Deducing Tragedy Part Two: Speak No Lies

My life was a poem and for the first time I despised poetry. Robert Frost, a man I once adored had changed into the devil as I found myself in his yellow wood. Before me were two paths but I’d already chosen once. Three years ago when I stepped onto that plane I came to this same crossroads. I chose to shut down. I choose to, as Sherlock said, burn every bridge and reject any future form of companionship. Ben was my greatest sin, my one allowance, but I kept even him at arm’s length.

I choose my path; I walked down it with my head held high. I would regret nothing over the next three years because it was justice and who was I to question my punishment?

But now I was back at those same crossroads, back in that yellow wood. With a simple kiss my path had turned and brought me back to where I started. Maybe I was weak, maybe it I had been stronger his kiss wouldn’t have changed anything. It shouldn’t have changed anything.

“Hanna,” his voice beckoned me. It wrapped around me like silk, whispering to me. “Change your path, come with me.”

I wanted to. God knows that I wanted to. Everything we’d been through, the history we created, I wanted to make it mean something; to make it worth the pain we’d suffered. Didn’t we deserve it? After everything we’d paid, everything I lost, didn’t we deserve to be happy?

“You played the game,” another voice hissed. It ripped and tore away at the silk I’d been wrapped in, cutting away at me. “You played your part in my game,” Tomas reminded me. “You kept your mouth shut when you found out it was me. Even after you got your little protectors, even after Sherlock came back. You kept your mouth shut and let me kill four more girls. You’re as bad as me, Love, you’re a monster.”

“Hanna…”

“Monster…”

Two voices, whispering in my ears, pulled me in two different directions. What did I do? What could I do? Do I choose justice or personal happiness?

“Hanna…”

Sherlock was right there, he was still within reach after everything. He remembered even after everything, when he knew that remembering would only bring him pain, he still remembered. He tried to reach out to me, he tried to reason with me but I shut him down. How could I let him in when I had kept everyone out for so long? Did I even know how to be close to someone anymore? Was I capable?

“Monster…”

Tomas was dead, once and for all, but even from his grave that man managed to haunt me. In my ears he whispered his sweet threats, when I closed my eyes there he was. I was haunted by his memory; his touch, his voice woke me on the rare occasion I did sleep. The quiet held only him and his taunting words.

“Mummy?” A new voice entered my yellow wood. The voice I didn’t recognize but knew instantly, Molly, my stillborn.

She was there, standing at the crossroad with me and she was beautiful. She looked to be about eight, her hair was an unruly mess of curls white as fresh snow. Her eyes were wide and beautiful, there beheld only wonder in those little sea foam orbs. She looked like me, with her tiny heart shaped face, but her father was there in those cheekbones. If my daughter had lived… Molly Holmes would have been amazing.

“What are you?” I asked as I collapsed into the gravel. “I already have my devil and my angel, they whisper in my ears, they rip me apart from the inside out.” She said nothing, only stared at me with those impossibly beautiful eyes. “If not one of them, then what?”

She smiled a perfect set of pearl white teeth, “I am you.”

I laughed but there was no joy in the sound, “Me?”

“Your mind has gone into shock,” she said. “You’ve shut down, Mummy. What you are seeing is what you have chosen to see.”

“Shock?” I asked raising an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve been in a coma for the past week,” she said simply. “You can’t say you’re surprised, this has been a long time coming.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You cannot lie to yourself,” she frowned, cocking her head to the side. “I'm surprised you would try.”

“I’ll try just about anything right now.” I whispered looking down at my hands.

“You’ve been slowly loosing yourself for some time now,” she said wondering to the edge of the path and running her small hand over the yellow leaves. “Since you tried so foolishly to shut down your emotions on that plane.”

“Foolish?” I asked, “That was justice-“

“You cannot shut down who you are,” she said sternly. “You are emotion, you feel everything Mummy. That is why you and Father are so compatible. He is thought, and you are emotion. You challenge each other. he provokes thoughts from you that challenge your very basic understanding of things. You draw emotions from him and show him that there is room for logic and heart. Without you he is a robot, and without him you are a scared little girl.”

“It is what I deserve,” I whispered. “After everything-“

“There is a cost to feeling that much emotion,” She said turning back towards me, “sometimes you feel more than you should.”

“Are you saying I’m a victim?” I challenged her, “Because if you are me then you know how I feel about that.”

“You hate it,” she smiled softly, “but you have me wrong, I do not think you are a victim but I also do not think you are the monster in this tale.”

“I'm part of it-”

“And you have paid your price don’t you think?” she asked looking down at her hands. “You lost your daughter, your precious daughter. A wound like that never heals. You will carry that whole with you for the rest of your life.”

“But is that enough?” I asked. “My one child for four lives?”

“You never talked to their families,” she said. “When you wake up I suggest you do that. Talk to them and all the survivors of the fire”

“Why?” I demanded, “So they can apologize, and tell me how much they pity or sympathize with me?”

She rolled her eyes, “Because you know it will give you the closure you desire.”

I let out another laugh, “for a kid you sure are smart.”

She smirked, “Just like Mummy and Father.”

“So then how do I wake up?” I asked gesturing around me. “There are no doors here, no exits.”

She gave me a look, which was a perfect reflection of Sherlock’s you-can’t-be-that-stupid face, before she vanished and I was left alone at my crossroads. I nodded slowly, as I stood up.

Before me, two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and be one traveler, long I stood. I had looked down one as far as I could to where it bent in the undergrowth. Then I took the other, as just as fair, and having perhaps the better claim, because it was grassy and wanted wear. Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I- I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.