My Only Liberty
by Kensley Shelton
La Vernia High School
Kensley Shelton is a junior at La Vernia High School, and plans to pursue a master's degree in aerospace engineering and an associate degree in business management. They will continue to write, whether it is poetry or a book. They enjoy writing and strive to get their first book published before they graduate. They like to write fantasy, sci-fi, and some horror.
Chains clanked softly in the empty ballroom, quietly competing with the music. A haunting melody filled the hall, barely drowning out the sounds of the creaks of the mechanisms moving the dancer. The figure danced alone in the empty hall, her ivory skirts swishing softly as she moved. All day and all night, every hour, every minute, every second, she continued her dance. Her skin had become a poor-quality mask to cover the machine of bones and gears. The true Liberty has been dead since the day of the accident, seven years ago, but an act of a twisted genius kept her moving. Her soul was repulsed by what he’d done.
A man, dressed in a black tailored suit and coat stepped into the ball room, letting his heeled boots click on the floor to announce his arrival to the dancer. Not that she could respond to his presence — she has long since been dead, but his affection for her has grown to become quite horrific. Solomon had loved her with such a fierce passion when she was alive. His precious Liberty, he’d once called her.
Despite his love for her, his silver tongue always failed him when he tried to string together the words to preach his love for her. No amount of words could piece together the grace and elegance she had moved with, the sparks of a blazing spirit in her ocean-colored eyes, nor the sheer carefree beauty she had blessed the world with. The growing pile of discarded pages in his study were proof of that. Yet he had been able to capture her graceful movements eternally with complex engineering. He hoped that with all the effort he’d put into the machine, it would be able to recreate her perfectly. Three years of hard work and a grave robbery allowed him to bring her back. Perhaps not entirely, however…
“My dearest Liberty, it's been years since I've last heard your beautiful voice. I may ask once more, will you grace me with your velvety words again?”
As per usual, at his request, Liberty remained silent, the only sound the faint whirring of her mechanisms and soft clanking of her chains. Despite all his hopeful delusions, Liberty would never speak his name again, nor would her eyes shine with that spark he had loved so. Even if she drifted through the halls, ghostly and ethereal, yet invisible to Solomon. Unable to move on.
The ghost of Liberty may haunt this manor yet would she ever reveal herself to Solomon? She feared the obsessive poet would deny her death, even if her spirit begged to be finally put to peace. It had been seven years of her silently wandering the halls of his old manor, wondering when he'd finally lay her to rest. Only then would she be free of the tormenting dance she'd been eternally damned to perform.
She'd loved Solomon deeply when she lived. Nothing has changed now. Yet where Solomon has claimed his love for her, she saw nothing but a frightening obsession. How could he turn his love for her into something so awfully twisted? She understood the pain of loss all too well, but watching her lover deny her death with a haunting dance made her wonder if he understood loss at all. Would he ever come to terms with her death?
His sudden words made Liberty's ethereal form pause in the midst of her haunting. “Perhaps you won’t hear it, but alas… I believe I’ve finally written our love into something beautiful.”
It hadn’t been the first time he’d tried. Liberty had found this to be the third or fourth time he’d tried to coax her out with sugared words. Yet this time, she clung to each word like a lifeline.
“My only Liberty,
The only one to hold my fidelity.
Crushed on a stage that'd once been lit,
Long since then, I've yearned for her spirit.
Perhaps my love has been misplaced,
Yet the truth be told cannot be faced.
My precious Liberty,
Why do you hide from me?
I've been waiting all along,
But where have we gone wrong?
I kept you for eternal dance,
Even if your heart doesn't prance.
My only Liberty,
You're the one who made me feel free
And here I stand alone
Where your talent once shone.
The most beauty I'd ever seen and heard,
Alluring as a golden bird.
My precious Liberty,
Why must this be?
Even if it has been seven years,
For you, I still shed my tears.
I finally put together the right words,
And silently pray for this, you've heard.”
Liberty stared up at the portrait that Solomon had gotten commissioned of them. His first time joining her dance, where he had held her during an arabesque. He had an arm around her waist while hers curved overhead, and his eyes had been filled with genuine light and warmth. Warmth she hadn’t seen after that damning performance. Her head had been turned to the side slightly, a smile tugging at her red painted lips. The painter had captured the moment perfectly.
Back when their days had been filled with mirth and youthful love, they had almost been married. Solomon had planned to propose to her once the performance was over, yet before Liberty could return to his arms, the stage collapsed and the lights had come down on top of her. Three performers and a manager had been killed. But most importantly, his precious Liberty.
She wasn’t quite sure what made her drift down the stairs to where her lover danced with her mechanized corpse. Perhaps it had been the words he’d woven her a tapestry with. The sincerity behind them. Her ghostly skirts shifted softly against the floor and Solomon quickly looked up, a fleeting moment of panic in his expression before his dark eyes landed on the spirit before him. He allowed the mechanized dancer to twirl away, gazing at her ghost as if he feared his insanity had taken over and she was merely a hallucination.
“You finally found the words,” she murmured.
“Liberty…”
Her name alone carried so many emotions. Fear, reverence, hope, obsession, yearning, desperation, grief…madness, even.
“How are you here?” Solomon whispered, as if he feared she may disappear. She was tempted to. Had she been alive, her heart would be racing the river, and her hands would be just as damp and slick as the banks.
“I've been here,” she admitted softly.
“Then why haven't you—?” His voice trembled and cracked, then cut off in remorse.
“I was scared,” she said after a moment. “You… desecrated my corpse.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so, so, so sorry…Liberty…my precious Liberty…”
“Why do you keep me bound here?” Liberty asked, gliding closer to him. Solomon raised his arms as if reaching for an embrace, but thought better of it and lowered them once more.
“I can’t live without you,” he murmured, shame written in every line of his body. “I thought… I thought if I kept you here forever, it would make things a little more bearable.”
“For you, perhaps, but what about me?” she questioned, moving closer to him until she was directly in front of him. He shivered from the ghostly cold she radiated. It made him wonder if those cold drafts he’d feel while working had actually been Liberty.
“I was selfish…I was really selfish… I wanted to keep you for myself. I couldn’t let you go, especially not when…”
“Now when what?” she asked calmly, letting her hands rise to cup his face. Tears bejeweled his dark lashes and etched patterns down his pale cheeks. Her death had taken its toll on him. Exhaustion had carved and hollowed out his face. He was thin, as if he hadn’t eaten enough. Had seven years of her absence done this to him?
His hands found their way around her waist and he gently led her ghost into a waltz. Liberty lowered her hands to his shoulders as her tulle skirts swirled elegantly with her movements. He spoke as they danced together, just like the days before her death.
“I wanted to marry you, Liberty,” he confessed. “I was going to propose to you after your performance… we were going to live together, start a family…but…”
“I’m gone, Sol. You have to let me go,” she murmured, running her icy fingers through his hair.
“How?” he asked, his voice breaking like glass. “How can I let you go when you were my everything?”
“You were my everything too, Solomon, but please. I’m tired. Put me to rest. Lay me in the ground and bury me under a cherry tree so I can remind you that I’m always here.”
His lip quivered. “Are you going to leave me again?”
She nodded. “I will, but I will meet you once more when you join me in Eternity. Now please. Let me rest until then.”
“So if I die… I’d be able to join you?” Solomon breathed, his eyes dawning with an awful idea.
“Yes, but there is one thing I want you to do.”
“What is it? I’ll do anything.”
“I want you to live. I want you to live the life we were going to have together. Make memories to tell me about when you join me. Enjoy life instead of rotting away here. Bury me and tell me stories at my grave. But by all means… just live, my love,” Liberty pleaded.
Solomon was quiet for a long moment. He looked like he wanted to object. At last, he finally sighed. “It is only because you insist on it, Liberty. I will find you the most beautiful cherry tree. I will go to Paris as we once dreamed of. Everything I do, I’ll do for you.”
And so he did.
Solomon traveled the world and wrote everything down. After thirty years, he’d finally been everywhere they talked about, from the glowing cities of the United States, the beautiful villages of Europe, and the deserts of the Sahara. Now gray with age, and finally home, he stared at the mansion he’d left behind. Everything had become overgrown and forlornly dilapidated, yet one thing stood serenely at the center of all the chaos. Liberty’s cherry tree. Its soft pink blossoms and sweet scent permeated the garden. Solomon lumbered over to the tree before kneeling at its base where a stone marked “My Liberty” was nestled against its roots.
“I did it, Liberty… I did everything. I got it all down,” he said softly, lifting the notebook from his satchel. “I have so many stories to tell you. You would have loved this…”
He started reading all his journeys, everything he had written down in painstaking detail to the grave. He had lived for Liberty, and for Liberty, he would tell his story. When he finished his entry about Paris, a single blossom twirled down and landed on the page. He immediately was reminded of her. He did nothing to stop the flood of tears that flowed down the grooves of his wrinkled face.
“Oh, Liberty… My only Liberty…”