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Rebecca craved the wild and untamed. Her craving drove her to the sea, and the sea drove her to the ground. Horrible as it may sound, the way that Rebecca died suited her. Rebecca would never fall to man, but man always fell to the sea.
The east wing always called to Danny, even on days like this. On days like this, Danny could feel herself slipping into madness. If she thought extensively about Rebecca—nearly impossible to avoid doing—she could feel her sanity crumbling underneath her. She continually reaches her hands towards the Rebecca that lives in her subconscious and feels a much darker abyss pulling her, rather than the gentle tug of Rebecca’s warm hands.
Danny’s fingertips brush the cold wood of Rebecca’s bedroom door. Rebecca wouldn't be waiting for her at her dressing table, hairbrush in hand. Danny pushes the door open, silently pleading that her ever-shrinking rational side is wrong.
The room is empty, as it always is. Rebecca’s things are exactly where she left them. The dressing table’s mirror loathes Danny’s reflection. Even the mirror misses its lady. When Danny stands behind Rebecca’s chair, she is overwhelmed with cold. Rebecca is here. She reaches, hoping to catch Rebecca’s thick, dark hair. Her hand is cold. Her other hand has found Rebecca’s hairbrush.
Perhaps she might be better suited to follow Rebecca. The sea crashes, loud, wild, and untamed as ever. Why on Earth should she stay here and watch Maxim and Beatrice and Giles and Frith and Favell act as if the world continues to spin? No, it stopped cold on the day Rebecca’s heart did.
Maxim stubbornly believed the world kept spinning. He demanded that it spin faster, pacing the length of his bedroom that he never shared with Rebecca. Danny expected him to grieve much more quickly than she was able; he couldn’t conjure the taste of Rebecca’s skin, the weight of her hair, or the bitter insistence of her tongue. He never stared at the marks she left of him, never ran his fingers over a bruise or bite mark. He wanted what he could take from her, nothing more. He couldn’t handle all of her. Not one of them could. Not Maxim, not Favell, not a single man that graced the threshold of her cottage.
Rebecca had told her one night, the phrase falling from her lips along with a string of profanities and incomprehensible nonsense. She had her hands threaded through Danny’s loosened hair, tangled like their legs. The windows were open; the cool air slipped into the room and settled over Danny and Rebecca. Danny’s tongue traveled the expanse of her throat and collar bone, leaving kisses, saliva, marks, whatever Rebecca wanted. It wasn’t necessary for Rebecca to say it. She didn’t have to, not while they were connected at every physical point possible.
In her daily descents into madness—she felt much like Icarus melting against the sun—she recalled nearly every conversation she and Rebecca had, scouring for breadcrumbs. All she wanted was the faintest notion that Rebecca would be waiting for her.