Chapter One: Promise
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No one inside the car was speaking. The only sounds were that of raindrops drumming on the windshield and the faint rasp of Hound's snores. Martin Penderwick kept his eyes on the road, hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles looked as if they would burst out of his skin. His face was oddly twisted and, behind him, Jayne was reading The Wizard of Oz through a stream of noiseless tears.
Rosalind sat numbly in the passenger seat. She was lost in a vortex of shock and grief; her skin itched and crawled with the horror of it. Everything was wrong, everything was empty and lacking and unfamiliar, and it made her want to vomit.
Her father swung onto Gardam Street and pulled into the driveway. And, without a word, Rosalind wrenched the car door open and took off down the street. She was running and tripping, her shiny new dress shoes flying off her feet and landing in a puddle somewhere behind her.
She tore past rows of technicolor mailboxes and neat little beds of flowers that reminded her of death and feeble condolences. The sting of asphalt on her bare feet faded as she sprinted onto the stretch of weeds and grass at the end of the street, and into the Quigley Woods.
She stopped beside a colossal tree stump, and bent double, struggling to taste oxygen. She had thought she was ready. She'd thought she had prepared herself for the great loss. Yet here she was: good, well-behaved, responsible Rosalind bolting barefoot through the woods, as though she could escape the devastating reality of the situation if she just ran a little farther.
She sat down in the mud. The air was thick with the sharp scent of crushed pine needles and she breathed deeply, fighting back a shiver. What would happen, she wondered, if she did not bother with going home and simply left herself to crumble away? After all, life had been turned on its head with vicious finality, and she no longer recognized anything. She could stay right here, gazing unseeingly into the distance. Rotting away. Already dead.
"Rosy?"
Rosalind looked up and saw Skye staring at her from several yards down the path. She looked small, like a little blue-eyed apparition. Rosalind wished she would leave.
"Are you okay?"
Skye's voice trembled on the last syllable, and Rosalind watched her, unblinking. It was a ridiculous question. Of course she wasn't okay. None of them were okay. This was her sister being perfunctory and polite, and it infuriated her. She never lost her temper or displayed intense emotions of any kind. At the age of eight, Rosalind was already adept at expressing herself with eloquence and grace. But she couldn't do that now. Not this time. She desperately wanted to tell someone how she felt, but the right words didn't seem to exist. Nothing in the English language would ever do justice to the pain inside, which bled outward like an inarticulate wound.
"No," she said finally, in little more than a whisper. "Are you?"
Skye shook her head, flinching as a raindrop struck her cheek and trickled down it like a tear.
"Come here," said Rosalind. She struggled to her feet and held out her arms to Skye, who hurtled into the embrace with shocking speed.
"Shhh," Rosalind murmured, as Skye began to sniffle. She pressed her cheek to the top of Skye's blonde head and closed her eyes.
"I don't want to her to be gone," Skye said, after a moment of tearful silence.
"Neither do I."
They pulled back and looked at each other.
"Batty won't remember her."
"No," said Rosalind. "She will. We'll make her remember. We'll tell her stories about Mommy and how much she loved us, and how she laughed when you tripped in the middle of the supermarket and spilled tomato puree everywhere."
"That wasn't funny," said Skye.
"Promise me you'll help her remember," Rosalind continued. "Swear it."
Skye worked a muscle in her jaw and rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand. "I promise," she said. "I don't break my promises."
"I know."
They were linking pinkies when their father came running toward them, glasses askew and in danger of falling off his face all together. Jane was bobbing along behind him, looking nervously at baby Batty, whom their father was clutching under one arm like a football.
He skidded to a stop beside Skye and Rosalind, manuevering Batty into a safer position while wrapping his free arm around them. Rosalind smothered her face in the sleeve of his suit jacket—which still smelled horribly of white lilies and candle wax—and cried.
Later, she could never recall how long she and her family stayed in the woods, murmuring broken things and smothering sobs. All she could remember was the way they held each other—not moving, just breathing.
Connected, as the storms of pain roiled on the horizon and they existed in the eye of it all, together.
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(A/N): This is an ongoing collection of one-shots and other shorts from the Penderwick universe. Each chapter is stand alone. Some are gen, and some are Skye/Jeffrey or other pairings. This is just a little bit of everything :) We'll see what kind of response I get on this one and that will help me decide if I should continue. And please, prompt me! I love a good prompt. :D
Infinto Tempore is a Latin phrase that means "infinite moments," or "infinite time."