Body and Soul

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Here is a surprise early update to thank you all so much for one million reads!

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She doesn't remember much of her life before him.

Vague vignettes of a loud television in a rundown apartment.

Hunger pains and a woman who never smiled.

Enid has no recollection of the time in between, when she lived in the adoption agency.

To her, her life began the day he walked into the room.

William McCarthy was tall and warm and kind and he bought her an ice cream cone.

Didn't stare at her when she used long words or asked too many questions.

Talked to her like she was a big girl rather than a pesky five-year-old like the other children in the home did.

She liked him.

He had taken her away, promised her a fairytale.

He gave her a family.

Enid had wanted for nothing after that.

They spent days adventuring in the woods, fighting off imaginary monsters with twigs.

Her father would whistle as they paraded through the woods, holding branches out of the way for her to pass through.

They'd return to their villa with weary bones and ever glowing smiles.

Fiona would playfully admonish them for the dirt streaked across their clothes and faces.

All the staff at the villa adored her.

The chefs would sneak her extra sweets after dinner, the maids would push her around on their vacuums.

She lived like a princess.

Her favorite part of her new life was bedtime.

Fiona would run her a bubble bath and work the woods out of her hair.

Then she'd snuggle up in her bed with her father.

They often wore matching pajama sets.

He'd read her a bedtime story or three, depending on how sleepy she was.

Enid has soft, hazy memories of forehead kisses and nightlights illuminating the room.

Some nights she could not sleep, plagued by nightmares of tattooed men with rotting teeth.

William would bundle her up in her blankets and take her outside onto the balcony.

He'd point to the sky and teach her the stars.

"Each and every one of those little lights has a story. Their history has been debated for thousands of years. The Greeks believed they were put there by the immortals..."

He'd gift her the milky way until she couldn't keep her eyes open any longer.

He managed her sometimes rocky preteen years with surprising grace.

Had hugged her gently when she got her first period, but stepped aside for Fiona to teach the specifics.

He'd taught her that being a girl was powerful.

That she was a treasure, that she was strong.

He taught her to be kind above all else.

To give love to every human, no matter who they are.

He was her best friend.

She loved to sit with him as he painted, watch his eyebrows furrow as he brought beauty to life on a canvas.

Stretched across the carpet, she'd try to mimic him with crayons and markers.

He'd hang up her messy drawings right beside his masterpieces.

At eight years old on Christmas morning, she was given her first cello.

It was a children's version, but she had taken to it immediately.

She'd practice while her father painted, and he never complained about the grating sound.

When she was ten and still in love with her instrument, he had offered to hire a musical tutor.

Enid had refused.

She was determined to figure it out herself.

Besides, her school tutor, Miss Simons, was an evil witch who made her stop reading and do math equations.

She didn't want any more scary teachers coming to the villa.

Instead, William bought her instructional books and videos.

Filled her room with records of famous musicians.

Her favorite was a boy named Alexander Drewitt.

His violin playing was otherworldly.

William would often tease her that she had a crush on the golden-haired musician when he came across her watching his performances with absolute awe.

That Christmas he took her to the Royal Albert Hall to watch him live.

Fiona dressed her up in her favorite pink dress and plaited her hair.

She had been enraptured the entire performance, her small hand squeezing William's with glee.

Alexander had been nineteen then.

His body lankier, his smile boyish and easy.

Enid had watched his performance with unbridled excitement.

As their chauffeur drove them home, she had gushed about the older boy's talent.

William had chuckled fondly at her and told her that most ten-year-olds didn't know the word virtuosity let alone used it in conversation.

She stuck her tongue out at him.

The next few years she practiced constantly.

Her father had started traveling more and more.

His art was being showcased in galleries all around the world.

He funneled the majority of his earnings into what he liked to call his "Enid Enterprise."

Various charities and philanthropic programs he had started when he adopted her.

Sometimes when she complained about his absence, he would press a kiss on the crown of her hair.

"I'm making the world a better place for you, sunshine. Filling it with love so you'll feel it even when I'm gone." He'd whisper.

With his frequent absences, she found ways to fill the time on her own.

Baking with the chefs, adventuring out into the woods on her own.

Avoiding a certain field where she had faced a wolf and been saved by a deer.

She'd read constantly, consuming every book she could get her hands on.

And she'd practice every day.

Slowly, her clunky renditions of Hallelujah turned into impressive compositions.

William adored her talent and bought her the best cello on the market.

He'd often suggest she consider doing performances, allow others to hear her brilliant playing.

She had only ever played for him.

Not even Fiona or any of her father's companions had been allowed into the music room connected to her bedroom.

She was sixteen and shy and unsure of herself.

Though she did not allow them to hear her play, she still grew close to her father's visitors.

Those on the outside might think it strange, this revolving door of brilliant, talented men.

Fiona had once asked her if it upset her at all.

Enid had stared at her in confusion.

She had never thought of it as anything but normal.

Her father was everything she could have ever asked for.

Fiona was just as good, if not better, than the mothers she read about in stories.

And her father's companions were welcomed new faces in her ever-constant life.

These men each brought her a piece of the world.

She was so filled with curiosity about the realm outside their villa on the coast of Wales.

Her heart was longing to see it, see the places and people that her books described.

And these men were the closest she had gotten.

Camden was a burly Scottish man with a wiry red beard.

He had taught her how to tie knots.

Pabok from India had taught her how to embroider.

Scholars, poets, scientists, dancers, artists, chefs, businessmen, doctors, athletes, musicians.

Even an astronaut.

Enid hadn't actually seen much of the world, but she had experienced more within the walls of the villa than most people do in their entire lives.

Her life was happy, safe.

Some nights, when her father was home, he'd come and retrieve her from bed.

They'd snuggle up under blankets on the balcony like they had when she was small.

This time, instead of stars, they discussed the future.

"I want to go to university." She had said one night, resting her head on his shoulder.

She had felt the infinitesimal tense.

"Where have the years gone, sunshine?" He turned to look at her, his bright blue eyes surrounded by lines that she doesn't remember being there.

For the very first time, he looks old.

In his over fifty years of life, Enid had never considered him to be anything but invincible.

There is a greyness growing along his temples, a tiredness in his twinkling blue eyes.

Enid feels a pang of worry in her chest.

"Are you alright?" She pulls away, watching his face.

He smiles fondly at her, ruffling the curls on her head.

"I'm fine, kiddo. Just a little jetlagged still." He tightens the blanket wrapped around her shoulders.

He hushes her worry, tugs her back into his hug.

"Now, you see the star just to the right there..."

He is not fine.

He is worse than not fine.

But she doesn't find out until two months later.

He is in Spain when it happens, visiting one of the orphanages he had built.

She is playing the cello, losing herself in the humming of the strings when the door flies open.

Fiona is crying.

Fiona has never cried in front of her before.

Fiona is speaking and she cannot hear what she is saying.

She catches fragments of words.

"...seizures..."

"...doctor tried..."

"...so sorry, Enid, so sorry..."

Enid is falling, falling into darkness.

Her father.

Her family.

The man who had given her the world.

Given her the stars.

There is nothing left of him.

Nothing left of her.

There is only quiet and darkness and memories.

She spends a year as a shadow.

A hollowed-out version of herself.

A ghost of the girl who once raced through the villa, laughter following her around each corner.

Fiona watches her from the doorway, watches her disappear inside herself.

It is right after her eighteenth birthday when she finds a pamphlet on her pillow.

The paper is thick and laminated.

It feels important.

Auditions for Pennington University's Music Program.

The background is decorated with constellations.

The date is a few months out, enough time for her to brush the dust off her cello.

For the first time since his funeral, a real smile stretches across her face.

A new beginning.

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The much anticipated backstory to Enid's life!

I thought it would be interesting to introduce all of this toward the end of the book, as it would explain a lot of her innocence/personality after you had gotten to know Enid!

And it has brought us full circle.

Please let me know what you thought!

Comments fill my heart with joy.

All my love, Sappho ★