(A/N): It's been so long since I've written anything for the MBS that I started to itch for it, and because I needed more female energy and adore her character, I decided to try and take Constance Contraire on. I dreamed up loads of my own head canon about her and while it's been sublimely entertaining, I leave it up to you to decide if I've done an acceptable job.
1. The two verses of poetry in this fic were written by the lovely Mike Hopkins. I do not take credit for them.
2. "Media res" is a Latin phrase for "in the middle."
3. L'appel du Vide: a French phrase that refers to someone who has the insatiable urge to jump (literally or figuratively) or to have complete, terrifying freedom.
...
...
Where to begin?
(At the beginning, the The Woman in the Red Raincoat will tell you. Starting with a high point is just a precious little toffee-nosed thing for those that don't have much to tell. Beginnings are important. Preparation, warming the muscles up and all that jazz. You wouldn't start a poem in media res, would you? Begin at the top and work your way down to the most stimulating parts. Anticipation. It's half the pleasure.)
…
The beginning, then, goes like this:
Constance is born Constance Olivia Penderghast, right in the heart of Stonetown, a colorful roar of fear and rebellion singing in her blood.
(The Woman in the Red Raincoat is born decades later, though, in many different places, from many different wombs.)
…
She never gets to know her mother and father. Ordinary people, they might have been. Or geniuses like herself, perhaps. Whittling away the hours by solving shimmering strings of equations and translating ancient Greek and dreaming up wild inventions that could very well set the whole world ablaze.
She'll never know.
All she can be sure of is the fact that they didn't want her, or didn't have the means to keep her. Both explanations taste acrid on her tongue.
…
No one teaches Constance to spit venom with grace and argue with passion, to read the funny black marks on the pages of her orphanage's books and plan her own escape, to construct ridiculous rhymes with their little sunbursts of truth and look upon the world with bleak ferocity, to tug on her scarlet raincoat and boots and march off to slay scaly creatures and answer a puzzling ad in a newspaper—
…
"Don't you understand how horrible it is being me?" she cries one dismal evening in Mr. Benedict's office, slumped haphazardly on a stack of Poe and Austen."I'm different!"
Says different like it's an insult of vile proportions.
"You are different, my dear," Mr. Benedict concurs, passing her a handkerchief over his desk. "But being regular is so dreadfully dull. You'd loathe it."
She shuts her mouth like a trap and rubs the tears away with a clenched fist.
"To become normal is to become mediocre, Constance. Remember that. You are something…more, something transcendent, something that defies any construct or label. You're like one of those galaxies Rhonda was talking about at dinner the other night, a blinding spiral of energy perpetually spinning in on itself, too far away to touch, to ever truly understand. But my, the challenge is sweet."
He slumps forward then, like a puppet with cut strings. She leaps to her feat as the laurel-crested mug in his right hand gives its contents up to gravity and splits cleanly in two with a muted thud against the floor.
…
It starts with a revolution, a battle. (It always does.)
She fights with her teeth and her elbows and her brain and her heart, ready to gouge McCracken's eyes out and chew them up herself. She's small for a twelve year old but Kate and Sticky and Reynie are much older and much bigger and just as furious and very present, so she isn't worried.
She pummels the ex-Ten Man until her knuckles ache and turn purple and even then she doesn't stop, doesn't stop until he gives up drawing the blade across Mr. Benedict's throat and stumbles in the wall as a result of Kate's prodigious shove.
"Let me have the pleasure of putting you back in custody," Constance hisses, leaning close enough to see the flint dancing in his cold eyes.
"Chickie," he spits, and Kate tightens her choke hold.
There are bloodstains on green plaid and Constance's ears are full of bees.
...
In the end, it isn't good that makes her who she is. It's evil.
Evil shows her what she doesn't want to be, what she must fight against. And it's a delicious brawl, especially because she wins.
(But don't give it all away now, The Woman in the Red Raincoat will say. It's just getting good.)
…
She goes to study poetry at Columbia because she is still so very good at crafting rhymes in two milliseconds flat and because intuiting patterns is what she does and even though she's bored stiff before midterms, she doesn't really mind.
(Because the City, oh, the City is something else. It's the Big Apple after all, and she's always loved apples dearly. Particularly when embedded in a golden flaky crust with an ample helping of vanilla ice cream on the side. Something she will never outgrow.)
Take what you wish from it, reads Mr. Benedict's letter. Leave the rest.
So she spends the year skipping irrelevant lectures and refusing to study the pieces her professors assign on account of her own personal selection, and a week before her final evaluation the head of creative writing department calls her into his office.
"Miss…Contraire, You strike me as someone who knows what she wants and is willing to work for her goals." He smiles at her. It doesn't soften his small, muddy eyes. "However, you seem to have misunderstood the course objective."
Constance folds her arms and swallows a sigh.
"You have been adamantly opposed to completing the assignments on your syllabus, and, while your dramatic readings of your original works are admittedly interesting, I'm afraid I cannot count them toward your grade. However, in view of your obvious potential I'd be willing to give you top marks at your upcoming evaluation, as long as you wouldn't be averse to giving me some compensation for my troubles." He leans forward. "You're quite intelligent, Constance. It's obvious that you are far above the caliber of your fellow freshmen. In fact, I've noticed you seem to be able to predict things in a way one might say verges on psychic."
She raises one eyebrow and gives a thin laugh. It's not like they don't both know where this is going.
"Are you aware of this ability, Miss Contraire?"
"I've been told."
"Well it may be of some use to me, you see."
He wants her to forecast lottery numbers. He wants her to tell him which stocks to invest in. He wants her to make him a wealthy man. How tiresome, she thinks, and mentally composes a quick stanza to abate her anger.
Your face is like a bag of boils
your hair is like Medusa's coils
your feet are like two fishing boats
your skin hangs like an empty coat
"Certainly, Professor Wilkes." She smiles brightly; a mask, and flicks an invisible piece of lint from her sweater.
Your brain must be extremely small
it rarely gets much use at all
thinking's not your cup of tea
you'd rather stroke your vanity
He narrows his eyes at her. "I'm glad you agree with me, Constance. How can I be sure you'll keep your word?"
"You are the one doing me a favor, aren't you?" Square the shoulders, smile wider, oh, you fool, you better run. "As you pointed out, it's in my best interest to keep you happy."
"Marvelous." He winks at her as he escorts her from his office.
Constance winks back, turns off the recorder in her pocket.
The following week she receives top marks without lifting a finger. When Wilkes calls her into his office afterwards with a razor-swathed smile, she simply laughs in his face, sends the recording to Columbia's board of education and the papers, and leaves campus in a whirl of fiery obstinacy. She doesn't come back the next year.
Or the year after that.
(Did you believe I would allow you to use me, Professor? she thinks to herself during the cab ride home. Dear me, no. I made your life hell without the barest hint of regret and I will do it again if I have to, again and again and again.)
…
People are terribly stupid, no need to be meek about that.
Brains are rumored not to go well with beauty, cunning and goodness are mutually exclusive, austerity and empathy will burn each other to the ground, humor cannot exist alongside angst, and The Woman in the Red Raincoat fulfills none of these stereotypes; smashes them to shards and smiles afterward; she recites Emily Dickinson in the shower and paints her nails burnt crimson, throws an absolute fit over the fact that her afternoon tea is missing three of its required grams of sugar and studies ravishing old scientists, swears like a sailor and looks like an angel: all gossamer blonde hair and blue glass eyes; pilfers money from strangers' pockets and twirls off to deposit it into the hands of the bedraggled men and women on the street corner, listens to Bach and Bowie while writing her verses and insults her friends in fits of such epic vitriol she blinds, threatens never to speak to any of them again and calls them over for sweets the next day with a face full of apology and amusement, says "good morning, it's a beautiful day" to people on the sidewalk and punches the young man who puts his hand on her knee in the jaw. The snapping of her eyes and frantic intensity of her mind and dogged mulishness of her character could bring the whole world to its knees, and, well, that's more or less what happens in the end.
…
"I'm tremendously proud of you," Mr. Benedict tells her, and Constance pulls him down to kiss his cheek and murmur "I should hope so," against the silver stubble there.
…
She's born Constance Penderghast, but elects to call herself Contraire during her stay at the public library as a little girl when she reads a French fairy tale and decides that contrary is a lovely thing to be.
(An ordinary person would have kept their name and been satisfied with being forgettable, commonplace, pedestrian. But where's the fun in that?)
…
France is glorious, really, the new flavors of people and their hidden motivations and desires obvious thanks to her sharp clairvoyance, and would you look at that, she's starting to make her way in the world. Most people don't like her and she doesn't like most people, but that's fine, they're bewitched by her anyway, and all she really needs is her pen and ink and daily dose of sparkling sugar, the rest is just details, just white noise.
She bumps into Sticky atop l'Arc d'Triomph.
"George Washington," she says by way of greeting.
"You!" he gasps and blinks so rapidly his left contact lens pops out.
She howls with laughter and helps him look for it. After that they pound down the stairs to the street and order ice cream from a weathered vendor.
"How is Reynie these days?" she asks, mouth cold and sweet with chocolate.
"Brilliant as ever."
"And The Great Kate Weather Machine?"
"A regular lioness. Pity you don't stay in better touch," Sticky says, looking at her sidelong.
"The train runs both ways," she replies. They don't say anything after that.
…
She wants vivacity and adrenaline and strange poetry and coffee so black it makes her teeth vibrate.
She gets trouble instead; a swelling tide of new Curtain supporters, who scare her more than she cares to admit, because she looks into their eyes and sees the emptiness. All they want is to tear the world apart. Her family and friends are clearly part of that equation and this makes her want to sharpen her nails and force the enemy to beg for mercy until it weeps.
Instead, she fills her pockets with rasberry scones and takes the first plane home.
…
The Woman in the Red Raincoat may not look very impressive at the outset, given her delicate figure, short stature, and cherubic complexion. (But don't let that fool you. She spits flame, this one.)
…
Ledroptha Curtain tells her she is like him.
"I recognize myself in you, my dear," he says, sounding terribly like Mr. Benedict. "You have no mercy, no patience for the tedium of humanity, no respect for civility or silly little manners. We are very much alike. Why, then, have you chosen this?"
He points to Mr. Benedict, captured at last and shackled to what appears to be an old medical examination table. A large blade attached to a crane, reminiscent of a guillotine sways overhead while Mr. Curtain clutches a black remote in his hand. Smiles.
Constance doesn't say anything.
"You're much too good for my brother. Or, should I say, bad for him." Ledroptha winks. "And you have such power, such ability. You could be great. You could have the whole world writhing at your feet. That's what you want, I can see it."
"False."
"Come now, Constance. Be reasonable."
"No."
"Fine. Shall I tell you what happens next?"
"Be my guest."
"That blade is sharp enough to cut Nicholas clean in half with very little time to prevent its happening. Did you know that?"
There's no time for idle banter, not when Mr. Benedict is chained and gagged and horribly unconscious.
"Get to the point," she barks. "Now."
"You have to make a choice, my dear," Mr. Curtain says cheerfully. "You can save him, or you can capture me. You can't have both."
For a moment, she wants control. Power. In the same way she itches to sit behind the wheel of a brand new Ferrari and drive it into a wall at three hundred miles p/h: with a mad rush of thrilling terror, a hungry tremble in her heart and a stone-set knowledge that she isn't going to do it, because she isn't tired of life yet.
(Because she is better than that. L'appel du vide won't claim her this time.)
Her voice is low and steady, belying not a drop of the turmoil she feels. "I can always find you later."
Ledroptha's face turns cold. "That's a naïve assertion, I'm afraid. If you let me go this time, you won't get another chance. You will never capture me. I will rule, and you'll be the pitiable, defeated woman who watched me walk away, the wretched little footnote in the pathways of history that never made it into the actual pages. You won't see me again until the day I take control of your little mind for the last time and then it will all be over. Shame," he murmurs. "I thought you were smarter."
The universe comes to a standstill.
And then—
"That's adorable," she says, drawing herself up to her full height, face strong and open like Joan of Arc at the helm of a great sea-fairing ship.
Mr. Curtain raises an eyebrow. "What is?"
"The fact that you're expecting me to hesitate."
Without another word, she flies over to the slab and begins picking the locks with her blessedly small fingers.
Behind her, Ledroptha's face is full of repulsed wonder. "My God, you're disgusting."
"Am I." Her eyes flicker over the series of chains and padlocks securing Mr. Benedict while keeping an eye on the blade creeping ever closer above their heads. It was gleams wickedly, like a single, curved snake's fang. Where's the pattern, where's the strategy; there has to be a way to pull him loose without releasing every lock—
"You could have had me in the palm of your hand; you could have ruled the world. But you give it all up for this, this slab of meat, this mess of flesh and muscle and organs? This useless, mindless, nauseating beast that spends its whole life rolling around in the mud and never thinks to look up at the sky?"
"If I didn't know better, Ledroptha, I'd think you were jealous."
There's a beat of silence. Then a rolling peal of laughter. "I see it now, Miss Contraire. I was giving you far too much credit earlier. You're not like me. You're like him. Practically molded in his image. You've dug your own grave, haven't you? Proven yourself just another insignificant worm. Well done."
"Love," she spits back, glancing at Mr. Benedict's chalky pallor and feeling her diaphragm constrict of its own accord. "You act like it's a weakness, a defect, but only someone damaged, someone like yourself; an orphaned little boy who felt sharply the absence of parental affection, would spend their whole life claiming invincibility from it. You must care very much if the mere thought of it revolts you to this extent."
She throws herself at the lock on the middle chain, gritting her teeth as the blade drops ever nearer.
"In fact, it seems you have done the opposite of escape love, Mr. Curtain. You're hopelessly entangled in it."
(And when all's said and done, she doesn't have to choose one outcome, does she? Because dear old Milligan, Number Two, Kate, and a whole score of others come charging onto the scene as glorious avenging guardians with smiles like gunfire and eyes like screaming bullets. They bring Ledroptha Curtain to his knees and tie him up, and Milligan has to stop Kate from kicking the man's face into a concave profile. And in a turn of events that makes The Woman in the Red Raincoat question her religious beliefs, the final lock snaps open; a miracle occurring right before her eyes, and she pulls the slumbering Nicholas Benedict to safety just seconds before the blade comes swishing through the air, leaving a great gouge in the iron slab. The angel has been saved and the devil's got his comeuppance, and nothing could be more perfect. I don't play by the rules, she tells Mr. Curtain, stooping so she can look him dead in the eye. Well, actually, she says "I don't give two mules for rules," and leaves him kneeling in the rubble of his own creation.)
…
"You're very brave," Mr. Benedict murmurs, smiling wanly at Number Two as she swathes him blanket after blanket. "And I thank you."
"Well." Constance is gruff. "My motives weren't entirely selfless. I can't pretend your death wouldn't destroy me."
Number Two makes a noise of agreement.
"In any case. Thanks to you I am still alive, with plenty more years to 'roll in the mud,' as it were."
"You heard that?" she asks, tracing the spine of an outdated astronomy text with a callused fingertip.
"Perhaps."
They look at each other, then, and there are two smiles that could topple the whole world.
…
The sun rises one one side of the earth and sets on the other, and The Woman in the Red Raincoat pulls herself from the ashes like some strange sort of phoenix. Sheds her skin. Stands pink and fresh in the new light. (Her armor, though, she keeps immaculate.)
She lets great Italian poetry soften her tongue, lets her hair loose in gauzy waves, wears red lipstick during the day and unfashionable reading glasses at night. She could have any number of research institutions eating out of her hand, but she's had quite enough of that and feels like a rest is in order. Her verses become the pride of a dozen street corners, her defiance the talk of the city, and one day, she walks into a flower shop, buys a hefty bouquet of red carnations, and hands them out to passers-by, because she can, because it's a crisp spring day and things are turning out after all.
When a small boy compliments her ruby galoshes she laughs and gives him an extra carnation and a kiss planted atop his curly head.
(While her insides bloom with the notion that she is changing, surely as the seasons. She is changing for the better. Yes, indeed.)
…
The world is your oyster, Mr. Benedict said once.
A quick glance in the hall mirror shows that her eyes snap like flashbulbs and her cheeks are as rosy as her raincoat and she looks, feels ready to approach the future. (That great, bottomless void.)
So she steps into the downpour. Peers into the abyss.
Lets her weight tip her over the edge.
.
.