Title: Hail Mary
Synopsis: I am normal. Just the way you found me. Right, Elliot? Amen. /Spoilers for Retrace 60/Leo stream-of-consciousness/
Rating: T
A/N: I had the urge to write something angsty in the style of William Faulkner. More precisely, the Quentin section of The Sound and the Fury. So voila. I bet Faulkner is rolling around in his grave. A few notes: The prayer used is the Hail Mary, which Catholics use to redeem themselves for their sins with a rosary—I believe; I'm Jewish and hate doing research. The book that is being read is Ovid's Metamorphosis. It's in Latin. … Yeah. This is weird.
Disclaimer: I don't own Pandora Hearts, its wacky plot or insane characters.
…
"Old Mary full of grease Old Mary Sister of mine
Your heart stops within you
Scary are the fruits of your tomb
And harsh are the terms of your sentence.
Mother to the world
Carry this burden now
Until the moment of your last breath.
-The Dead Weather
…
I wake-up from something that is not sleep. More like a haze. My eyes are shut but I keep replaying over and over and over and over and over the scenes over and over and over and over and over and over and trying to change what happened but never being able to change what happened. That's it—going crazy.
They usher me from my bed to the room. Plain, simple, boring, horrid. Where is the Nightray mansion now? Where is the House of Fianna? Where are you, Isla Yura and your mansion? When I was a kid I would look out into the sun until my eyes would just turn blank and unable to see anything. It's sort of like that now, except all of the light is gone and I just can't see at all.
"The funeral was this morning," the guard tells me. It's always a guard who tells me. "There weren't many people there, I don't think." I wonder if the mansion has burned down, or if there are some remnants left. Maybe a head, or two, or seventeen, or a thousand heads dripping with blood, heads still attached to their necks by a string of flesh, heads rolling around laughing with words they can no longer say.
I can't say anything. Or maybe I say something. I can't tell at this point. My mouth moves separately from my brain. It has for a while, now. It has since Elliot realized what I had done to him. The knife that I had plunged in his back. The words I want to say are trapped in my throat; it's like my head is a different entity from the rest of my body and-
"I feel sick."
I don't have the right to feel sick. I don't have the right to care about myself at all. I should repent. I should repent. I should repent. I should repent for my sins because that's all that I have. Old Mary, full of grease, your heart stops within you. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. I have no rosary. I have sinned, Elliot. Can I make it better?
Oh god, Elliot.
The Pandora member looks at me, eyebrow cocked like a gun. "Can I get you anything?" Guns, blood, rolling heads. Elliot?
Hail Mary.
"Anything at all? You really look like-"
I think I begin to scream. Actually, I'm quite sure of it; my mouth is moving, isn't it? What else would it be doing? I want to laugh, but I scream. I bang my fists against the wooden table in front of me. When did I leave my bed? Pray for us sinners, now I try to stop. Now I have to stop. Elliot would not want this, would he? Or maybe he'd want me to.
Holy Knight. Edgar. Elliot and Edgar. Is he Edgar? Dying alone. Dying alone on a hill like Edgar, not asking for help. Not asking for help. Do I care? I hate those books. I always have. Always pretending to like them for Elliot. Always pretending to care for Elliot. All I cared for was you, Elliot. All I care for is you, Elliot.
Why is the sun shining in my eyes like that?
"Look, you need to calm down." The Pandora Member has a hand on my shoulder. I shudder. I am unclean, not fit for human contact.
Elliot. Where are you, Elliot? I need you, Elliot. So where are you? Weren't you the one who was supposed to save me? You saved me, Elliot, but I could not save you. Oh god, Elliot. Where are you? Statice, Elliot. Unchanging. The language of flowers, you girl. You told me in the language of flowers. We'd be together. Not like a flower.
I stop. "Are the daffodils blooming?" I ask.
Oh, it's just the reflection off of my glasses. Ha. Hahaha. Ha.
Hey Leo, Elliot tells me. Do you know anything about myths? I shake my head. That's not too interesting, I think. I think, I like detective stories more. There's one about this nymph, Echo, he says, pointing to the book he's reading. And the man she loves, Narcissus. I don't care. Old Mary, full of grace. He's so vein that he falls in love with his own reflection while she can only repeat his name over and over again. Your heart stops within you. Harsh are the terms of your sentence. He turns into a daffodil. You girl. At the end of all of these, there is a change. A metamorphosis-
Changing changing changing changing, stop changing! Statice, Elliot! Statice!
The man scratches his head. "What?" Ignorant. Always look at the daffodils. Except, now there is no sunlight, so the daffodils can't grow. But you should always look at the daffodils.
"Or the lavender?" The statice. "The lavender?"
Why do you read that? I ask him. It's in another language.
My head is down on the table and little wet pools form under my eyes. "Do you know the language of flowers?" I ask him. I get no response. "I didn't know the language of flowers," I admit. "But for him, I would learn. I would do anything." I pause. "I did everything. I read Holy Knight."
He frowns; he always frowns like that. In that same way. With his eyes still so brilliant and shining and full of something and everything that I can't have and will never have and want to protect within him so he'll always remain- Why not? He asks me. I know the language, so there's no reason not to. He always knows the words to say. Did you ever learn…?
I shake my head. "No, that's not true. I didn't do everything." I could have left. I could have left and never gone to that orphanage and never have agreed to be a servant and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
"Crazy," the guard whispers under his breath.
I hear everything. Carry this burden now. "Crazy," I agree. Until the moment of your last breath.
I can teach you. He tells me. This is not the first time that he offers to teach me something. I decline. But it's beautiful. So are you, I want to tell him. And every story that you read can really trace itself back to this. He points to the old, old, moldy, moldy tome in his hands. It's beautiful. But you are the only story I want to be a part of. It's not too hard.
Let's run, Elliot. Let's run far away far from Sabrie far from Reville far from Isla Yura far from Humpty Dumpty far from the Abyss. Just you and me, Elliot. Just the two of us. Statice.
"Oz," I say. "Did he go to the funeral?" I ask.
"Vessalius?" the guard asks.
"Yes, Vessalius." I didn't stutter, I don't think. I am okay. I am normal. Perfectly normal. Right Elliot? Just the way that you found me. Perfectly normal. "Was he there?" I ask. "Did he see Elliot off?" The way that I could not. Hail Mary, I was not invited.
Do you see the way that he writes this line? It's about Apollo killing a snake with a bow and arrow. It's shaped like a bow. It's a word picture. He's beautiful. He knows so much. He put so much thought into this… He smiles. It's like music.
The guard stops and thinks. "No, I don't think I saw him there." Elliot's two best friends. Neither of us there. Neither of us care, do we? Right, Oz? Right, Elliot? Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Me and Oz, me and you, Oz, we're both headed for the same place, Oz. At the hour of both our deaths.
"He promised me," I tell the guard. It's a secret. He can know, now. It doesn't matter, now. The daffodils have bloomed, now, and so has the lavender, so it's okay, Elliot. I promise. It's okay. "He promised me that Elliot would be okay. I made him drink the blood because he promised me that he would be okay. That's all I wanted."
Maybe I'm screaming now.
"He promised that Elliot would be okay." A cold hand on my shoulder. It's not the guard's.
I want to tell him to stop, but I can't. I am too engulfed. Teach me, I tell him. Please, Elliot, teach me.
And I would stare into that light for as long as I could until I needed to shade my eyes. The world is so ugly. The sun was so beautiful. It hurt to stare, but it felt so good. It hurt so good. It hurt less than everything else, so I would stare and stare and stare and stare and stare until I could stare and stare and stare and stare and stare no more and it was beautiful. It is not beautiful. Now.
Elliot, where are you?
Cold hands on my shoulders. Cold hands up and down my bodies. Choking me. My neck… Is it attached to my body? Heads rolling. Heads rolling. Heads rolling.
"Calm down!" the guard screams at me. Was there another guard in there? Someone is holding down my arms. My legs flail beneath me and my mind is miles away. "Calm down, you lunatic!"
Torture me, please. Kill me. Whip my skin until I bleed. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. I deserve it. Do it. Kill me. Make me bleed like Elliot.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
And I remember the nursery rhyme, then. "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall," I tell the guards because they have probably forgotten. They still have something to live for, probably. They still have a reason to breathe, probably. I am the one without meaning, the one without life, the one who has sold their soul. Cold hands.
His face lights up. Really? He asks. I nod. Okay, he says, pulling a notebook out of a book bag. Let's begin.
Isn't it funny how it's ended? The daffodils have wilted, Elliot. Don't you notice? Can't you see? Where are you? Full of grease. Let me redeem, Elliot. Tell me what I need to do. I'll do it, Elliot. I'll do anything for you. Please kill me, Elliot, Oz, Glen, anyone. Please, let me die for this. I am unworthy. I am unclean unclean unclean unclean unclean unclean. I stepped on the lavender.
I learned, Elliot. Want to hear? "Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum." I grin. "Humpty Dumpty had a great fall." Hahaha. Teach me Elliot, teach me.
They no longer have my arms; I'm free. Free, free, free, Elliot. Free like you promised me, Elliot. Where's the sun? "Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus."
"The hell is he rambling about?" One guard asks the other. The other just shakes his head in despair over the crazy boy and his crazy ranting. Crazy, crazy, crazy. That's me. Crazy.
This is for Oz. Oz, you promised me that you'd kill me. Oz, you told me that you would save Elliot the same way that I would. Remember? "All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again." I pause. "Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae." Repent with me, Oz. It's beautiful. Hold my cold, cold hand.
"Hold him down," the one guard says. Not again. Oh god, oh god, oh god, not again. Elliot.
You learn quickly, he tells me. It's the teacher, I tell him.
"Amen." They hold me down.
My face is wet as I laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh. It's glorious, isn't it? That this is going to be my end? Kill me, I want to scream. But I only laugh. The Abyss corrupts, doesn't it? Kill me for the good of humanity. So that I may never corrupt another beautiful person again.
"Old Mary, sister of mine, the Lord is with thee." No, no, no, no, no. That's not right. "I love you." I squint, trying to see if there's some sunlight left. Nothing reflects off of my glasses. "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen." There's nothing there. "Amen." There's no one there. "Hail Mary," I say, but no one hears me. "Elliot," I whisper, but there's only darkness.
Amen.
…
Fin