip his daughter’s nails—down to the closest nib without bleeding, if she could.
The night held nothing but milky whispers of dreams, of lapping waves at her feet, the sea mist hitting her face and the smell of salt high in the air. She sighed in the dream, wading into the water, her feet sinking into the sand in a way that welcomed her, that urged and pushed her to go forward despite the swells of the waves hitting her chest, then her neck, then her face, choking her as she swallowed down harsh gasp and gulp of salt water after another. For some reason, for whatever reason, it was the most pleasant feeling, to swell and surge with the ocean, even if it was just in a dream. When she awoke, eyes fluttering open to stare at the ornate ceiling, she felt quietly disappointed in the fact that she did not somehow make it out to sea. It felt silly to wish for such a thing—she was sure that her body would not be able to carry her there, anyway.
Tuesday carried on as most of her days did: she read, over and over again, the stories that her mind knew backwards and forwards, but she still read out of the sheer hope that maybe, just maybe, there’s something she’s missing from this equation, that maybe there’s a wish she was supposed to make or a song she’s supposed to sing out her window—not that they opened, but still—or a golden ball she was supposed to drop in a well and a frog she was supposed to throw at a wall. As usual, the stories held nothing different; just the same damsels going about their business until something changed.
Then, after she tired of reading and got her hopes entirely too high, she paced her room, as best she could, which was not very well. She went to her closet, packed full of dresses and pretty petticoats and corsets and bodices that could not accommodate the skeleton she’s become, though it was the thought that counted. She pulled out long ballgowns that have never seen one dance, and she held the dress to herself, giving it a twirl before hanging it back up, hiding it away, too shameful and too hopeful. She moved to her assortment of wigs, all lined up and of varying lengths, though always the same deep, inky black that her own hair used to be. She could touch their curls, or thread her fingers through the pouring long tendrils, but never too long, lest she’d get morose for her own locks. She burned what fell out long, long ago.
Sometimes she’d call up a maid to draw her a bath, adorned with scented salts and bubbles, and she’d lie in the tub, eyes half-lidded as she massaged her knee into a less achy state, always hoping that the soothing waters and its pleasing bubbles would prove to remedy her ruined knee. It never does.
She’d return to bed, having exhausted all other options to entertain herself, and fall asleep again, usually to a dreamless land where she stood, alone, for a few hours before awaking, to either food on her bedside table or one of the maids opening her door just to deliver the meal. Today, however, she awoke to only a cup of tea—without sugar or honey or milk, ugh—and her pills. Once upon a time, Lavender had rebelled and refused to swallow the damned things, opting, instead, to toss them out the window. She had learned her lesson since then. A few fits and a mass amount of dead birds later, doctors had taken to shoving them down her throat and drowned her with water until she promised, until she vowed to never not take them again. She dutifully sipped down her pills with Chamomile tea—ugh, who was preparing this? It was a well-known fact that her favourite was jasmine oolong—resenting each gulp.
She did not see even a hint of Felicity for the entire day, or the days to follow.
Her supposed free day of a Wednesday was a fluke. After a restless sleep, Lavender was woken by her mother shaking at her shoulder, twittering on about how she was supposed to be dressed by now, and oh, god, why haven’t you even bathed yet, you look a mess? But oh, no time for that now, up up up, we’ll just pretty you up and wash you with perfume, which do you think he’ll prefer, straight or curly? Curly makes you look healthier, but straight makes you look so regal…
Lavender pushed herself up from her bed, swinging her legs over the edge to stare at her mother, who fluttered around her room grabbing make-up from her vanity and wigs from her closet, occasionally pausing just long enough to flip through her dresses and try to fathom them all onto her daughter without doing so. “Momma,” she called to her, voice garbled to her own ears and groggy from the sleep-induced ocean visits, “Momma, stop—what are you doing?”
Mrs. Hadegonia turned sharply on her heel, dress, wig, and make-up in hand before striding to her daughter, placing the contents of her arms all in a mess on her bed before tugging at the buttons and ribbons that held Lavender’s nightgown together.
“He’s coming,” she sang to her daughter, pulling the wig cap onto Lavender’s scalp and then righting the wig, fluffing the curls about her face so she looked cutesy and lively and like a girl who, maybe, could spin out in the sun with her tightly-wound curls and skirts flying out in various halos, “Oh, sweetheart, I know you’ll like him, he’s just your type and oh, he is lovely.” Her mother stripped the remains of the nightgown off her small and pale body, only coming to pause when she saw the state of Lavender’s hollowed out stomach and the ribs looking as if, with the slightest strain, they could poke through her papery flesh. With an apologetic smile, she wrapped her daughter up in the dress, tying a large ribbon around her waist and cinching it tight. “… Men love women with tiny waists.”
After Lavender was dressed and painted and bathed in perfume, she sat in wait at the edge of her bed, her heart feeling restless in her chest—she was without her precious nails, the small weapons she could use to dissuade any man from a marriage with, and without such a power, she felt small and meek and as sick as she really was. She was helpless, any advances or crude remarks met only with her own wit which has, more often than not, fell flat in the face of a determined man looking to making this trophy his. She felt dread sit heavy beside her as she watched the door, and felt the room spin as the doorknob turned.
The man who walked in was not what she expected—he was bright-eyed and young, seeming to actually be her age and not one five years older. Felicity was right, he was indeed strawberry blonde, and when he saw Lavender, he lit up, striding over to her with his boot-heels clicking, kneeling before her to hold her small hand in his and bring her knuckles to his lips.
“Ah, quelle belle créature que vous soyez!” He churred, lips purring against her skin, “Vous avez l’air tellement, tellement bon, pour celui qui est sur son lit de mort.”
She was not quite prepared for a Frenchman, but one word stood out, “mort”, and her extensive fairytale reading lead her to the conclusion that the suitor was speaking something of Death. She pulled her hand away, and he took it as an invitation to join her up on her bed, taking her hand again and nuzzling into her thin shoulder, gleefully murmuring “je t’aime, je t’aime, je t’aime” over and over as he moved from nuzzling to pressing demure kisses into her shoulder and then into her neck. He crushed her with those kisses that landed like a heavy fist against her skin with teeth that bruised her pale skin, and he crushed her when his hand came to cupping her breast, rough and hard and without grace or tact. While she cringed and teared and gasped and made the appropriate sounds—her mother suggested to do such a thing, make him comfortable, make him feel right—that tore her throat like sandpaper, she looked over her fiancee’s shoulder to see her mother and father, the former covering her mouth with pale fingers that have seen nary a days work and the latter, smiling, as he watched Remo’s hand advance under the hem of his daughter’s dress. Her parents, seemingly gleeful at this turn of events, watched on as they muttered to each other, and Lavender could catch words of praise flowing from her father’s mouth, and as he crushed her back into her net of pillows and silk and cotton, she was sure she had never hated anyone more than the Frenchman Remo Morgan.
In her dreams, she was haunted by better things. She was haunted by oceans and forests whose grounds she could touch with bare feet. She was haunted by people she’d never met, Queens and Witches and kind Princes instead of suitors whose biggest dilemma was facing a sick girl and thinking, “how do you expect me to mount that?” while trying in vain to be suave. She wished, oh, she wished against every wish to escape from this—from the sickness and the forced marriage and the kisses that left bruises on her skin. She dreamt of faes or the dragonsons that rested apparently to the North, of fantastic beasts waiting in those oceans and forests, of beasts cursed with terrible kindness, and the ruins of castles and towns left behind by the devastating Five-Year War. Even if she died from them, even if she was eaten or stolen away beyond the Veil, she knew that they could show her things beyond the reach of Remo Morgan, beyond his dreams of corporate companionship and pretty, petty trophy wives in pretty, petty dresses with pretty, petty surnames gilded with gold.
Thursday was a nightmare, as Thursdays usually were. Her doctors came, flooding into her room, restraining her limbs so she wouldn’t lash out at the invasive hands poking and prodding at her, shoving pills down her throat and scoffing when she chokes on them, her eyes tearing as they shove needles into her skin and pump her full of things with names she can’t even wrap her tongue around. When they cooed at her, stroked her faux hair, told her it’s all for the best, she pretended not to hear them, no, she can’t she can’t she can’t, she can’t believe these lies because needles burn and the pills are bitter and rot in her belly and they’re so rough when they laugh behind masks at the bruises in the shape of fingertips at her hips and thighs and breasts, she can’t bring herself to listen. She retreated into her head, and a strange swelling began in her chest. She knows, she knows she needs to get away—no more wishing on second stars or looking for frogs or waiting for an equally lonely boy to come to her window at night. No more fairytales. She decided, midst all these needles and pills and doctors whose laughter hurt her ears, that to stay here, to be confined to her room and a marriage with a boy she has no interest in, all the while knowing it would turn her into nothing but frothing sea foam churning at the surface of the ocean, she couldn’t. She had to act, somehow, in any way that she could—and in her mind, yes, midst all those needles and pills, Lavender Hadegonia quietly (as she was only ever always quiet) sought the courage to finally leave her own room on her own accord, through the only way she knew how, since this illness set in seven years ago: through needles, pills, one gullible and well-meaning maid who she had convinced to give her three times the dosage than usual, and a lonely night where her parents were away at a ball.
Elizabeth Hadegonia, wife to the infamous Franklin Hadegonia, found her in the bed, underneath the covers. Peaceful, as though dreaming. She screamed; as though that could save her daughter, bring her back from the clutches of the Red-Haired Death. She disregarded the note on the bedside table in favour of rushing to the corpse and holding it to her, limp, as she sobbed into its small chest. It stayed unnoticed long after, until she, while laying in the bed where her daughter had died, found it, now wedged and wrinkled from being caught between drawers. She cried again, when she read it. She hated it. Every word.
“Once a ballerina, always Daddy’s little princess. Even in Death.”
