The Dusk of Marion Miramond

The Dusk of Marion Miramond

By Timber Darling

          Marion awoke with a gasp, tangled in branches and brambles, her body aching as if she’d broken every bone, and cold. But the crackling of the fireplace, the otherwise silence around her—she wasn’t in nature. She hadn’t been for a long time. She was in her city manor, tangled in her silk sheets, one of her nighttime braids draped over her neck. She dashed it aside and managed to extricate herself, one limb at a time, and sat up. 

          The grandfather clock struck six, a melodious chiming of old brass bells within the woodwork as intended. And, with a flip of a switch, Marion turned on her electric lamp, illuminating her favorite bedroom. The warm air blanketed everything, even her shivering self, in the pre-dawn hour, as she stood and made her way to her bathroom. The cold marble of the sink against her hands, the mosaic tiles underneath her feet warmed through a heating system she’d had installed for the chilly winter. Just this past month, actually, and it worked marvelously. No more concerns or thoughts given to the brilliant Roman mosaic she’d had designed for the turn-of-the-century renovations. Her second turn-of-a-century, and it wouldn’t be her last, as she went through her morning gowns in her wardrobe. A brocade, a muslin, a chiffon… no, no, no. Too light or too decorative this morning. Her body was freezing, despite the fire still gently crackling behind the grate and the warmth under her feet. 

          As a child, the floors had always been cold, but they were covered by rugs imported from India. The walls were lined with tapestries for insulation, and sometimes, she’d heat rocks over the kitchen fires and slip them under her mattress. She and Guinevere would go and play in the snow, then return to the warm manor, but the chill didn’t quite leave until she fell asleep, her belly full of hot soup and bread. 

          Hot bread. When was the last time she’d eaten any? Decades ago, if she remembered correctly, when the war raged on and her empire wasn’t yet of enough might to maintain her favorite decadent meals. Before the dispute between her and Guinevere. What was it over, again? It must’ve been the dregs of slumber clouding her memory as she went back and forth over all her morning gowns, unable to remember. Finally, though, she took one out—wool with silk lining, tag still attached. 

          Marion ripped it off and let it flutter to the ground, pulling off with some difficulty her nightgown and pausing. Her old bruises, covering her entire torso in hues of blue, black, and red, and vibrant hues at that. What day was it, again? Almost the new century, yes, which meant it must be December… December thirty-first? Yes! Confirmed by her calendar, hanging on the inside of her wardrobe door, and the sickly patterns across her torso. If one had a more artistic eye, they might interpret the patterns as hand-like. 

          At this point, she’d accepted the inevitability. She’d never return to death’s embrace. So, she’d stopped counting the years, but Marion always remembered the day. December thirty-first, chopping down lumber deep in the winter forest, and the gargantuan tree happened to fall the wrong way. Fate or chance, she still hadn’t decided, but she’d been a lucky one. She’d struck a deal and Guinevere had brought her back, but death couldn’t let her forget. Guinevere despised it, once Marion had mentioned it, New Years’ Eve, a Rococo painting just shipped to her manor. A foreground landscape of hooped dresses and powdered wigs almost drowning out the background flowers in their vibrancy, reminiscent of the long-dead queen. For some reason, Guinivere couldn’t stand to look at it, slandering Marion with all sorts of nonsense. She was too attached, blind to reality, stuck in the past. And when the celebrations began, when the clock chimed midnight, Guinivere was on a train to somewhere, leaving Marion alone. Alone, like a ship on the sea. Alone, like a chirping bird. Alone, like a titan of business ought to be, despite all the collusions she made day in, day out, amassing her wealth. There was nobody to attend parties or dinners with that she really enjoyed, for who else could even comprehend her? She was a new, exclusive type of human, one who’d been chosen like all these industry barons, but exalted by chance beyond them. As they aged and she remained ageless, they fretted over the futures of their empires and the capabilities of their heirs, asking her how she remains so young and hale. 

          I am frozen in time, she’d thought to answer. Minted into the world and irremovable. The very system of things. Solitary and permanent. Alone and up high, like the bronze statue just on the horizon. A gift and mark of approval. 

          The clock struck six-fifteen, as she’d had it altered to do, the brass bells chiming again. She buttoned the dress over her body, sealing away those devilish bruises. They’d be better tomorrow, but she’d better take it easy today. Her legs were shaking, and so were her hands. Had something upset her? Guinevere had been gone for a long while, and she had removed her cousin’s bed from their shared room ages ago. For the turn-of-the-decade renovations. A new decade, an age-old habit dying with the cheers of midnight in the streets. 

          It had started when they’d both come into Mother’s manor. Guinevere, from the loss of her mother—her father being unknown—and Marion, from the old house miles and miles away, in a small village where Mother had her grow up away from the court she painted for. The first night, they’d slept in the same bed, hands held, and after that, it was separate beds in the same room. Guinevere’s snores reaching her ears as she laid awake, staring at the ceiling somewhere up above in the dark. Somewhere, out there, in the dark of the morn, Guinevere was out there. She sent letters from false addresses, bills with her name arrived at Marion’s doorstep, and a few photographs would make their way to her waiting hands. 

          These hands… once, they’d chopped and carved wood, turning old furniture into something new and beautiful, and now, they turned a penny into two, a nickel into a dime, a quarter into a dollar. She had a mind for money, defter than even death at taking. It even started before her death, when the revolutionaries were sending the rich and mighty to the guillotine and Mother, as the queen’s artist, was on the list for the chopping block. Marion gave their location away, and Mother pushed her and Guinevere onto the gangplank, succumbing to the cries of the mobs… Their ruddy, grubby hands on Mother’s wrists, dragging her away like she was nothing, hadn’t built herself from nothing, doled out charity to let these paupers be something as the ship sailed away— 

          Aha! That’s why her hands were shaking. There was a New Years party she was invited to, and it was on a ship. The movement of the waves, the rocking of the boat, the constant tilting from one side to another while your brain tries to keep it straight… it made her sick! Last time, she’d stumbled off deck and Guinevere had been at the docks, waiting, quickly helping her back to the carriage. But Guinevere wouldn’t be there. It would just be Marion, adrift, wondering where she was. 

          And really, where was she today? So reflective. Maybe even she, like everyone else on the streets below her, was pondering where they were, where they’d come from, and where they were going. A new century, promising technological marvels—such as a manned flying machine—and shining roads and opportunity. No more smog and squalor and pain… Really, it was just a matter of time when this system would be challenged and overturned, and Marion would find herself somewhere, at the bottom, only to build herself up again. She’d rebuild her towers and her manors, everything down to the brocade curtains she was gripping and finally decided to open as the clock chimed six-thirty. 

          A faint winter light streamed in, but could it really be called light? It was more akin to slightly diffused darkness this early. Diffusing every few minutes, slowly finding its way into light and crossing that invisible, intangible boundary between the two. Swimming through the shadows, strokes rippling out and clarifying the world. Like Marion would today, like she would every day, donning her finely tailored suits and discussing deals over the pork course promised for tonight. It made no difference what she wore nowadays, but she still preferred the suits for business, reminding the rich and powerful she was one of them, had been one of them from the start and even before then. She might be the only woman in the world able to do so, and it finally gave her mind clarity. 

          She was the only one in the world able to do so, to bring the dead back to life, once the veil between weakened enough in this new century. Once the misery of the living was akin enough to the misery of the dead, able to push and pull souls as she pleased, like dust coming to settle on an old painting, in the back of some French villager’s home put up for auction. A Rococo garden party painting an associate told her of and she’d purchased off him, putting her hand to the frame and feeling a pulse. A thready pulse, so akin to her own she automatically knew who it was. The historian had agreed with her—this was done by the old queen’s artist. Marion’s mother. That particular painting hung above the mantle, aside the grandfather clock to its right, now chiming six forty-five. But others lined the halls of her home, a reminder of what—who—she would retrieve from death. 

          And once that retrieval happened, after the news spun it into a spectacle only capable of being a hoax, she’d sell her skills to the rich. Only a touch—even she struggled to make anything out of chaos—but enough to cement herself into a new category of powerful, untouchable, elite. Even when this system collapsed, she’d walk the earth, revered, secure, able to ask for anything and receive it. A god, perhaps, would be the right word, but she wasn’t divine. Just lucky. 

          Outside, below, people milled in the streets—on their way to work, shopping, sweeping the icy bricks—nearly invisible to Marion’s eye. Across the morning snow and ice of the city, a red-gold hue reflected off of all, shimmering and lively and combative with the cold. A color that made anyone want to stand up and dance, whatever that looked like, old and young, rich and poor, unlucky and lucky, the not-Marion and Marion alike. Her skirts twirling round her feet, her black curls bouncing, her heart joyous for once. She’d never and always get her fill of that color, that radiance, that life, the color of Guinevere’s own hair. 

          Eventually, her chest heaving, she sat against her window, tears in her eyes. The clock chimed seven, and as expected, a knock on the door came with breakfast. 

          “Come in.” 

          She registered the red hair first. The color of dawn. Guinevere’s icy eyes, just as she remembered when her cousin stormed out and into the New Years’ cold. She tossed down a sealed letter from somewhere inside her pockets, a badge pinned to her lapel. 

          “Marion Miramond, you are accused of monopolizing the grain, beef, and lumber markets. Court will be held in three days’ time.”