Bastian
Chapter 165 - On the Ruins

✧On the Ruins✧

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Jeff Klauswitz’s mansion was rendered to rubble during the season the roses bloomed. Those who had heard the rumours flocked to Ardenne and created a spectacle. Bastian never once visited the house. He went to work at the Admiralty as usual, performed his duties and left.

   Once he left Ratz’s city centre, the congestion eased. He increased his speed and drove along the country roads toward Ardenne. With the days being longer, the sun was still in the sky as he drove along the coastal road. The sea was bathed in the orange and reds of a setting sun. There was a faint scent of roses on the air. It was a beautiful evening.

   When he came around a hill, where he would normally see his fathers mansion and across the bay, his own, he could see that his fathers mansion was reduced to a skeleton of its former construction. Bastian slowed down.

   There was a deep, rumbling bang. Dust billowed up from his fathers mansion, then another bang.

   Bastian passed by a crowd of cars parked up on the side of the road. It seemed like it had brought a lot of attention to Ardenne Bay. Some even sported opera glasses.

   Was it really that interesting?

   Bastion watched as a portion of the mansion collapsed. He had reluctantly accepted his fathers inheritance, but there was no pleasure in its destruction. The emptiness and fatigue caused by Odette’s disappearance persisted.

   What have you got really?

   Bastian could hear Theodora’s mocking tone in his head as he recalled the last line of the letter. Perhaps it was because he couldn’t see the true end to all of this. As he passed under the elongated shadows, Bastian turned into his own mansion.

He sent the waiting servants by the entrance away before he stepped out of the car. As the last echoes of the explosion faded, the familiar tranquility enveloped Ardenne’s bay once again.

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Odette walked further than she intended. She walked the road that led past the village and to where the wheat fields were ready to be lain with crop for the spring. She removed her straw hat, her disheveled hair had been neatly braided. she tidied up the dusty hem of her skirt and sat on a bench under a leafy tree and looked out over the peaceful countryside. Some where in the distance, a chapel bell of evening prayer broke the peace.

   She listened and looked up at the clear rosy-blue sky. Evenings in Ardenne were also greeted with the sound of bells. She would linger by the windows of the mansion and look out over the sea, or the fields or even down the driveway for Bastian. It was a time when waiting brought fear and sadness.

   The bells stopped ringing and the evening deepened. Odette got up off the bench and pointed herself back home. She strolled the primrose-covered hill and made her way across the stream. Out in the countryside, the night was deep as there were no streetlamps to guide the way. She wasn’t as tired as she used to be and although it had been a slow process, her body was slowly starting to find its old strength.

She walked through a field adorned with roses and peonies, reflecting on the end of her marriage.

‘Perhaps before summer came to an end’

   The spring was a good time to let go of the past and hope for what the future might bring. That was Bastian’s usual thoughts and she would need to prepare for the worst.

   As she passed through the entrance to the village, dusk began to fall. She started to see some of the faces that were growing familiar to her. She would pause for a minute or two to exchange polite words of conversation.

   “Good evening Miss Marie, you didn’t forget your promise, did you?” one kindly old lady said as she passed.

   “No, of course not, I will bring those cookies tomorrow, as promised.” Odette said as she recalled the promise they had made to have tea together at her house.

In this village, the young women had a tradition of rotating visits to each other’s homes for tea. During these gatherings, they would share the dishes they had prepared and engage in conversation. Odette, being relatively new to the group, often found herself listening more than speaking, alas she enjoyed these gatherings.

   “Oh, I’ve read all your books,” Odette said to the teachers wife, who burst out laughing.

The aim of the meeting was to engage in a productive activity following tea, and it was the responsibility of the tea organizer to select the activity. The teacher’s wife volunteered to coordinate a book club, and the chosen books were communicated beforehand during the previous gathering.

  “I knew you would say that. See you tomorrow!” Waving her hand, the teacher’s wife soothed her fussy child and departed. As a mother of three, her two older sons seldom accompanied her, so she usually traveled with her youngest daughter. 

Watching the mother-daughter pair as they strolled away, Odette wore a small smile as she walked through the village. Perhaps it was because the summer was so close that everyone was in a good mood, but Odette couldn’t quite reach that level yet, still haunted by the child she could never forget. 

If it had been healthy, it would have been born this summer. Whenever she made a passing assumption, Bastian’s presence in her thoughts seemed like an inescapable fixture within the household.

   What would our lives be, if the child had safely come into this world?

   There was no point pondering on what could have been, it only left her feeling empty. In the heart of self-pity, her quint little cottage came into view. Seeing the warm light in its windows, her heart softened a little.

Not wanting to return to a darkened home, she switched on the lights before setting out for her walk. She was aware that it was an imprudent use of fuel, but she planned to keep it this way for a while. She believed she will be able to stop when the day arrived, a day when all the wounds in her heart had healed—perhaps before the summer’s end. 

   She enjoyed being in this village and despite everyone knowing her as Marie Byller, a small lie she didn’t like all the same, she wanted to stay here, even after the divorce was finalised. She wanted to become the master of her own life.

Her first task would be to return home and prepare dinner. Following that, she planned to review the books for the book club meeting scheduled for tomorrow and work on sewing lace collars onto her summer blouses. With her thoughts organized, Odette quickened her pace on her way home. The breeze that wafted through the enchanting bird cherry trees lining the creek was warm and carried a sweet scent. The approaching change of season brought the incoming summer ever so closer.

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Bastian made a slow path down the hallway and to the stairs. All the while his eyes looking out into the world unfocused and distant. They were like beads of blue glass. When he reached the bottom step and his footsteps echoed out across the main hall, he expertly made his way to the front door and opened it like he was awake. He stepped out onto the moonlight bathed stone in with bare feet.

   Bastian wondered through the forest, losing himself in the deepening night, his platinum hair tousled about by the wind and his bare feet leaving imprints of his passage.

   Eventually coming to a stop within the deepest parts of the forest, focus almost seemed to come back to him for a moment, as he looked up into the sky, at the bright moon. A moment of clarity came to him. He remembered lying down on the couch, thinking he could do with a moment or two to rest and have fallen asleep.  He didn’t even think that something like this could happen, so he didn’t tie his wrists. 

   He felt an emptiness inside as he realised what had happened. Just like when he was a small boy and was first made aware of his condition. He realised he was still trapped in those moments.

He’s broken.

   A wind picked up that made him shiver. Bastian turned his head in the direction of the wind as he smelt fresh flowers on the breeze. There were flowers everywhere, all of different scents and differing levels of sweetness.

   Bastian looked around and saw that he was in the garden, not the forest. A sea of flowers were all around him, rippling in the wind as it passed through. He remembered getting a report from Lovis, telling him that Odette had been taking extra effort to tend to the garden. It was back when he was still in Trosa and he felt excitement at being able to enjoy the garden the next spring, with her.

   Back in those days he still believed that time was his friend and in time, Odette would grow to love him as he loved her. Such a foolish and arrogant belief.

As winter passed, followed by spring, and now on the cusp of summer, the memory of Odette had not faded in the slightest. She continued to dominate his life, even though she was no longer a part of it. Even if another year passed, things would not have changed.

In this world, there exists a heart that time cannot mend. 

He now seemed to understand it all—the true meaning of her efforts poured into a garden she would never witness bloom in the coming spring.

   This futile gift she left behind, one that she would never get to enjoy, brought tears to his eyes. It was so beautiful, yet so tormenting.

   Bastian turned away from the garden and faced out to the deep darkness across the sea, to where his fathers mansion used to be. His fathers world was now nothing more but demolished ruins and so to, was his own world.

   What have I got? 

   Theodora’s voice haunted him. Beyond the ruins, there was nothing but more ruin.

   At the very end, what lay before him were two mirrored ruins, facing each other once more, and he was left alone, with a wealth he never wanted and an empire he didn’t really care for. It was like a curse left behind by his step-mother.  

His eyes deepened as he looked at the garden with soft moonlight flowing through it. Now all that was left was the feeling of defeat every time he woke up.

   No. He thought definitely. It was about time for that child from his past to finally grow up and move forward. Bastian turned away from the ruins like he had bid them a final farewell. With renewed determination, he marched through his wife’s garden, back to the mansion.

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