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lusterlilit · 2 months

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Omnia Redit Ad Pulverem

Omnia Redit Ad Pulverem ~ Everything Returns To Dust

Henry Winter (The Secret History) Story

Warnings: Minor TSH plot spoilers, murder (ofc)

Synopsis: The murder of Bunny, from the eyes of Henry Winter's partner

It was quiet. Too quiet. We'd all heard the fateful thump around 30 seconds before, but still, we stood there staring at the edge of the ravine like rabbits poking their noses out of their warrens. Twitching in the silence, waiting on tenterhooks for the oncoming predator. Charles risked a look at Camilla, but her thoughtless eyes remained on the slippery tracks that led over the drop. Besides that, we were as still as a photograph.

Of course, it was Henry who moved first. It was always Henry who moved first. He broke the heavy quiet with the snap of a twig beneath his polished shoe, sweeping the tumbling locks of hair that hung over his forehead back into place as he tentatively approached the edge. "Careful," Camilla called, reaching out a hand as though to stop him. He waved her back without a glance and poked his head over the ravine.

For an infinite moment, Henry stood there looking over the edge, his body a mass of black, a tumultuous thundercloud in the otherwise clear countryside sky. With a heavy exhalation, he stepped back again and turned to face us all. He confirmed our worst wish with a curt nod.

It was like a green light for us. Everyone moved at once, I to place a hand on Henry's arm, Camilla to grasp Charles' sleeve, him to lean close and whisper to her in response, Francis to press his knuckles into his forehead with a loud groan, Richard to blink stupidly as though someone had turned on the overhead light in a dark room and turn to look at us all in bewilderment.

Only Henry remained still. He was staring ahead, seemingly at nothing, the swaying silent trees of the ravine's forest reflecting in the circles of his glasses, menacingly disguising the icy blue of his eyes.

The clearing was full of murmurs from the others, who were shuffling on their feet, tentatively making their way to the edge. I stayed by Henry's side, watching him curiously as he stared off into nothingness for a moment. His guarded face gave nothing away, and his shielded eyes made my guts feel like ice.

I wanted to do something - say his name, shake him, turn back time. But, I could do none of these things, and so I stayed staring at him with a heavy weight in my stomach as the others edged their way closer to peep down into the Hell that waited below.

When Henry did move, mere seconds later, it was as though someone was pressing play on a VHS. He sprung to life, immediately turning to look over the edge, his chin deliberately pointed, eyes glittering. Gently but with intent, he tugged me back with a hand on my sleeve, away from the edge, away from the grooves in the dirt where Bunny's desperate hands had tried to take hold. Staying where I was put, I lightly wrapped my fingers around his wrist, a little support, and glanced at the others.

Francis had gone pale and refused to get too close to the edge of the ravine. He made a show of poking his head over, but he couldn't have seen much and did not leave it over there long enough to see more. The others looked on with the same morbid curiosity that I'm sure was glistening in my eyes, but their high inquisitiveness pushed them towards the edge while the protective nature of Henry kept me back from it.

And, yet, he wanted me to go with him to make sure the deed was done. I knew. He'd turned to give me a pointed look as he'd mumbled the necessity for someone to go down for a closer look. But I was glad that Camilla was so ready to volunteer. She had a stronger stomach and a steelier heart than me. She gave me a fleeting smile as she walked deliberately past me, leaving a little pat on my hand as she went.

Instead, I sat on the dew-damp trunk of a fallen tree by the ravine's edge with Francis, who was cradling his head in his hands, glazed eyes staring over the infinite edge and alternately busying his mouth with a flaming cigarette and mumblings of woe. Being closer to the edge, I could see, with a sickening twinge to my stomach, Henry approaching Bunny, searching for a pulse, luridly rolling his head about, bringing to ghastly light the one trickle of blood on the otherwise unblemished face. Those same fingers that explored the spaces between my own so gently now prodding harshly at cooling flesh, the hands which guided me through crowded places and up steep stairs tightly gripping a fistful of sandy hair to move the head. Camilla stood several feet behind him, watching warily but maintaining a full view of Bunny over Henry's shoulder.

Bun's eyes were open, a glacial lake reflection beneath his broken glasses of the ravine, the sky, our cloud-like faces floating above. It was a miracle Francis didn't lean far enough over to see. Not that miracles had helped any of the rest of us.

With an unsteady hand and even less steady words, I tried to comfort Francis, but I didn't think he could even hear me. He did, however, hear the approaching footsteps as Henry and Camilla returned.

They didn't say anything in response to our flood of questions. They didn't have to. "Has everyone got everything?" Henry asked briskly after moments of pregnant silence, sweeping the clearing with his falcon-like eyes.

We all bumbled around the clearing for a few seconds, checking for any dropped belongings before moving back as one into the safe dankness of the wind-swept forest and heading back to Henry's car.

Although I had been privy to the rituals my classmates had been trying to achieve, I was wary of them. Not only were they dangerous, even in print, but they were also incredibly complex, with historical recounts that were sketchy at best. But, more than that, was Bunny's surprising eagerness to be involved.

I had known Henry and Bunny the longest of anyone from the Greek class, having met them both on our collective first day at Hampden, when they were introduced to one another as roommates in freshman year. I'd also had the incredible misfortune of being pulled into the Corcoran clan that same day, who had come to help their boy move in but were seemingly ready to do so themselves.

Now, I may not have understood much in the world too implicitly besides Greek and Henry's secret smile, but I could say for sure that I knew Bunny. I knew what he was capable of. And, more to the point, what he was not. As such, I had chosen not to take part.

Yet, when things had gone pear-shaped, as I inevitably knew they would, it seemed that I was the only person Henry wanted to see. The night after the murder of the poor farmer, after Henry had slept for long-lost hours, he came to me with thunder clouds in his eyes and trembling lips.

I'd sat him down with whiskey-laced tea and listened in fearful incredulity as he'd recounted, with alarming clarity, the events of the previous night. From the drive up to the country house to the gathering of the four on the moonlight-drenched grounds, the roaming through the woods like vengeful sprites to the eyebrow-raising carnality of events, the final, damning image of an innocent man lying at Henry's feet with his life ripped from his limp body to the unfortunate discovery of Bunny on Henry's sofa.

I was speechless. My teacup was twitching between my quivering fingers, untouched by my parted lips. As he drew to the end of his story, Henry sighed heavily and collapsed back into his chair, his elbows resting on the armrests but hands lost beneath my small dining table. His eyes were closed, nostrils flaring, but there was an uncharacteristic smile on his lips.

I had no comfort to give and, quite frankly, did not want to provide any. Not that Henry wanted it either, I don't think. He simply wanted someone who would listen and, in time, understand. That was how it always was between us. Henry may have been only a few leagues behind Einstein in brains, but I was capable of giving him a run for his money when the situation arose. So, we listened to one another, and we understood that, no matter the act, we had done it for the right reasons.

And yet there was no reason for what had happened. Not even any fault. It was simply an accident, albeit an unfortunate one. I asked him some questions, about the ritual, about the state of the others, about the possibility of a next time. We discussed the matter as though we were discussing classes the next morning or going over homework we had yet to do. With the calmness of an ocean, the conversation drew naturally to a close, and we then began to decide whether we should eat out that evening or order something.

I was worried that a headache may come upon Henry in the days after, potentially the worst he'd ever had. But, on the contrary, he seemed content with what had happened. Almost thrilled by it. As though it were some predetermined fate finally coming true. But, that was not the case with what happened next.

I feared from the first that Bunny would present the biggest problem in the situation. The police of Hampden town were bumbling cartoons, the teachers of the college slow and old, the townspeople confined and unaware of others. But Bunny was not. For all of his idiocy, he had a social smartness, a warped understanding of people that simultaneously awed and frightened me, but never more so than during those arduous few weeks. If anybody would sniff this out, it would be him.

And, of course, I was right. What I came to understand rather quickly, though, was that I didn't in fact know Bunny at all. Some of his reactions I had predicted - the anger, the hurt, the pettiness - but his persistence, his narrow-mindedness, the aim of his trajectory and the fragility of his mind I did not. I came to fear him, more on Henry's behalf than my own, and could barely stand to be in the same room as him, let alone remain chummy and nonchalant with him.

I knew Henry had a plan. But he didn't reveal it to me all at once. Only hinted at it, reminding me of the terrible things Bunny had done and dropping little lines such as, 'Don't you want it to all go away?'.

Eventually, though, it came out. Although I insistently disagreed with Henry's diabolical solution from the first moment he hinted towards it in my presence, he pulled his scrupulous trick of drawing me around to his side. Convinced me there was no other solution. It was easy for me, he said. I was not involved in the triggering murder, and I had an alibi to prove it - I was possibly the only one of us in the Greek class to have friends outside of the Lyceum, whom I had met in high school and moved to Hampden with.

And, as time wore on, I was able to reason, with terrifying clarity, with Henry's point of view. Bunny was becoming unbearable. Initially, the jokes were easy to brush off, but when he knew what had truly happened, he was like a bloodhound free of its leash.

Henry, whom Bunny blamed primarily for the mess, managed, in some strange twist, to avoid the heat of his petty wrath. Although it was Henry he was most angry at, it was everyone else who took the brunt of his emotions. It was only because of my closeness to Henry, I believe, that he spared me the misogyny he so delightedly dished out to Camilla. And yet, despite him not knowing I knew, it didn't mean that I was completely out of the firing line.

I found him popping up miraculously wherever I happened to be, trying, as I discovered later via Richard following one of Bunny's drunken rants, to catch me messing around behind Henry's back with an old friend who just so happened to be, in fact, meeting with Francis regularly.

Although he could find no proof, Bunny poked this sore spot like a red button, enjoying my furious rebuttals of his accusations. Not even Henry's warning voice or waning bank account could cease Bun's glorified barking.

At first, Henry had insisted I stay away from the ravine. A white knight gesture. I hadn't been involved thus far, and Henry stressed to me after another debate on the topic that he didn't want me getting involved in this either. I was adamant, however, that I be there by his side. I understood the gravity of the act far more than I believed he did. For days he argued and beat back my insistence that I be involved, until one evening after yet another of Bun's onslaughts, when I'd collapsed in near-tears onto Henry's sofa. Then, finally, did he relent.

And that was how I found myself walking with my head down and fingers tingling, away from the ravine on a late Sunday afternoon, feeling the unseasonal biting chill in the air and thinking, surprisingly, of nothing in particular.

My friends seemed to be having the same experience, walking silently beside me. Out of habit, more than anything, I slid my hand into the crook of Henry's elbow, a comfort in all hard times.

He barely acknowledged the touch besides a squeeze of his inner elbow, a Henry-esque reassurance. I clutched on tighter as the clearing in which we had left the car came into view, no longer illuminated in a weak spring sun but covered in cloudy shadow.

With Richard now in tow, I elected to perch myself on Francis' knee in the front seat. Despite a rocky start, we eventually got on the road, pulling mercifully further and further away from the ravine.

We drove back in silence, a painful comparison to the noisy car rides we normally embarked on, talking and tittering like children. In a way, it was a blessing. My mind was pulsing, and idle chatter might have made it snap.

I occupied myself with the window, careful not to block Francis' view even though he was distracted mercilessly chewing his thumb and unconsciously drumming the fingers of his other hand on my hip with his eyes closed and head leant back against the seat rest. There were warm lights in unfamiliar, welcoming homes as we drove past, twinkling scenes of families eating, playing, and watching television together, all flying past the car window in dream-like snapshots. I was starting to feel a little sick, but fortunately, we made it into town sooner than I realised.

Somewhere along the way, much to everyone's utter surprise, it started snowing, as though, in another torture from the universe, we were thrust back to better times - watching the first snowfall of the previous winter through the windows of the Lyceum, Henry and I choosing to walk, arm-in-arm, to school during the petering end of a snow storm, a snowball fight with myself, Bunny and some of my old friends, watched over by a disgruntled Marion, saying goodbye to one another before we all departed for our separate Christmases. By the time we got back into town, it may as well have been December. This did nothing for my glacial mood.

We all left the car at Francis', where Richard and the twins would make their way home. Camilla, Charles and Richard all left Henry's car with awkward attempts at goodbyes and shocked shivers and groans at the sudden fall of snow. When, finally, Francis had made his sullen way out of the car to reluctantly grab a bucket of soapy water and cloths with which to clean the car, brushing wrinkles from the arms of his suit as he went, I sat back in the front seat and let out a loud sigh.

It seemed a silly question, but I had to ask it anyway. "What are we going to do?" I turned to Henry with eyes that I didn't realise had widened, and he looked back at me momentarily with a vulnerable look that didn't sit right on his set features.

Quickly, he diverted his gaze, looking instead out of the windshield upon the flakes of snow that were beginning to fall at an alarming rate. I knew, somehow, that he was thinking of how this would affect his prized rose bushes.

Pragmatically, he said, "We'll clean the car, and then we'll go home." By home, of course, he meant that I would spend the night at his place. Home was no longer my pokey apartment in an off-campus Hampden building, not far from Charles and Camilla's place.

"But, Henry," I was staring now out of the window too, "look at this snow."

"I know." He was quick to respond, and for the first time, I thought I saw a glimmer of fear fleet across his face out of the corner of my eye. After a moment, he glanced back at me, and I must have looked some kind of state, because he reached over and clasped the back of my hand in his, closing his fingers over to stroke at my palm.

"It'll pass. We'll go to the nice café tomorrow, the one you like, yes?" I managed a smile, one that just managed to satisfy his piercing gaze, and he nodded. "Good. Look, here's Francis. Let's get this done."

Henry and Francis sorted the car with little help from me - I sat inside it watching with awe as the snow fell like a cinematic Christmas morning. Snow, of course, wasn't uncommon in Hampden, but in April? There may as well have been a hurricane blowing through the sleepy mountain town.

It was late when we eventually left Francis' apartment, after a long, anxious discussion on Francis' part and a troubled phone conversation with Richard. I felt terrible leaving poor Francis alone, but I was crazed with fatigue and his fearful ramblings and defensive arguments were elevating my fragile psyche into a paranoiac state.

In the car, Henry held my hand tightly the whole way home, an unusual (but not unwelcome) gesture. I stayed with my forehead against the chilling glass of the window, watching the condensation form from my breath and the snow, still falling steadily, with a numb feeling.

Henry bundled me inside quickly despite the thick darkness, and we pulled off our coats and shoes in silence. Neither of us mentioned the snow, the unsettled faces of the others disappearing into the night, Francis' trembling hands as we left him in his armchair, Bunny at the bottom of the ravine. Truth be told, I barely thought of these things. I barely thought of anything.

We moved through the dimly lit hall, Henry holding a lit oil lamp aloft to illuminate the familiar way. It threw strange shadows onto the walls around us, morphed shapes that danced and twirled as though they were teasing us, moving in closely and then dashing away as we came towards them. God, I was tired.

Henry left me in an armchair in his front room, momentarily in the peace of darkness as he moved to the hallway to collect another lamp. My forehead fell to my hand, cradled between my thumb and middle fingers which massaged the tight skin. I stayed there, massaging my head, when Henry came back into the room, placing one lamp down and lighting two others to illuminate the room. The candles were almost burnt down, I knew, but Henry didn't take the time to replace them yet. Instead, he came instantly back over to stand over me, smelling now of fire and oil.

With a gentle, firm hand, he gripped my wrist and pulled my hand from my face. Now lit by the ominous lamps, I could only see part of his face but, standing out like a thorn among roses, was the scar above his right eye.

I thought he was going to speak, and I watched him thoughtfully waiting for his words. But, instead, he kissed me fiercely, honey on his lips and fire on his tongue, hands anchored on my shoulders and forcing me into the chair, demanding me to stay. I took his aggressive affection and matched it, gripping on to his shirt with vice-like fingers and yanking him closer. He almost fell on top of me with his ferocity, only managing to balance his weight with the grip of his fingers on my shoulders.

Then, like water to fire, Henry released me as gently as he did not kiss me. "Are you okay?" I asked immediately. He took a moment, scanning my face with his shielded eyes, running the thumb of the hand he'd moved to my face along the bone of my cheek.

Bending his knees, he kissed my eyelids, then nodded curtly. Outside, a sudden wind was gaining momentum, blowing someone's hanging shutter back and forth against the wall, and I jumped at the sudden noise.

Unstartled, Henry moved his hand back down to my shoulder and said, "It's only a shutter. I'm going to get a drink. Would you like one?"

Despite my lethargy and the lateness of the hour, I stayed up with him, a glass of whiskey in both of our hands and the noise of the silence putting things into place.

We were quiet so long I thought Henry had slipped off to sleep. Or that I had, and lingered in some terrible dreamscape. My head lay almost flush against my shoulder, eyes fluttering shut, body heavy against the thick, worn cushions. The glass of whiskey was almost out of my hand, my grasp was slackening so.

Then, another gust of wind attacked, and the shocking 'thwack' of the shutter forced a breath of consciousness into my body. I was drowsy and half mad with tiredness, and in my state, momentarily thrashing against the sofa cushions, I mumbled Henry's name.

I felt him next to me, his leg mere centimetres from my own, the warmth and familiar smell of him, and quickly I came to my senses. Batting my eyes open properly, I looked up to Henry.

He was staring thoughtfully at his glass of whiskey, holding it up to the flickering light and watching the amber liquid turn into spun gold. "Omnia redit ad pulverem."

I stared at the side of his face, sharp and buttery gold in the soft light. For a moment, I didn't even recognise him. Then, the shadows fell back into place, the lamp's final revolution quelled by the fierceness of the strengthening wind flowing in through the open window, and Henry was back, the shutter outside silenced, the room like twilight once more.

He turned to me with a smile that didn't reach far. "Let's go to bed." With not a word, I agreed, and together we moved to Henry's room while outside the snow fell onto the unsuspecting spring ground, onto the rose bushes in Henry's garden, onto the colossal roofs of Hampden College, onto the budding trees around the town, onto the river that ran through, onto the yellow rain slicker and stiff flesh of someone I had once loved and who I would never see again.

I thought the fitful sleep I had that night, tossing and turning beside Henry, who lay awake until dawn with a book in his lap and his hand clutching my wrist, would be the worst of my life. As ever, I was wrong. There were worse nights to come. Far worse.

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