“Ring a-round the Roses.” The tune Raphael hummed was “Ring a-round the Roses.” The childhood song simultaneously filled her with both sympathy and dread. Sympathy for the man who hummed a nursery rhyme so sadly it made tears prick in her eyes. And dread for what the nursery rhyme was about.
Death.
He was humming a child’s song about death.
Clearly not seeing her distress, Raphael lowered the brush then he came before her and guided her to stand. “But it’s late tonight and you’ve had a long day.” Relief flooded through Maria, yet an odd niggling at the back of her brain made her frown. She was relieved. She was exhausted. And she was overwhelmed with the thought of what lay before her. But, despite all of that, there was a part of her that seemed to be disappointed.
Maria put that down to her need to help this man. Help him fight the darkness inside.
Raphael led her to her room. He stopped at the door and brought her hand to his mouth. Never taking his eyes from her, Raphael brushed a kiss on the back of her hand. “Sleep, little rose.” Raphael turned away. But he then placed his hand on the door. “These stay open. Don’t you dare close them. I want to be able to see you at all times.”
He looked at her expectantly.
“Yes, my lord.”
Raphael closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Sleep well, little rose.”
Maria moved to the bed and pulled back the comforter. She turned the lamp off. But from her bed, she could see Raphael in the main room walking around, heard him locking the main door so she couldn’t escape again. She watched him move to his bed, remove his pants, and climb into bed. The almost-darkness prevented her from seeing his most intimate parts, but she was breathless knowing he lay bare just across the room.
Sleep didn’t find Maria easily. She felt as though she had just closed her eyes when she was awoken by a pained roar. Maria froze, immediate fear keeping her paralyzed. But moans and shouts of “No” drifted in from the main room.
Raphael.
Forcing herself to move, Maria sat up and peered into the main room. Raphael was clutching at the black sheets of his bed with tight fists, thrashing from side to side as though something were pinning him down, hurting him. Maria threw back her comforter and tiptoed to the edge of her room. Her hands braced on the doorframe, and she ignored the trembling that was threatening to take control of her body.
Maria’s eyes strained in the almost-darkness. She caught Raphael’s shadow thrashing and calling out muffled, untellable cries of pain. The scared edges to his voice struck her heart like an arrow, shredding it apart. Raphael’s pain was evident in his voice. His hoarse cries were a physical representation of what pain pulsed and tortured him inside. Maria silently crossed the room and peered over to where he slept. Her heart was a thunderstorm in her chest as she looked at his face. Tears. Tears were tumbling down his cheeks. His beautiful face wore a grimace, teeth clenched and neck corded with tension.
Maria found it difficult to breathe. Mother Superior had always told her she would make a good nun because of her empathy toward others. Right now, as she looked at the man on the bed who was being torn apart by his dark dreams, she knew her Mother Superior was correct.
As Raphael let out another horrific cry, Maria made herself return to the closet, heart in her throat. He wasn’t ready for her touch, for her comfort. She had to let him lead. He had to come to her when he was ready. And she would be waiting.
Everyone, even the most sinful of men, deserved to be cared for. That was exactly what she would do.
So instead of offering Raphael the comfort he so desperately needed, she squeezed her eyes shut. Her legs gave way and she sank to the floor. Maria curled her arms around her bent knees and let the tears fall. Because she knew that kind of pain. She knew the demons that came crawling into one’s consciousness in sleep. The nightmares that felt so real one relived the horror and agonies of dark moments over and over again.
As Raphael let out another tormented groan, Maria laid her head back against the doorframe and cried. She had lived with the pain of her past for years, no one to understand how it consumed her, threatened to destroy all the progress she had ever made. If she was an empath, it was born from experience and personal trauma.
As Raphael’s screams and wails carried on long through the night, Maria wondered if maybe he would understand. Wondered if he could feel sympathy for others or whether that was a part of his soul that was lost. Could he love? Was he capable of that emotion?