Palvine Part 18

by  Mitzi Danielson-Kaslik

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I stood up quickly, suddenly feeling the cold. I dropped the note in the snow and I ran back inside to dress which I did with speed and then, picking the crimson rose from another old jam jar beside a candle in the middle of the table, I cantered back outside into the snowy street. As I began down the alley ways, it dawned on me that I wasn’t actually sure where I was going so I simply located the cathedral on the skyline and started walking. It was a peculiar feeling to be running away from Sylvester Spence Palvine. It was a feeling I could barely recall feeling previously in my life – it was, in fact, a feeling that was the total antithesis of itself; both hollowing and filing; both tragic and thrilling. Indeed, thinking about it, this was an emotion – if one could call it that – that I had only ever felt once previously in my life: when I left The Palvine Residence in February after I'd planted the blossom tree believing it was the last time I would ever go to that place.

And I had stay true to that. Until something had called me back. Him. But this time I wasn’t sure he’d come back for me. As I continued to walk, without a clear route or path in mind, I eventually found myself walking along the paving by the river. The river was a strange place at night. Around the edge of the pavement were wrought iron gas lamps suspended in the trees that were neatly planted, showing the divide between the river and the road and as the light of the subtle shining stars caught them the lanterns seemed to cast their own light out over the water which then mingled with the fog until all the lights were misty in the river.

The light of the moon shone down upon the trees as if it was sustaining the but then, as I looked closer, it seemed almost as if the trees themselves were full of star light and all I could we was Sylvester. Just his face. As I walked, it came to me that the snow had been somewhat cleared from the pavement because it shone like silver in the subtle light – almost as if the concrete was cover in ice, though I knew it couldn’t be because I was walking over it easily. I came to the bridge and began to take my first step from the east side of Paris to the west. To Notre Dame. To Marius.