for the love of leaves
a/n: yes, i have officially lost my mind.
It started off as a leaflet machine. A leaflet machine that was old and barely worked anymore. For the most part, Mary Lou spent more time yelling at it than actually printing leaflets.
The simple fact was that the leaflet machine was too old and feeble to print something as large as a leaflet anymore. But as Mary Lou would learn, that didn't render it entirely useless.
One afternoon, while she was making pea soup for lunch, Credence found some leaves that had somehow gotten inside the church. Being a small child, he decided to try putting the leaves into the leaflet machine. He experimented with sticking one leaf into the machine and pressing the red button, smiling slightly to himself when the machine produced twelve identical leaves, one of which landed perfectly in the pot of pea soup.
Credence was most likely expecting to be punished for making a mess, but the truth of the matter was that Mary Lou had always liked leaves. For years she had dreamed of filling the church up with leaves, but she didn't know exactly how or where she would get all those leaves. But if the leaflet machine could be used as a leaf machine...then Credence had just solved all her problems.
In fact, Mary Lou was so excited to begin her leaf journey that she didn't even mention how Credence had ruined a pot of perfectly good pea soup. She simply took some more peas and started over. Once the soup was returned to the stove, she turned to him.
"Credence," she told him. "Go outside and bring me all the leaves you can carry."
.x.
As the years passed, the leaves multiplied. When Chastity and Modesty came along, they too were set to work gathering leaves and maintaining them, thoroughly washing whatever leaves wound up on the floor. But the more leaves they accumulated, the fewer places there were to store them.
On more than one occasion, Credence opened the icebox and leaves spilled out. Chastity regularly had to pick leaves out of her shoes before she put them on. As for Modesty, at one point she went missing for a few hours, and just when Mary Lou concluded that she'd run off somewhere, she accidentally bumped into a pile of leaves and discovered that Modesty had been under it the entire time.
Whenever it became clear that there was just no more room for all the leaves, it always seemed like more would immediately appear, tucked into clothes and hiding under pillows and even clogging the toilet. Sometimes the children would wonder exactly how Mary Lou didn't notice that they were all drowning in leaves.
In time, they would learn that it wasn't that she didn't notice. No, not at all.
.x.
For Mary Lou, the leaf machine wasn't just a contraption that made leaves. Really, it hadn't been for a while. Almost immediately it became a companion, and sometimes she would stay awake with it late into the night, sharing secrets and swapping pea recipes. But the day eventually came when Mary Lou and her leaf machine required a bit more from each other. Something a bit more...personal.
As she claimed, the leaf machine was growing more insistent, and Mary Lou would sometimes have to tell it that now wasn't the time for that. But when it was in fact the time for that, she discovered that the leaf machine made quite a glorious partner indeed.
As for Chastity, well, she doubted she would ever forget the time she opened the door to find Mary Lou with the leaf machine in an embrace, muttering, "My leaf machine...my beautiful leaf machine..." in her sleep.
help.