Githa Comes Home

When Githa Selle returned home from the castle with little Athelis, she found the fire in the hearth nearly burned out. She thought briefly that one of the animals must have been sick for Theobald to still be out at the barn so late, and began undressing the drowsy baby for bed. After she had Athelis tucked in, she moved towards the hearth to stir up the fire, but let out a sharp cry when she saw her husband slumped over in the dim kitchen.

“Theobald! Are you sick? What is it?”

Theobald, so little accustomed to using his imagination that he had never learned how to control it, had spent the long minutes waiting for his wife’s return in an anguish of unbearable visions. He had slipped so deep into the contemplation of the unreal that the simple bodily presence of his wife provided some reassurance that nothing had happened, or could ever happen.

He rose slowly, his eyes avoiding his wife’s out of fear of seeing in them something for which he had never thought to look. He had, perhaps, only a few more moments in which to indulge in the luxury of uncertainty.

“How could you do this to me, Githa?” he asked, his voice trembling, hoping to see in her confusion that she had no idea what he could be talking about, that it was all a fantasy of Matilda’s.

He waited a long while for her to ask him what he meant. Finally he dared to look at her. She was deathly white, her little mouth open and her eyes wide with guilt and terror. She knew what he meant. 

It was true.

Githa turned with a sob and fled into the other room.

Theobald stood a while, swaying under the weight of this knowledge. He wondered what he felt, what he was supposed to be feeling – what he was supposed to do. Could he hurt his wife? He didn’t want to find out. 

He stalked out past Athelis’s cradle without speaking to Githa, without even looking at her. After snatching his coat from the hook and slamming the door behind him, he walked back through the pines to the hay-​​scented animal warmth of the barn.