White Moonlight (Livia)

"Dead?" Livia echoes in confusion and disbelief. 

"Dead," Raylen confirms without a change in tone. "Long dead."

"H-h-how long?"

"Nearly nine years. Or rather, nine years this December. She was already long dead by the time I first laid my eyes on you at Sir Wintersen's party."

That party was her debut into society. She hesitates at the memory before continuing her interrogation. "Then what's the deal with the reporter?" 

"The reporter just happened to look a lot like her when she was alive. It was like she had walked out of the past. I was caught off guard for a moment."

"You manhandled that poor girl."

"I did. I grabbed her too roughly and I shouldn't have," he admits easily.

"Why did you do it? It's so unlike you."

For the first time since the start of this conversation, Raylen is showing emotions other than tiredness. "Because," he explains with an old sadness, "I wanted to touch and hold her again, to make sure she's real and not a dream." 

He pauses for a moment, as if mulling over whether he should continue elaborating. "I have never told you this, but she is usually out of reach in my dreams. When I touch her she tends to disappear. I have learnt not to make contact. I have been forced to learn to wait for her to leave on her own terms." 

"You still miss her a lot." 

"Of course."

The air in the room is heavy. Livia swallows. "Thank you," she begins, "for answering my questions. I'm sorry for accusing you. I'll go check up on Cornelius and Cornelia."

"I am sorry too," Raylen replies as he gets up from his chair and walks towards her. "I'm sorry for not giving you the sense of security you deserve as my wife." 

He slips his hand around her waist. "Come," he says, "let's check up on our kids together." He places just the slightest emphasis on "our" but Livia catches it and understands it is meant to be reassuring. 

She throws her arms around his neck to signal that she is accepting his apology and suggestion. In truth, she just wants time to be alone. 

Her babies are fast asleep in the nursery. If not for Cornelia's slightly longer hair, the twins would be indistinguishable. They're huddled close to each other like two peas in a pod. She strokes their hair—fiery red and wavy—before leaving the room. 

Raylen claims he has more work to do and she pretends to believe him. After all, she needs some time to herself anyways. She needs to think, to process the information he has finally shared with her. 

"Delaney Isabelle Lynn Sackville-West," she whispers to herself as she sinks into her soft, silky blankets. "Just who are you, really?"

Livia starts with the facts that she knows.

Delaney's name is also long, ridiculously long in fact. Sackville-West also sounds like an important surname. There's a strong possibility that she came from a well-connected family. In that case, Raylen and Delaney might have met quite early in their lives, perhaps when they were still students. Or perhaps as children at a social gathering not unlike the party that Sir Wintersen threw. 

Regardless of how they met, they should've been somewhat close in age given their relationship, which Livia is certain was romantic. Raylen is also thirty-five this year. The couple just celebrated his birthday with a trip to Switzerland two months ago. This means that Delaney was likely around twenty-six when she kicked the bucket. Perhaps a little older or a little younger. Livia is guessing younger because the reporter looked like she could be no older than her early twenties. 

Death is never easy, but the death of a young person or child is even harder to process or bear. A promising life cut down in its prime, no, before it has even reached its prime, is always a tragedy. Livia finds her mind wandering back to her twins again. Unable to calm herself down, she returns to the nursery and sits by their bed.

But she cannot stop her mind from wandering. Death at such a young age usually means one of four things—illness, accident, murder or suicide. No one dies of natural causes at twenty-six. 

A realisation is beginning to dawn on Livia as she feels a sinking sensation in her stomach. As tears flow down her cheeks, she quickly leaves the room before her sobs wake her children. 

Delaney's untimely death can only win one thing: Livia has lost. Worse, she has never been in the competition. 

Her rival for Raylen's affections is a dead woman frozen in her twenties. Delaney cannot age—her body will remain untouched by age or childbirth. She cannot argue. She cannot talk back. She cannot sulk. She cannot disagree. 

What she can do is haunt Raylen Vale. She has already done that successfully for nearly a decade without effort. And she will surely continue to haunt him for many more years to come, feeding on his guilt and remorse and reminding him that he once had a lover who was too good for this sinful earth.

With each passing year, Delaney becomes more idealised, more tragic, more beautiful. With each passing year, Livia is ageing, growing less striking, less impressive, less alluring. 

This gap can only get wider.

Eventually, Delaney will turn into the perfect victim enshrined in the altar of Raylen's heart while Livia, who has been by his side all this while, will be an old, charmless woman with very human flaws. 

He does not resent and compare her to his dead love now, but the time will eventually come. She knows it. It is simply inevitable. 

She blinks her hot tears away. "I," she whispers to herself shakily, "want a divorce."