#cathy helstone

[toby-du-coeur]

Morality, Redemption & Mirrors in 'Under the Pendulum Sun'

My stream of consciousness after I read this book {it'll make more sense if you've read it, which i 1000% recommend with the caveat of the tw}

full spoilers

tw: [consensual between adults] incest

From an Amazon review - "Under the Pendulum Sun is the story of sinners, pressed into a world where maybe those sins don't count the same way, among creatures who may or may not even have souls to save". I'm trying to pick apart the book's ambiguous ending.... It seems like in the world of the story, whatever is between the Helstones is genuine love, is consensual, and is their truest true nature {as revealed by the trickery of the fae, that's kind of the whole point}. And whether or not they choose to live together as a couple.... their love now is revealed as what it is; it can't be taken back.

Now given the foundational texts of THIS world {with Adam rejecting his equal 'sibling' Lilith for an even more incest-y Eve & this causing the outcasting of the fae}, the Helstones' love should be good as Mab says, and should be a redemptive recapitulation of that original act - especially given that they are called to fairyland/hell. By lies & trickery Mab has given them the truth of love, rather than their living a false life in the human world. They in their forbidden nature & desires belong more to the fae order, so that it is the fae who have first redeemed them - a humility that makes them in turn the perfect missionaries. {It won't be this prideful holier-than-thou colonialism. With the translation of the Enochian book that places the fae within Christianity, the Helstones can offer the fae's own story back to them - just as the fae have offered Cathy & Laon's own hearts to them. It is an equal exchange of gifts.}

From the perspective of the fae, they've given these humans the redemptive gift of a new Eden. To the humans, they've committed the worst sin. And both parties agree that it is this action that makes the Helstones suited to bring the fae into Christianity. It is both sin and redemption, like Christ dying accursed {except this 'cross' is about the love of two rather than the death of one, which *chef's kiss*}. Because this is the harrowing of a new hell, and to bring in the margins always requires scandalising, challenging and changing the ways of the centre.

The Helstones are juxtaposed with the Roches. The Roches were a clean, straight cishet Christian couple on the outside - and yet the spirit of their love was about power, abuse, secrets & [corrupting] knowledge. He lured her to Arcadia, used her and drove her mad, so she killed him. They failed the test of Arcadia. {p.s. this was patently the husband's fault, what a dick} Cath & Laon are a sinful and scandalous kind of couple on the outside, yet their love is pure and honest so that they pass the test of Arcadia. The Roches saw the mirror and tore each other apart; Cathy and Leon see the mirror and love.

[st-just]

I murdered Ariel," I said. Catherine Helstone's brother winced at that, but I continued. "On the same day, I found out I am a changeling, that I have no soul and salvation may be beyond my reach. All that and your worry about us?" "You are my sister." "I'm not. I'm not even real." A delirious laugh rang from my throat like silver bells. "A thousand things lay upon my heart and the soul I do not have, but not that. Ariel's blood stains my hands. I have lived another's life and stolen her family. I barely know how to feel all the guilt I should." "Cathy, it's not your fault. It's the Pale Queen who-" "But I am quite monstrous." Another laugh, clear and shrill. "So no, brother of Catherine Helstone, that matter is but a feather on my heart. My sin is far greater than yours."

Under The Pendulum Sun, by Jeanette Ng

[thecloserkin]

"Under the Pendulum Sun" was written as a response to Lucille and the whole insufficiently deep dive of angsty incest in Crimson Peak.

i have two responses to this:

1) YAS KWEEN

2) source??

ok in fairness to Guillermo del Toro i don’t think doing a deep dive into the psychology of incest was his intent, or he wouldn’t have shot the film so stubbornly from Edith’s POV with so few tantalizing glimpses of the inner workings of Thomas and Lucille’s minds. HOWEVER i do think that Under the Pendulum Sun is responding to a tradition of 19th century literature where a wellborn woman’s most intimate male relationship was by necessity with her brother(s) (since the sexes were so segregated, the only occasion you’d have to become acquainted with a man of your same social station would be like....at a dinner party or a dance, and how much intimacy do such occasions foster?). One of the callbacks in the naming of the characters in Pendulum Sun (you already brought up Laon in your other ask, which comes from a Shelley poem about incest) is Helstone. Helstone is the name of the parsonage where the protagonist of Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South grew up--and that protagonist, like Cathy Helstone, is also the daughter of a clergyman. North and South is still a decently popular book, and the 2004 BBC miniseries starring Richard Armitage has a cult following, so i don’t need to proselytize on its behalf or anything. While I think the TV adaptation is one of the best adaptations of anything to ever grace the screen, i have to regret that it minimizes the relationship between Margaret, the protagonist, and her brother Frederick who is for most of the novel away at sea. He was in the Navy, he’s been wrongfully accused of some dark misdeed and now he can’t set foot in England for fear of being executed for treason. Margaret is absolutely tireless on Frederick’s behalf, consulting lawyers and hunting up witnesses to testify on his behalf. And the central impediment to a Romantic Resolution between Margaret and her love interest is, get this, he sees her. Hugging Frederick. At the train station. And of course the family’s kept Frederick’s presence a secret--the only reason he risked coming home at all is because their mother is dying--and Margaret can’t explain herself to her Love Interest without betraying her brother’s secret!!! So this guy sees Margaret ALONE in the arms of a smart looking fellow and draws the obvious conclusion--it’s her beau. But it’s a actually her brother aghhhhhh the angst. And despite this whole contrived scenario being designed to deepen Margaret and Mr. Thorne’s mISuNDeRstAndiNG in a very Pride&Prejudice way, it still says a lot about how deep Margaret’s loyalty to her brother runs that she doesn’t even think about coming clean to Mr. Thorne about why she was really at that train station. At one point Mr. Thorne’s mother shows up at Margaret’s house to remonstrate with her about being a fast woman lmao. Frederick eventually settles down in Span with a nice Spanish girl, and as late as the final three chapters of the novel we have people in Margaret’s orbit saying stuff like “i don’t think much of orphaned!Margaret going off to stay with that posh aunt of hers. Now if Frederick had come to claim her that would’ve been different” and “i wish you’d marry this Eminently Eligible Bachelor, Margaret! if i don’t get you settled here in England i’m afraid you’ll leave me and hare off to Spain.” These kind of comments tell you that even casual observers can see how deep the bond between Margaret and her brother runs. i’m not saying i ship it, precisely, but i do think TV as a medium undervalued a relationship that was for the most part offscreen,

[libromundoes]

Me gustaría que más personas leyeran … Bajo el sol del péndulo por Jeannette Ng | Libros

TEl discurso del ascensor puede ser difícil para cualquier libro, pero quizás aún más para las novelas de fantasía. Es una tarea difícil resumir mundos nuevos y extraños y sistemas mágicos complejos en una o dos oraciones que llaman la atención.

Pero permítanme presentarles el mejor discurso de ascensor para una novela de fantasía que he escuchado: los misioneros victorianos están tratando de convertir a las hadas al cristianismo. Un golpe de puro resplandor.

Puede que le preocupe que la ejecución nunca pueda igualar una premisa tan soberbia, pero afortunadamente Jeannette Ng cumple con aplomo, una hazaña particularmente impresionante dado que Under the Pendulum Sun fue su debut, lo que le valió lo que anteriormente se conocía como el Premio John W Campbell al Mejor Nuevo Escritor (ahora llamado Premio Asombroso al Mejor Nuevo Escritor, gracias en gran parte al discurso de aceptación de Ng el año pasado). Es un sueño de fiebre retorcida, un ensueño teológico y un notable homenaje a la tradición gótica.

Como lo demuestra el éxito de las obras de Holly Black, Karen Marie Moning, Julie Kagawa y Sarah J Maas, entre otras, las fae son las criaturas míticas de la hora. A veces son retratados como monstruosos, a veces como estafadores, a veces como intereses amorosos sensuales. En Under the Pendulum Sun, las hadas son maliciosas, del tipo Unseelie, Ng rompiendo su propio sello al entrelazar las influencias celtas con la tradición abrahámica.

Asombroso … Jeannette Ng

Ng es un fabricante global atento y detallista con talento para la descripción atmosférica. En su visión del siglo XIX, la humanidad tiene una relación frágil con los fae, que habitan en la tierra de Arcadia. Catherine "Cathy" Helstone se va a las enigmáticas Faelands en busca de su hermano, el reverendo Laon, que desapareció mientras intentaba llevar la Palabra de Dios a la reina Mab y su corte perturbada. A su llegada, Cathy se encuentra consignada a Getsemaní, un inquietante castillo misterioso, a la espera de noticias de Laon. Sus compañeros son el tambaleante Ariel Davenport y el señor Benjamin, un gnomo, que es el único converso del reverendo.

"Recuerde, no camine por el pasillo cuando está oscuro", advierte Cathy. "Ninguna mirada detrás de la cortina esmeralda. No hay retratos en los ojos. No comas nada sin sal. Y no confíes en la salamandra. Después de semanas de sofocante encierro, Cathy finalmente le da la bienvenida a Laon a Getsemaní, y lo que sigue es una muestra lenta de deseo culpable, locura y asesinato, todo perseguido por el espectro de Mab, la astuta reina.

Cada capítulo comienza con un extracto de un texto misterioso, que incluye textos victorianos reales que se han adaptado a la realidad alternativa de Ng. Como el mago de la corona por Zen Cho y Jonathan Strange y M. Norrell por Susanna Clarke, Under the Pendulum Sun captura el tono y el estilo de la literatura del siglo en el que tiene lugar; Ng atribuye las hermanas Brontë y los románticos en su agradecimiento. Y el título del péndulo del sol, una gran linterna que oscila en la Arcadia y hace que el tiempo sea difícil de calcular, es en sí mismo una hazaña notable de la construcción mundial. Con su característica atención al detalle, Ng buscó el consejo de "la aproximación más cercana a un físico" para definir los detalles, que ella detalla en un artículo titulado La ciencia del sol del péndulo: Una lectura tan fascinante como el libro mismo.

El giro del estómago al final de la novela. puede dejarlo desesperado por una ducha, pero también por temor a la fusión magistral e inventiva de Ng entre historia, ciencia, literatura y mito. Como un fantasma vagando por los páramos, todavía me persigue: la marca de una verdadera obra maestra gótica.

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[summerwoodsmoke]

a happy middle and a very happy start

fandom: north & south (2004)

pairing: dixon/maria hale

words: 2138

read on ao3

❝ the first time i saw you i broke a needle into my finger at the sight of you, and you gave me your handkerchief to wrap my hand, and it’s been decades since, but i’ve never forgotten it and you are still the most beautiful thing i’ve ever seen, every time i look at you. i’ve loved you better than anyone else in the whole world. ❞

Dixon was sitting in the kitchen long after midnight, nursing her poor, stupid finger. She still had Miss Beresford’s handkerchief around it, though it was stained rust brown, now, and likely to stay such no matter how she washed it. Dixon furrowed her brow. The clear path of action would be to make her a new one, but a lady like Miss Beresford was more than capable of making her own handkerchiefs; why would she accept one from a maid like Dixon? Especially after she managed to make it seem to her new mistress like she had no skill whatsoever when it came to needlework.

Dixon snorted and shifted the handkerchief. After this many hours, the stained cloth was uncomfortable, but she didn’t want to get in trouble for taking something she shouldn’t, not even a rag, not on her first day. The handkerchief would serve until morning, when she could take the housekeeper’s direction. Dixon stood and took her candle, turning to leave only to jump at the sight of a silhouette in the doorway.

“Dixon, was it?” a slight voice asked. Dixon inhaled sharply. It was her. They must be back from the ball. And she’d come down here, this late? At least Dixon wasn’t holding a sharp object this time, but as Miss Beresford stepped towards the light, Dixon made sure her hold on the candlestick was firm. 

“Yes, Miss,” Dixon finally replied. Miss Beresford was shorter than her by a few inches, and thinner by quite more than that. She’d heard one of the maids call her ‘mousy’ that morning, and she could see where the insult came from—Miss Beresford had a thin, pointed nose to match her thin body, and her hair brought no pretty description to mind, so mousy did seem to suit it best—but despite the supposed plainness of her new mistress, Dixon was quite sure she’d never seen so handsome a woman in her life.

“How is your hand?” Miss Beresford asked as she stepped closer. Dixon blinked and looked down at her hand, her index finger still throbbing slightly.

“It’s fine, Miss.” Dixon started when Miss Beresford took her hand, lifting it towards the candlelight and tutting softly. Her fingers tightened on the metal handle of the candlestick as Miss Beresford began to unwind the handkerchief. “M-miss, I—”

“It looks like it soaked through hours ago! A clean dressing would do it good, and I have another handkerchief right here.”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly—Miss—” Dixon fell silent as Miss Beresford ever so gently ran a finger against the wounded pad of her own. The lady was murmuring softly, but Dixon’s ears were ringing and didn’t catch a word of it. She could feel the beat of her heart in her finger, underneath Miss Beresford’s tender hands as she secured a new, clean handkerchief in place.

After she was done, Miss Beresford patted Dixon’s hand before letting go. She smiled up at her. “I’m glad you were still awake,” she said. “I was thinking about you at the ball. I wanted to look in and make sure you were alright.”

Dixon was fairly certain she wasn’t breathing. “O-oh,” she finally managed. “I thank you, Miss Beresford. I’m alright, though.”

Miss Beresford’s smile widened. “And I’m glad for it. I do hope you enjoy working here, Dixon. I’ll see you in the morning.” And with that, she turned and left, a girl of merely sixteen, the most beautiful thing Dixon had ever seen, and was quite sure she’d ever see her whole life.

“I’m sure I will,” Dixon breathed into the silent air, “Miss Beresford.”

Miss Maria was falling in love.

The entire household knew it. Maids liked to gossip when their families were out of sight, and it spread through the Beresford household like wildfire, the fact that the young Miss Beresford came home with an unshakeable grin almost every time she went out. On laundry day, all the maids helped regardless of station, and the undermaids tried to convince Dixon to share any details they didn’t know.

“I just keep her room. She doesn’t keep me in her confidence,” Dixon lied. She was thankful to get the day over with, not just for the sake of her sore hands, but also for her heart. It was easier to face the fact of Miss Maria’s infatuation when she heard of it from Miss Maria herself, rather than through the house staff’s stilted view of it. At least that way, she could see how happy it made Miss Maria.

“I’m terribly nervous,” Maria confided one night, as Dixon was brushing out her hair. (That was another lie Dixon kept from the lower staff, although it was just a white lie they probably saw through. Her official responsibilities did not extend beyond that of a chamber maid’s, but the Beresfords couldn’t afford three full time lady’s maids for the mistress and both daughters, and Maria had decided to give Cathy’s time solely to her mother and rely on Dixon’s help instead.) 

“Why’s that, Miss?” Dixon asked, keeping her eyes on Maria’s hair. She remembered the kitchen maid, back on Dixon’s first day in the household, who had called this girl and her hair ‘mousy’. Something so shiny and soft as this meant Dixon had a hard time attaching a negative connotation to the adjective, regardless of its colour or ability to hold a curl.

“I need Father and Mother to warm up to and be receptive of Mr Hale. I’d hate for them to refuse him before he even steps foot in the door!”

Dixon paused. “They can’t refuse a man of the cloth, can they?”

Maria made a face at her in the mirror. “From paying a visit, of course not, Dixon, but from taking their eldest daughter’s hand in marriage? Quite possibly!”

Dixon went back to brushing. She would never breathe a word, but she quite agreed with Mr and Mrs Beresford’s opinion that Mr Hale was hardly worthy of their daughter. Clergymen were always good, respectable men, of course, but they were much lower in class than the Beresfords. Maria deserved someone who matched her in every way.

However, Maria also deserved what made her happy. Dixon had a hard time deciding which outweighed the other. It usually depended on whether Maria was in the room or not.

There was an aching irony in helping Maria go over the points she had come up with to convince her parents why marrying down would not be a bad thing. Women married down—it wasn’t common, but it was done, for the right man. (But never for someone as lowly placed as Dixon. And, of course, never for a woman. Not ever.)

But Maria deserved what made her happy. So Dixon helped her lady prepare for bed, and go over reasons for her parents to let her marry a clergyman.

The doctor stepped out to share the happy news with Mr Hale, and the nurse went to work on cleaning up, leaving Maria, hair down, exhausted, and covered in sweat, holding her newborn child close to her chest, cooing down at him like there wasn’t anything else at all in the room. She looked up suddenly, her eyes searching until they found—

“Dixon! Dixon, come here!”

Dixon, helping the nurse, left the rags she’d been using to clean and approached her mistress. 

“Dixon, isn’t he wonderful?” Maria asked, leaning back against the pillows.

“Aye. He’s just perfect.”

“We picked names earlier, one for a boy, one for a girl.”

“So, what is it then?”

“Frederick,” she said, her lips spreading into that wide smile Dixon was so familiar with. Dixon’s heart swelled at the sight of mother and child, of such a joyful moment with one she loved so much. 

For a minute, she forgot about Mr Hale completely, as well as the doctor, and even the nurse, mere feet away. For a minute, it was simply Dixon and Maria, meeting Frederick. For a minute, it was just the three of them in their own world. 

It was a very happy minute.

“Mistress, you really do have the most agreeable children,” Dixon said, rocking a quiet, wide-awake Margaret in her arms. 

Maria laughed from where she sat at the table. “I thank you, Dixon.” She kept her eyes on little Frederick running about the garden. “God has blessed us indeed.” She turned to Dixon. “I can take her if you like, and you can sit and watch him.”

“Of course, Mistress.” Dixon handed over Margaret before sitting across Maria at the small garden table. She watched her mistress for a few seconds as she happily fussed over her daughter before facing the garden and Fred, who was on all fours in the grass. The garden here was merely a fraction in size to the Beresford’s. As was the house, for that matter. 

Dixon had learned to love small, rural Helstone, and most things in it. It wasn’t the life she had expected for herself, nor the one she had wanted for her mistress, but the sun was beautiful, the air fresh and good, and every day she was at her mistress’ side.

The master’s work took him all around the parish, and thus often it was just Dixon, Maria, and the children at the house during the day. Dixon knew Maria missed her husband with him gone so much, but she couldn’t find it in herself to feel anything near the same amount of distress.

Dixon was warming up to Mr Hale. She didn’t hold the same distrust and dislike for the man as she did when she was nineteen and Maria eighteen, and he first came calling to the Beresford’s. And while living with and serving someone did not always equate a lack of animosity, Dixon recognized hers fading over time as she saw the way he was with Maria, with the children, and with his parishioners: good, and kind.

It didn’t mean she rejoiced in the man’s presence, of course. As stated, she knew she was rather too happy when he was gone rather than at home. But it did mean that there were no negative emotions in his presence, especially when he spent time with Frederick or held Margaret. When he tenderly looked to Maria, or stood close to her as though to share some secret, Dixon simply turned away and made herself busy, with the housework or the children. She was trying, honest, really trying to make sure there were no ill feelings from her around him. She figured there was no point in...baiting herself, when it came to Maria and her marriage.

But for today, at least, there was nothing around to rub her the wrong way and spoil her mood. There was simply the sun, and Frederick in the grass—pretending to be a cat, if she surmised correctly—and tiny, perfect Margaret in the arms of her mother, still the most beautiful creature Dixon ever did see.

“Dixon, I don’t think I’ve ever expressed...how dear you are to me.” 

Dixon put down the linen she was folding and turned to Maria. She couldn’t find a response in her, so she simply waited for her mistress to go on.

Maria sat down at the table and sighed. “Most especially in this time of difficulty, but really, all my life...ever since we met, you have been my dearest companion.” She looked up and Dixon couldn’t help but meet her eye. The two of them were getting on in their years, Dixon knew, and this move to the north wouldn’t help Maria any, but for right now, her eyes were clear and bright. “Through leaving my family, and the children’s births, and Frederick, and now with the move, I could not have done it without you, dear Dixon.” Maria held out a hand, and Dixon stepped forward to take it. Maria squeezed it lightly.

“Mistress—” The look on her face made Dixon’s words stumble. It was beseeching. “Maria,” Dixon whispered, and Maria squeezed her hand again. “It has been my greatest joy in life, to be by your side. I do hope you know that, with all your heart. There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”

Maria died with her both her children at her side—a miracle Dixon couldn’t thank God enough for—and Dixon standing at the foot of her bed. Richard stayed in the doorway, too afraid to come any closer to death.

“She’s not gone?” Frederick pleaded his sister, and it was then that it hit Dixon that she was, indeed, gone, her last breath exhaled in this mortal coil. Dixon’s eyes filled with tears, blurring her vision of the most beautiful thing she’d seen all her life. 

Of the person she had loved best in this world.

[thecloserkin]

book review: Jeannette Ng, Under the Pendulum Sun (2017)

Genre: Gothic fantasy

Is it the main pairing: Yes

Is it canon: Yes

Is it explicit: No

Is it endgame: Yes

Is it shippable: It is lit

Bottom line: HOW IS THIS BOOK EVEN REAL. When they put me in the ground I hope they bury me with a copy of this book so I can read it in the afterlife.

Miss Catherine Helstone, a clergyman’s daughter, sets sail for the infidel lands where her brother Laon is a missionary and from whence his letters home have grown increasingly cryptic and erratic. The twist is, he’s not spreading the Good Word in India or Africa or the New World — he’s in Fairie asdfgkkjkdfjdk. Catherine hasn’t seen him in three years. She’s so worried about him that she strong-arms the Missionary Society of London into bankrolling her ticket to Arcadia, on the grounds that the previous guy who held the post met a messy & mysterious end, and she is the properest person to prevent the same fate befalling Laon. Because she’s highkey in love with him. Well, that revelation takes half the book to unfold, however the opening line is “My brother and I grew up dreaming of new worlds.” For the first 25% of the book she doesn’t even lay eyes on Laon, she just shows up in Arcadia and stays in his house while he’s gone on some unspecified errand. And what a house it is.

I feel like I’ve spent my whole life reading about impossibly grand, potentially sentient haunted houses. Such houses are drenched in secrets. You need a first-person narrator to really experience the affect of the house, preferably someone who’s unfamiliar with the setting and disoriented by the mind games it plays: Jane Eyre in Mr. Rochester’s house leaps to mind. Jane Eyre btw nearly marries her first cousin to take up the missionary life with him (before deciding to go back to Rochester). See, the reason Jane’s cousin proposed to her was because ties of blood were thought to be not strong enough to bind—when you’re out in the field converting heathens you need an acknowledged romantic attachment. So the fact that Cathy follows her brother to Arcadia tells you everything about how important he is to her. She would have followed him to perdition. Think of that immortal Sylvia Plath quote: I love him to hell and back and heaven and back, and have and do and will.

To return to the subject of incest in haunted houses: The Fall of the House of Usher? Atmospheric, creepy af, but the implied relationship is presented decidedly unsympathetically. The Thirteenth Tale? The incest is canon but you are not supposed to be rooting for the incestuous couple. Crimson Peak? She’s mentally ill and it’s not even the fucked-up kind of shippable a la Jaime/Cersei. Flowers in the Attic? Shippable, but the dubious consent squicks me out. A Spell of Winter? Comes closest, in that they were 100% in love, but it was a situational in love if you know what I mean—where is my tormented passion with 200 pages of obsessive pining??? Now do you see why I lost my fucking mind when I read Under the Pendulum Sun? I have been waiting for this book for MY ENTIRE GODDAMN LIFE.

Laon may be absent from the house, but he is very much present in Cathy’s thoughts. She can’t go five paragraphs without mentioning some innocuous detail, fondly remembered from their shared childhood.

In youth, I had shared Laon’s restlessness. University had only nourished and nurtured his ambitions, but education had stifled mine. I had been taught to tame my wild impulses and desires that had agitated me to pain. I had folded it with my soul and learnt to drink contentment like you would a poison. Drop by drop, day by day. Until it became tolerable.

If this isn’t shades of Cersei & Jaime, mirrors cracked by patriarchy!!! Seriously this is exactly how Cersei must have felt, after 8 years of crossdressing in each other’s clothes, the day the master-at-arms put a sword in Jaime’s hand and she got… what, embroidery? Cathy cried the first time Laon went off to Latin & Greek lessons without her. He smuggles his books to her afterwards, of course, and they do spend plenty of time poring over the classics together. But it’s not the same as being granted that education in her own right. In the great tradition of clergymen’s daughters, Cathy is “genteel enough to be educated and accomplished, but never useful. Caught between the world of labour and that of letters,” she goes on to become a lady’s companion and later a governess—which for a gently-reared lady is a kind of social death. Jane Fairfax in Emma certainly saw it that way. Wellborn women generally embark upon the vocation of governess as an avenue of last resort. Which is to say, there’s not a lot of scope for independent ambition for a girl in Cathy’s position. She’s twenty-five when she comes to Arcadia, and what is incredible is not that she doesn’t mention any suitors or romantic dalliances but she doesn’t even mention any friends by name. It’s like her whole world is Laon, her thoughts are consumed by him, her memories are dominated by him. It must have been very lonely growing up on the Yorkshire moors.

When I was young and I walked on the moors with Laon, I could not imagine a wilder place, given over to nature. The biting chill in our faces and the mists hanging over the endless, treeless dales. We chased each other, through the rippling heather, through ruined farmhouses. We would pretend that we were the only people left alive in the world.

And so, here I was: clutching the compass he had left behind, knot tightening within my heart, under the light of the pendulum sun.

Mark that metaphor of the knot tightening around her heart—it will continue to crop up. She’s been in love with him a long time, even if she won’t admit it to herself. Ffs he left her a compass when he took up his missionary duties, and if that isn’t a metaphor for his heart I dunno what is.

Laon and I used to play games, scaring each other under the sheets … I still remember huddling against him, hooking our fingers together and promising under every token that we held sacred that if one of us were to die, we would come back and haunt the other.

This is at once wholesome and macabre—they would give up heaven and hope of salvation in order to HAUNT the other as a GHOST because they’re that scared of being separated from each other? ICONIC.

I longed to hear my brother’s sermons again. He had a passion that surged under the measured cadence of his voice and, more than that, I had begun to miss his discordant singing.

She misses his sermons! She misses his voice even if he can’t carry a tune! She misses everything about him!

I missed Laon. I used to tickle him in church to keep him awake. All too often, we’d giggle and bicker under our breaths until our father cast us a stern gaze from the pulpit and we’d silence. I’d keep holding his hand, though, as he needed my nails in his palm to not fall asleep.

He would reach across the table and wind my hair behind my ear. Reaching for a pin to secure the distracting hair, I told myself that it was nonsense to miss the softness of his touch or the stroke of his fingers.

That night, I dreamt. Laon and I were children again, when his hands were no bigger than mine. We were running, tumbling through the heather …

I tried to imagine his voice. I remembered the curve of his ears against my lips and the warmth of his hands in mine. We had not laced together our fingers for a very long time. He didn’t even shake my hand before he left.

This girl sure spends a lot of time thinking about holding her brother’s hand!!! Here the text begins to tease at the rupture that happened before he left, and the non-supernatural causes of their long estrangement. Oh here she is asking theologically thorny questions of her tutors at boarding school:

My palms stung for days afterwards as I was whipped for impertinence. I gritted my teeth through the pain as I wrote to Laon about it, my letters curling all wonky.

Awwww he’s her #1 confidante, the one she turns to for comfort and validation. It’s been tough not having him around these last few years:

More than ever, I missed Laon. I wanted to tell him about this, to press my forehead against his and whisper to him what I knew like old secrets shared in the dark under blankets and sheepskins.

It’s just that everyone seems to take Cathy for granted—offhand she says she’s darned more socks than educated young minds—and Laon is the only one who sees her and values her. Every memory of their childhood closeness is somehow sweet as well as mega suggestive?! Here are some more super suggestive lines:

”You don’t only ever want things you could have.”

”It is dangerous eating forbidden foods.”

That last line refers to the well-known injunction against mortals eating or drinking anything while sojourning in the faerie realm: Once you taste fae food the Fair Folk get to keep you forever. In the mythology of this story, it’s okay to eat as long as you sprinkle salt on it first. You have to put salt in everything you consume, though, even your hot chocolate—just another reminder that Arcadia is inhospitable and alien and if you set one foot wrong your soul is forfeit. For the moment Cathy is confined to the manor, because there’s a geas that guarantees her safety on the property but not beyond it. So she wanders around this creepy-ass house that features doors into empty air, lanterns guttering out, moths that eat away the ink on your parchment. The other inhabitants include: A ghostly housekeeper she never sees, a gnome handyman lately converted to Christianity, and a changeling fae girl who Cathy suspects to be her brother’s mistress. Cathy obtains the journals of Reverend Hale—the priest who preceded Laon—and sets to work deciphering them.

My brother’s house became to me a place of questions without answers.

Later on, when Laon returns, he straight up begs her to leave it alone:

”Don’t do this,” he pleaded. “Don’t try to solve this place. It won’t end well.”

This, of course, is the sort of admonition ignored by the heroine of every Gothic romance—warnings destined to fall on deaf ears as she plunges ahead to unravel the mystery. Ok but let’s talk about the scene where Laon comes back, encounters Cathy and concludes she is a PHANTOM conjured up to torment him:

”If you are trying to seduce me, spirit, I’m afraid I’m quite incapable at the moment.” “I … I am your Cathy. Your sister.”

But of course any spirit would take the form of his sister, the person dearest to his heart. “Seduce” is an interesting word choice, isn’t it? But listen to the way she says “your Cathy”!!!

”Why do you plague me so? Does it please you to see me like this? Have you tortured me enough?” ”Is it so impossible that I am indeed your sister? Can you not believe that I could and would follow you? Can you not believe that I have the strength and the love to come? Can you not believe that I would care—“ “Catherine!” His walking stick clattered to the floor.

And then he TAKES HER IN HIS ARMS. They fall down and roll around, his face muffled in her shoulder, and she “dared not look at him” which is code for “if I look at him I will kiss him” until they’re interrupted by a servant and guiltily spring apart. She’s so glad to have him back. Listen to the easy way they tease each other:

”Oh, hush, you are nothing like Lord Byron.” I took the page from him. “Your poetry is abysmal.” “Exactly like him then,” said Laon.

I SNORTED.

”You used to crawl into my bed when there was thunder. I was always fairly sure it was just an excuse, you would fall asleep so quickly when you clung to me.” “You were warm,” I muttered in half confession, avoiding his gaze. “And your bed smelt nice.” “My bed smelt of me.” My voice grew smaller and my fingers agitated. “Exactly.”

HE SMELLED NICE. And who can resist the all-powerful bedsharing trope amirite? The problem is, just because Laon is physically present doesn’t mean he stops being emotionally distant:

I found myself studying the rhythm of his gait, the set of his jaw and the weariness in his shoulders. There was so much between us that remained unspoken, and for all that I could read from the way he moved and held himself, it was not enough.

There are oceans of unsaid things between them. Plus, every time she lays a hand on him—and after their reunion it’s always Cathy initiating the touch—he acts like it physically pains him. How do you react to that, to your brother recoiling from you touch?

”I am not an ornamental hermit,” said Laon, his anger spilling over. I placed a hand on his shoulder and he flinched at my touch but calmed.

The sight of my own helpless brother disarmed me. I reached out a comforting hand to him, laying it on his shoulder … He leaned into my touch and I could see his demeanor soften before he pulled away.

”You need me here, Laon.” I put my hand on his shoulder; he flinched and pulled away. ”You aren’t safe here.” his eyes flickered to me and then away again. “It’s not about that … It’s not that I need you, it’s that I want—“ he stopped. His voice sounded as though it was about to break. He turned and simply left.

Laon does that at lot—breaks off in the middle of sentences. He’ll say things like, ”Is it not enough that—“ and then just stop. Like he has to clamp the words down before he can betray his true feelings to Cathy. He tells her she has to leave in two weeks, which is an entirely arbitrary deadline based on the fact that he can’t stop either worrying about her or wanting her:

”It is very dangerous out there, Cathy. In the mists. Anything … I cannot—“ “What cannot you do, Laon? … Have you not done it all? Have you not gone to university? Have you not left England? Have you not made yourself a grand explorer?”

What he cannot do, and what he longs to do above all, is protect her. He’s been petitioning the Faerie Queen to grant the Church some concessions, like license to travel & preach all over Arcadia, and it doesn’t sound like he’s getting anywhere. Cathy’s presence is both keeping him sane and driving him to distraction.

Though my eyes were on the fire, his were on me. I could feel his gaze on my skin and I ached to touch him again.

She ACHES for hiS TOuCH omg i am L I V I N G. Did I mention she DREAMS about him, like, constantly?

That night, I dreamt of Laon. He lay under a willow in a garden, resting his head on the lap of a pale, pale woman. She wound her arms around him and he sighed as she stroked his face … The dream continued for some time, and when I finally awoke, I found my eyes gritty and sore from unshed tears, and my heart aching.

She later recognizes the “pale, pale woman” as the actual Faerie Queen who invites herself to Laon’s house on a sort of Royal Progress. This is Cathy greeting the queen and registering that she’s the woman from her dream:

I withered under her gaze and that knot of pain in my chest grew heavier and tighter. She smiled, and I could see again those lips brushing against my brother’s ears.

The thing is, Cathy invokes the imagery of lips brushing against ears in reference to her own memories of growing up with Laon, “his lips brushing against my ear in mimicry of a secret.” It gets worse. She’s summoned to the Faerie Queen’s chambers and the bottom drops out of her stomach when she sees the bed:

I remembered attaching my green ribbons to our old sheets. They had been our mother’s in her dowry, and when Laon had inherited them I had sewn on the green ribbons on an extravagant whim. I had worn those ribbons in my hair running through the moors. I remember him trying to snatch them from me as we rolled about in the heather. Those were Laon’s sheets on Mab’s beds.

Those are literally the sheets that made up their mother’s trousseau, that Cathy herself had painstakingly embellished with her own handiwork. In an era when all your clothes and linens had to be hand-sewn without aid of machines, it was indeed extravagant to spend that much time adding green ribbons to a perfectly serviceable set of sheets. The symbolic significance though—Cathy would have sewn them on for Laon, would have expected Laon to sleep on them. WHAT KIND OF FUCKING MESSAGE IS THIS BITCH TRYING TO SEND??? Cathy can’t be blamed for wondering. It makes her blood boil to imagine Laon in the Faerie Queen’s arms. If the goal was to make Cathy insanely jealous by flaunting her hold over Laon, well, achievement unlocked I guess.

The Fairie Queen takes up residence. She insists on (1) a masquerade ball and (2) a boar hunt. The ball is a highly bizarre affair—the dancers are clockwork automatons, the guests materialize out of paintings—but one thing it does is force Cathy and Laon to confront their frankly off-the-charts level of physical attraction to each other:

He loomed over me and I felt that prickle of annoyance that I have known all my life about his height. “You— you’re…”he hesitated before finishing. “You’re quite pretty.” The knot within my heart tightened. I simply could not remember the last time he had remarked upon my appearance. He said nothing when I twirled before him in old dresses on the eve of my first dance at the squire’s house. Nothing when the village girls and I gigglingly contemplated the prospect of marriage and asked his assessment. Nothing when I attended his first sermon in my best dress and mother’s brooch. He must not have done so since we were children. My brow furrowed, trying to make sense of that knot within me. It ached with a visceral familiarity, as though I had borne it all my life without knowledge of it. “I’m sorry,” said my brother. “I should not have said anything.” “No … I hadn’t realized how long it was since you last said that.” A smile wavered at the corner of his lips.

”Cathy, do you think me handsome?” … I took a step closer, to see him better. A flush rose within me, unaccustomed to the nearness of him. Without asking, I reached behind him and undid the ribbon of his domino mask. It fell free of his face, and I kept staring. For the first time in a long time, I simply looked at my brother’s face. It was strange, as I had thought it so familiar, but it was to his moods and changes, the subtle quirk of his mouth or flash of his eyes …. Would she think him as beautiful as I did?

Ok first of all to reach behind someone’s head and remove their mask is the most intimate of gestures. Second of all, Cathy and Laon encounter another pair of siblings at the ball who are codependent as hell and not tryna hide it, of the “he stroked her hair with the lightest of touches…. she drew a nail across the skin of his jaw” variety. Those two are described as waltzing across the floor in a hold “too close to be decent,” which could also describe their relationship in general tbh. What’s interesting is that while Laon and Cathy do not waltz together at the actual masquerade, that night she dreams about waltzing with him. The significance of the waltz versus one of the regular old country dances is the waltz is deemed waaaaay more risqué; you spend the whole dance with one partner and there’s a lot more skin-to-skin contact. Halfway through the ball, the Faerie Queen claps her hands, dispels the illusions that festoon the hall and voila, the fae revert to their true shapes! The singing birds are revealed to be human prisoners in chains! Cathy’s elaborate ballgown disappears!

”Cathy …” My brother choked out my name. I looked confused at his face. He was staring at me intently. The hunger in his eyes was both alien and achingly familiar. That knot within me tightened and I felt a warmth spread across my skin. “You—“ His jaw clenched and his lips pulled into a tight line. He did not stop staring, though, even as I could tell he was trying to stop … I was completely naked underneath the gossamer thin fabric. I could feel my brother’s gaze upon my skin, his study of my shape.

He can’t tear his eyes from her naked body and I don’t care how cliched it is, I am HERE FOR IT. She flees up to her room then, and it’s in the context of her mortifying exit from the ball that she has the dream where she’s waltzing with Laon:

We were at once running through the heather and arguing over his departure to become a missionary. We were bickering over toy soldiers, getting lost in the garden. We were gazing upon our father’s coffin and despairing over our inheritance of debts. All moments of our intertwined lives tangled before me. I felt that old, familiar knot within my chest tighten. My fingers traced against his flesh and I found the words that were written there …. As I read his bound soul, his hands uncovered mine. We followed each unutterable word, each branded red and raw in the book of human skin … I found my own name written upon the book of his soul.

This is (1) unbearably poetic (2) inevitable. Their whole lives have been leading to this. And then the next day she confronts him in the stables before the hunt:

“You can’t do this alone. You need me here.” “You don’t understand, Cathy …” “If not me, then someone else, a wife, Miss Davenport.” My voice was hollow even to my own ears; I did not want him to marry. To utter the words twisted the knotted pain in my chest, the knot I did not want to give a name to. I remembered feeling it every time he flirted with another woman, every time the ladies at church would flutter by and giggle at the prospect of an attachment. I had carried it within myself for so long, heavy as a stone. For the first time, I felt the true weight of it, across my shoulders and tight around my chest. I felt a spinning sense of unbalance even as that weight and pain anchored me. “You need someone and it should be me. You should not be alone here.” “I want you here. More than anything.” “Then why are you sending me away?”

Do you hear that? The weight of her painful passion for her brother has anchored her for so long that she’s unbalanced by the loss of it. When she places the look in his eyes as lust, when the knot in her chest begins to loosen the tiniest bit, she’s flailing bc she doesn’t know what to do with herself. At this point I need to spoil the central twist of this story so I urge you all in the STRONGEST terms to please go read it then come back ok?

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

Gothic fiction is full of doubles. Not like, literal doppelgängers, but characters whose existence is designed to cast certain traits of the protagonist’s into sharp relief. Fresh off the boat the very first person that Cathy meets in Arcadia is Miss Ariel Davenport, the aforementioned changeling whose function in Laon’s household is unclear. Ariel is weird. She rambles on about esoteric subjects, asks non sequitur questions, and claims an unearned intimacy by calling Cathy by her Christian name. Ariel was swapped for the “real” Ariel Davenport as a baby, and grew up thinking she was human. Here’s how she found out she wasn’t:

”I do know I don’t need food. I don’t starve, I just feel hungry … Ariel Davenport’s family died in a workhouse. I watched them starve when I did not. Whatever fae gears were inside me kept turning.”

What a brutal awakening. Ariel talks a lot about how she doesn’t fit in, how she doesn’t really belong in Arcadia but when she tries to do human things like embroider a handkerchief or love someone there’s an offness to it:

”But it’s not quite the same. Doesn’t come naturally.”

Ariel’s name recalls the spirit from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, who also got a pretty raw deal—she was a genie-in-a-bottle enslaved to a magician with delusions of grandeur— and Ariel Davenport likewise never grows enough of a spine to openly cross her master. Her “master” would be the Faerie Queen, the one at whose court Laon is currently detained. She’s the one pulling all the strings. There’s a reason that Ariel was sent to stay with Laon and Cathy, and the reason, as you may have surmised, is that Cathy is a changeling too. DUN DUN DUN.

That’s the revelation that shatters her. It’s Ariel who discloses the truth to her, a truth the reader has probably divined already from other hints; it’s Ariel who, transfigured into various animal guises, is the quarry of the hunt. Cathy plunges a knife into Ariel’s heart (!) bc someone’s gotta do it, the Queen has decreed Ariel must die for sport and at least this way Laon’s hands will be clean of murder. It’s ok if Cathy does it, she tells herself, because she doesn’t have a soul. And the consummation of her and Laon’s relationship happens right on the heels of that, because you can’t really expect a mainstream audience to be invested in a love scene unless you assure them it’s not really incest since they’re not blood-related, so that checks out. She’s trying to wash Ariel’s blood off when he knocks on her door:

No, Catherine Helstone’s brother. I corrected myself … He was not mine to call my own.

I did not turn around. I did not want to see the look in his eyes. I feared his pity, his revulsion, his anger. I dreaded it all, but above all, I feared his absence.

Ahsjhdjfhdjfd he drops his greatcoat on the floor, rolls up his sleeves, and takes up a washcloth to bathe her:

”We used to share a copper bath like this by the fire,” he said conversationally. I could hear the strain in his voice, see the slight tremble in his motions. “When we were small enough to both fit inside the tub. You hated washing your hair because of the soap in your eyes.” Did I giggle when he upended buckets of water over my head or was I angered? Did I sit patiently as he scrubbed my back or did I squirm at his touch. The water was lukewarm but Laon’s touch was anything but cold. I followed his every movement, the nonsense patterns upon my skin. I was holding my breath, listening to his. I could feel him, warm and solid behind me, his breath hot on my shoulder, at the base of my neck. Shivers spidered down my spine and spread over me. I ached … And then, his hands were on me again, strong, demanding. I revealed in his force; it proved to me that I was not breaking, that I would not shatter. He tightened his grip on my hips and I gasped. Fleetingly, I felt real.

That’s the crux of it. Her entire life has been a sham; being loved by Laon is the only thing that’s left, the only thing that’s real. You can see her already begin to doubt her recollection of the past, wondering “did i giggle…? did i squirm…?” because HONESTLY IT COULD’VE BEEN INCEPTION. HOW DO U KNOW WHATS REAL. She’s spent the first half of the novel spinning us endless anecdotes from her childhood with Laon, and now this happens, it destroys the foundations of her identity:

All my memories seemed so distant. My imperfect, simulacrum mind with its imperfect memories … I told my youth to myself like a story, trying to remember who I was. I told myself about the little papers I wrote with Catherine Helstone’s brother, the names we gave the toy soldiers and the fantastical yet tediously mundane lands they explored … It all seemed so very insubstantial. Except that memory. I flushed warm whenever my thoughts brushed against it. Unlike everything else, I remembered with embarrassing clarity, every touch between us, every biting kiss and each hot breath. I was a moth, speared like a specimen by his scrutiny. I lay under him, pinned. His gaze, his touch, his grip made me real.

This is Cathy two or three days ago talking to Ariel about her earliest memory:

”I always liked to think that my first memory was of Laon. I was three, maybe and we were playing. I don’t remember what, but we were hiding under a table and we had to be very quiet. The tablecloth was red and I think I remember his fingers against my lips.” “Is it real?” “Of course it is,” I said. I touched my fingers to my mouth, lingering on that memory, the vivid feeling of his skin against mine.

If she doesn’t even have her memories of Laon, what does she have??? What is true and what is a forgery? This is from her waltz dream the night before:

We were surrounded by faceless automatons, by soulless far, by mindless beasts. He was the last real thing within these borders, under this unreal sun.

So the Queen and her retinue depart. Cathy and Laon are not atm seeing eye to eye because he’s wracked by guilt for the carnal sin they’ve committed, and she’s wracked by guilt because she, you know, murdered Ariel. I’m not at all surprised at Laon, though—this is after all the man who wrote in his journal:

Sometimes this cross is heavy beyond endurance. I carry it in repentance for the sins of my heart, for that is the same as the sins of the flesh. To look upon a woman in lust is to have committed adultery with her already . I know this and I bear it. I feel that I shall bear it for all my days.

For all his days, he says—he’ll go to his grave loving Cathy and that’s the tea. But right now she’s hurting, and she more or less keeps to her bed:

He did not ask if I was going to leave the room or when; he recognized this childish habit already. I had done it after the funeral of Catherine Helstone’s sister when I was seven and a half, then again for a while after her father’s. I remembered counting the threads in the quilt, willing my world to be just that warm, soft embrace. He had taken care of me then … He still gazed at me in hunger when he thought I wasn’t looking. I yearned for that closeness, that reality, but I could not bring myself to deserve it. Day after day, I ate because he bid me to.

He has looked after her in her grief before and he does so again now. She spends the next few chapters avoiding his name and referring to him as “Catherine Helstone’s brother.” What jolts her out of her funk is, one day they crawl into the belly of a beached whale and catalogue the wonders contained therein. It’s an adventure, and she doesn’t initially go willingly:

Deaf to my protests, he had gathered me into his arms, deposited me onto the floor and proceeded to roll my outdoor stocking onto my feet. Despite my squirming and kicking, he persevered.

Lmao this is peak sibling interaction. Once they’re inside the belly of the beast, of course, it turns into something else:

He was standing very close to me and all at once I was all too aware of him. I forgot why I was fighting so hard to put aside our attraction, forgot all the reasons I gave myself for why I shouldn’t. Each memory seemed to lead me inexorably to this point where I was standing before him, slightly too close and far too afraid. I had not wanted to give name to this passion, not wanted to acknowledge it. I could have gone to my grave not knowing why I felt this ache whenever I saw Catherine Hailstone’s brother. I could have passed this life blind of my own longing and ignorant to his. I could have … He was simply there, too close, too real and too beautiful.

So OF COURSE they tumble into bed in Cathy’s tower room amidst their scribbled notes (they’re working on translating the Bible because “the mother tongue is the best missionary”) and the ink is blotted onto Cathy’s skin holy shit how appropriate is that. All those Greek and Latin texts they pored over as kids, the sermons he practiced on her, all of that was leading up to this: Cathy Helstone, the wife and helpmeet that Reverend Helstone DESERVES. I am strongly put in mind of two other stories stop for a second and hear me out: (1) Pygmalion, the tale of the sculptor who falls in love with his own creation and brings her to life and (2) Tam Lin, the ballad about a fellow who’s abducted by the Faerie Queen and whose ladylove rescues him through sheer grit and pluck—her trial is to hold onto him and not let go while he transforms into every dangerous beast under the sun. In the beginning it seemed like Laon = Tam Lin but now it’s Cathy who’s fallen into the Faerie Queen’s clutches.

we lay curled up against each other like the working dogs used to by the fire. He looked over at me and with a lazy, contented smile on his lips, he said, “Cathy—“

”Don’t call me that,” I said, cutting him short. Panic welled up at the back of my throat at that name. “I’m not —“

”Cathy,” he said again, pressing his face against the curve of my neck. I felt his warm breath upon my skin and giddy pleasure spread from those lips; I calmed. “Let the other be Catherine. And you can be Cathy. You will always be my Cathy and you will always be my sister.” I raised an eyebrow at that, and he had the decency to look sheepish. “And other things, true,” he said. “But either way, you shouldn’t think of yourself as less real. And I do have to call you something.”

”I’m not real.”

”You feel real to me.”

I love how her being “other things” to him doesn’t in any way negate her being his sister. Lord, that “you feel real to me” is everythinggggggg. At the same time I can’t blame Cathy for being assailed by doubt:

”it’s possible that no memory before I set foot on fae soil is real … I can’t trust my own mind.”

”I know my sister like I know my own mind. I would know if you —“

”You thought I was an illusion created by the mists to torment you.”

”I had imagined you so many times … I knew I had to leave, I wanted you too much ��� So, believe me. I did not doubt you because you are not who I know you to be. I doubted you because of my own weakness. You are the sister I are up with, the sister I have loved and love now. And that’s all that matters.”

Laon goes as far as to try to obtain receipts to prove her realness: They attend a Goblin Market where everything is for sale—for a price. He offers to sell an arm, a leg, a lung and an eye in exchange for Cathy’s memories??? It’s half of him for half her soul, I guess. Find yourself a man who looks at you the way Laon Helstone looks at his sister:

”Cathy, I love you.” Unlike his earlier declarations, he said it quite plainly as though it were an observation about the weather … “I’ve loved you, adored you, desired you for as long as I remember … As a sister, as a lover, it doesn’t matter … You doubt the truth of your mind and your memories, and if this can give you answers … Then I’m willing to pay the asking price for that.”

This speech absolutely melted me. She talks him down from selling an arm for her soul, but I mean, as far as God’s concerned the way she feels about Laon skates perilously close to idolatry:

For all that we had the books of our faith before us, he stood between me and every impulse of religion, even as he reached out to me with the promise of intercessory grace, he eclipsed such hopes of heaven. I had made an idol of him, and for all my excuses that this but a return to the childish hero worship I had once had for him, this went deeper. When he clasped his hand around mine in prayer, when I knelt before him, I thought not of God, that Lord of Hosts, nor of Jesus, the Redeemer, but of him, simply and eternally.

So to recap: Laon and Cathy are holding onto each other for dear life in this godforsaken hellscape of a ruined castle-manor where the weather has to be summoned with arcane spells and the flowers, instead of thriving or wilting naturally, have to be individually painted with the change of seasons. Come to find out, they are literally in hell. Not purgatory, hell itself. Which would explain how all Laon’s proselytizing has amounted to one (1) successful convert. That’s a piss poor track record by any metric. And their lone convert didn’t even accept Jesus Christ as his savior on Laon’s watch. It happened when the other guy, Reverend Hale, was here. What happened was Reverend Hale’s wife decided to take her Communion bread unsalted, and was promptly CONDEMNED TO HELL FOR ETERNITY because remember the first rule of Arcadia: Don’t eat anything unless you salt it. She is the madwoman in the attic, the “woman in black” that Cathy has caught glimpses of from time to time. It was an experiment designed to show that God’s grace extended even unto Arcadia. It didn’t work, but I guess anyone who witnessed this crazy stunt would have developed a newfound respect for humans and their faith. What this means is that the madwoman in the attic is not after all the original Catherine. She is not Laon Helstone’s sister, which was the working assumption of both Cathy and the reader up till now.

A fire breaks out in the kitchen. Cathy and Laon are unharmed by the conflagration. This is because in the house they are still protected by the geas — the one that is centered on Laon, the one that Cathy was told extended to her too because “Blood binds blood. And blood knows blood.” But the entire point of Cathy being a changeling is that she does not share Laon’s blood. Something doesn’t add up. A rider arrives with a letter. It’s dated months and months ago, from the London Missionary Society. Someone has been carrying on a correspondence with Reverend Helstone’s sister in their name, but it isn’t them, and they sure as hell did not sponsor Cathy’s passage to Arcadia. The truth hits Laon and Cathy at the same time:

My mouth was a grave of words, each thought dying there and it was their rot that I tasted, that filled me with gut-wrenching revulsion. He laughed, threw his head back and just laughed. His wide shoulders shook with his senseless mirth until his eyes too were filled with tears. “I thought you were an apparition to tempt me.” His beautiful mouth twisted cruel. “I thought the mist spat you out to make me sin, to pull me down, to drag me to hell. I thought I could outrun myself, my own sins, my own sister. I thought—“ “Laon, no …” I wasn’t sure what I was objecting to, but I wanted him to stop. I wanted myself to stop. “But they did better than that.” I flung myself at him, covered his lips with mine. Tear-stained hands cupping his face, it was not a kiss so much as a hard, stubborn meeting of lips. It needed to stop. Everything needed to stop, to silence. Gasping, he choked out, “You’re my sister.” My cheeks were against his face and my tears were his. We were broken mirrors of one another. “You’re my sister,” he said again. He did not push me away.

!!!!! SHE’S REALLY HIS SISTER AFTER ALL NOT A CHANGELING IT WAS ALL PART OF THE FAERIE QUEEN’S PLAN!!!! Here she is confirming it:

”My grand scheme.” She made a gesture towards the clockwork that framed her throne. “The sins that I have set in motion, the gift that I have given you. Had I not summoned you to Arcadia, would you have seen these wonders? Had I not placed into my own home, remade for your pleasure, would you have realized your love?”

And it wasn’t like she lied about it—the fae can’t lie, after all. That’s why they’re so deadly at weaponizing the truth. She just left a trail of breadcrumbs and let people (aka Ariel) draw their own conclusions, and spill those conclusions to Cathy. You have to admire how elegantly she sprung the trap. And certainly neither Laon nor Cathy appears to regret falling into each other’s arms. It’s just that once again Cathy’s whole world has been turned upside down:

There was an acidic taste at the back of my throat … Our love had been the last pure, real thing that I had clung to and it was slipping away … Every kiss, every caress that had passed between us came to the fore of my mind, now tainted by new, old knowledge.

Okay but you know here is what else Cathy has also said on the subject of forbidden knowledge (one of the oldest senses of the verb “to know” is to know someone biblically):

The world was made with words. If I looked hard enough, I could read those words still. They flowed in the veins of the world, written on their seams. They told me this tree would reach the heavens. They told me nothing was forbidden. They told me knowledge could not be a sin.

Being expelled from Eden was not altogether a bad deal for Adam and Eve. And we are talking Edenic parallels here, since it’s revealed one of the Faerie Queen’s names is Lilith, aka Adam’s first wife. When I was younger and thought myself very superior I was of the Phillip Pullman School of “it is better to know sin than to remain ignorant and innocent,” but it’s not that simple. Cathy and Laon came to Arcadia to save souls; now it looks like they’ve lost theirs. Laon has spent more than half his life wrestling with theology: he is a preacher, and singularly unsuited to doing anything else. I keep circling back to that image of words written on the seams of the world, and I think about Cathy’s waltz dream where she read her name on the book of Laon’s soul, and the masquerade ball before that where they encountered the too-close pair of siblings whose skin was actually branded with words??? Not tattoos actual words of fire. Cathy could only kind-of read them, not being fluent in the Arcadian tongue. Cathy and Laon have spent half this novel translating scripture. Words are the building blocks of reality. If you notice in the passage where she finds out they’ve been sinning this whole time, it opens with “My mouth was a grave of words.” Anyway, Cathy is all to pieces because a person can only sustain so many blows to their sense of self in quick succession:

Lantern in hand, I drifted through the castle, numb from new knowledge: I was human. I was in love with my brother. I was in hell.

She’d need time to process even one of those revelations, let alone all three at once. And in the end they decide to stay in Faerie and do missionary work together. Because, Cathy points out, if “the mother tongue is the best missionary” and here they are in Hell, it can only help their cause that they are both fluent in sin. GIRL, A+ LOGIC. If anyone wants to read a short (<2k) fic about Cathy and Laon embarking on the next chapter of their lives, I highly recommend this one, where the Author’s Note muses, “What's the biggest theologically-evocative Molotov cocktail I could throw in their path?” and the story goes with “Cathy gets pregnant” asddfggkgjgk.

Friends, I do not scruple to say that Jeannette Ng has written the perfect incest book for me. I still can’t believe it’s an unabashed love story. Where the main pairing is canon and also endgame. It all unfolds inexorably, and when I found out Cathy was a changeling it didn’t feel like a cop-out, unlike other stories where “they’re stepsiblings!” or “one of them’s adopted!” absolutely does feel like a cop-out. Because Cathy’s identity crisis is at the core of the story. When I found out she wasn’t a changeling that felt inevitable too. It’s just such a powerful meditation on memory, that most fallible of human faculties. It’s such a power move to saturate the narrative with memories of Cathy and Laon playing as children, and then reveal that even those fragments aren’t necessarily authentic:

We chased each other through the mists, like we were children again, playing on the moors … Was I imagining now how much i had relished his closeness then? Was it simply newfound desire that was igniting all past memories or had I always flushed warm under his gaze?

It’s unlikely had they remained in England they would have gotten together. The Fairie Queen had to pull out all the stops for this to be endgame. Can we all just ... RESPECT.