In the room I knew which cloak was Carrie's, it was soft and full and blue like Marin's sea and the sky above it near where cliffs grow rugged and blackened chips of them rattle into the foam and are swallowed and are forgotten even by birds who used them for creche
and table and courting stage, and in the room, too, was Esme(e)'s cape swirling rich round her long shapely legs a tumult of subtle maroon.
        A sad hue, some thought, but I knew better. It was magnificent, as was she, and suited her and  magnified her and drew her to the faultless lights in corridors of theaters and opera houses, entryways of lauded mansions, solemn halls of law and legislature
where she swept up eyes and every yearning heart though she would remain still as the cutting blade once finished.

There were, in that room, other things of Esme(e)'s. I could not help but see them and in seeing know them.

In the soft secret of the night only then trembling comes the hope of escape. Like a whisper through the fruited grove left abandoned 1 might expect during the darkness by bird and bug and animal and thief forgotten 1 might think with reason and be wrong.
There was no escape for me.
Had they known it all along?
They were not indiscriminate in  songs, costumes, smiles, tales, secrets. Invitations.
It may not have been an invitation but a warning. Equally impossible to ignore.
Had they known this?
Sad hue, sad seconding, sad and worn the cape the last I saw of it. I knew it, of course.

        They possessed her lustre. They took her light. They waited for her  gift of her as did many. (1 did not need to know Esme(e). Seeing her 1 desired only to know her; desiring brought the quickened vital beat which engendered knowing or so 1 thought, wanting so desperately, purely.)
        The room was possessed of her glories and echoed with her sadness. For Esme(e) sadness was no lingering malaise, no moist and hopeless sorrow but rather a proud and strengthened adversary worthy and demanding never relinquishing and never abating, never lessening the gripping challenge and like a foul sliver driven to the quick of 1's heart not potent enough to kill, not small enough to slough or swallow and heal that majestic heart,
that treasured, incomparable heart whose nature formed from breath of Esme(e)'s spirit
never before known.
        Goddesses, heroines, gods, heroes, sprites, demons, griffins, and gnomes, what did they know of it? They could not see it, they could not recognize it, and so they could not envy it 1 might think.
        I discovered other.
        Before that I knew it.
        I could not save what was unsavable.
        I could not free myself and remain myself sunken into caverns, courtesies, clever with glaceed reproach.
        It was inevitable.
        Marzipan hid the knife of destruction sugared desolation how much more did Esme(e)'s courage and intrepid spirit demand, did demand more than any immortal could withstand
and so they did not need envy or anger or impatience to act; I could see that; I could see that coming.
        Esme(e)!