So Long, Pierrot
Fifteen years, seven goodbyes. They say you can never go home again. Wammy's.
Winchester wore autumn in a lavish way. The early falling leaves gilded the sidewalks in frail, gold plates that, at the right angle, could be mistaken for yellow bricks in a road that wandered as far as one's imagination wanted to take it. A haze hung low in the streets. The sky was overcast. As afternoon turned to evening, what little light there was vanished completely behind the hills to the north. Quaint store fronts and porticos lit up and, on this particular night, will-o'-the-wisp pumpkin lanterns danced in the streets of the city center.
"Happy birthday, L!"
The decorations in the dining hall served a dual purpose, just like the day. Streamers hung in paper boughs from the ceiling and in thresholds, and pumpkins (carved and transformed into lanterns with well placed tea candles and consideration paid to ventilation) lined the room on tables arranged for the occasion. A couple of the kids had forgotten to vote on their favorite due to the distraction of biscuits and cakes and candies all laid out on festive plates with napkins to match. While it was true the orphans had helped decorate quite a bit the day before, it was the caretakers and matrons and the headmaster's effort going to waste.
The birthday boy spent Halloween camped out in the music room. There, he carefully sorted through the handfuls of candy and goodies offered by his peers as gifts. In all honesty, it was an awful place to undertake the task. By midnight, the grand piano's closed lid served as nothing more than a snack tray, wholly covered by at least twenty types of colorful pastries and treats. In spite of appearances, the expensive instruments in the room survived without even a crumb being spilt upon them.
He moved like a spider, at times even seeming to defy gravity as he bent to retrieve a cookie or gumdrop from any number of sugary towers. This time, a long, slender arm reached out to accept a kebab of chocolate covered fruit from a towheaded boy half his age.
"Thank you," L replied perfunctorily, already taking the kebab's stick between his index finger and thumb. Mindfully, he maneuvered it over his cache of small cakes, and there, impaled it in am appropriate, spongy base that would both support the kebab's weight and collect whatever chocolate dripped down its delectable length.
The little boy had disappeared by the time L looked up again, and in his place was the haunt of all the halls, the old master of the house, Quillish Wammy. If it were any other child perched like a lizard on the piano bench, Quillish would have been horrified. But this was not the case. This one was special. For this one, there were few rules. So, in a voice untarnished by anger or upset, he told his protégé, "the car is ready."
This news seemed to alarm the boy, for his wide, always curious eyes drew a fraction of a hair wider. As he surveyed his sugar fortress, there was a touch of despair in his expression. "Has all of my equipment been loaded yet, sir?"
"Yes, L. We had to put it in another car. The driver has set off already."
"And my wardrobe?"
"Everything is in order. All we are missing now is you."
"I see," L replied, tugging thoughtfully at his lip. "Wammy, sir, I require boxes." Stretching forward over the piano's uncovered keys, L took a miniature chocolate pie from a miniature chocolate pie tower; and he popped the desert in his mouth with a haste unknown to him in regular circumstance. Taking note, Quillish went to fulfill the boy's latest desire.
Thirty minutes later (and thirty minutes late), Quillish finally managed to coax the boy into the car. The case of birthday deserts sat up front, next to Quillish (because he trusted no one else to drive this car with this precious cargo), while L rode in back. The dark of the night had taken hold by this time, and mottled shadows swam across the leather upholstery and forced a pale and dingy hue onto the food color rainbow of cakes and cookies spread out in the back seat. Moments unintruded by street lights grew fewer and fewer as the roar of air traffic overhead became louder and louder. If not the noise, then it was the sweets kept him going like the energizer bunny. There was no time to sleep.
As soon as they reached the tarmac, one of Quillish's staff was informing them that the luggage was aboard and their private jet was ready. The pleasant smile the man paid his employee harbored more than just satisfaction with a job well done. He turned his smile on the boy at his side, but L was too busy looking at everything to indulge the old man in his selfish and selfless gratitude. This aircraft was the one L had told Quillish to buy with the money that L had earned for him and his legion of snot nosed, sad faced orphans. In his mind, L overlaid the jet with a wireframe of the blueprints he had studied. When they came to the stepladder, Quillish stood to the side and gestured for L to hold the rails and ascend. Despite the documentation and his spatial expectancies, L was briefly stunned at the sight of the mechanical monstrosity he was being asked to board.
The interior of the craft was luxuriously furnished, but all its delicacies were difficult to distinguish for the massive load of suitcases and chests stacked into the passenger's space. L moved across the fuselage to the window on the other side, and he drew its cover out of the way. As the wide and empty dark of Winchester stared back at him, L heard Wammy move off the steps and into the jet. No, it was more like he felt it happen, like he was compressed within the space as the old man set his hands on the door. The airlock might as well have been a welded rivet.
For all its prelude, this case—this German, serial murder case—L had insisted taking up, on traveling for, was losing its resemblance to the benign puzzles Wammy's House provided him. From where he stood on the crunchy Berber carpet of the jet, the great unknown soared out in all directions. Considering what would one day stem from this moment, maybe he should have been a bit wary of leaping into the dark. He wasn't, though. He was too eager to get lost in it.
It was a good thing L was leaving. He felt this way, at least. The orphanage wasn't a suitable place for him anymore. Even though Quillish had promised most of the children would be moving to other institutes soon, L didn't ever intend to return home. What used to be home, anyway. The old man was making room for something, or someone, and L wasn't entirely sure he wanted to find out what it was.
"Now then," Quillish said. It was such a useless thing to say. He only meant to make a noise that would shake L from his daze. He motioned toward the cockpit.
If any phrase in the world was unfit to hold its meaning, it was this one—this little, soft, unassuming, "I know, sir," that the fifteen year old L spoke before passing by his handler on the way to the pilot's chair.
Like most of what I've been publishing lately, this fic was started a long time ago and I've only recently gotten back to it. This'll be the first story I post as it is written, piece by piece, which is something I've shied away from in the past because, well, this chapter took me a year to write. I can only imagine what update-nightmates lie ahead! Stay tuned if you dare.