Page 24 of Madness Becomes Her

“I am sorry I lied to you.” Finlo’s voice breaks through all the warring emotions in my chest.

I sniffle. “Why did you?”

He leans against the doorframe, his green eyes raking over the room as if he hadn’t graced its fissure in a long time. “You’re different. Before, you were full of wonder and innocence. Now, you’re…”

“A woman?”

“I had trouble riddling the two Eleanors and how this new one makes me feel.”

His admission has my stomach clenching. “You were a solace in my life before, Fin.”

He chokes on his next breath, dropping his face. “No one’s called me that in so very long.”

Standing and walking closer, I tip his chin up to look at him. The emotion settled in his eyes makes him look much less mad. “You were the safe place I could hide before.”

He nods. “And you were the big-headed girl with the heart of gold that fell through a hole in my garden.”

I can’t help but smile. “That’s how I got here?”

He nods.

“Tell me what happened in the end. Tell me why I never returned.”

“I cannot. One can’t ruin the end of a story before it is time, Tiger Lily.”

I sigh. “When will it be time to know the end?”

“When you understand the beginning.”

More riddles, great.

“You kept my room the same,” I breathe. I don’t know if he truly understands what his love and devotion mean to me, even if he doesn’t know me now.

The fact that he loved methen, when no one else did, means the most.

“I did. I couldn’t come in here. My chest hurt too much, but I kept it. I couldn’t get rid of you. But you don’t belong here now.”

It’s almost like he has to reconcile the things he feels for me now with the innocent child he shielded all those years ago.

While I’m no longer a child, he knew me as one, so it makes perfect sense to me.

“No. I don’t.”

Leaning into him, I kiss his cheek. I linger in the haze of his scent, like vanilla and tobacco, even though I’ve never seen him smoke.

“You smell like smoke,” I whisper, breathing him in.

He turns his face into mine, our lips hovering dangerously close, which feels like an awful thing to do in my childhood bedroom. “I know a caterpillar who smokes.”

The sentiment makes me giggle, and it’s enough of a reprieve that I find my sanity and pull away from him, dropping off my tiptoes to the floor.

“Fin?”

“Hm?” he asks, stepping back and ushering me out of my bedroom, shutting the door behind us.

I turn toward him once in the living space, noting he’s tossed hatting materials around the room again when I just cleaned it. “Where is your sister?”

My heart pounds loudly in my ears. If he’s still hatting for the queen, it stands to reason she’s still a hostage. The thought makes me angry.