Perception
Part Two – Suspicions
The mornings are always rushed. The clock forever seems to be mocking her from its solitary position on the wall, derisively ticking 'late, late, late." 7: 58 AM.
Olivia stands in front of the foggy bathroom mirror, ruthlessly towel drying her showered hair. The damp tangles settle on her shoulders, sprinkling residual water across the top of her light blue robe. She runs her fingers through the unruly waves quickly, and then swipes the towel hastily across the steamed mirror, wiping away the fog. She leans in, preparing to apply her customary make-up. The quick thumping of little feet running down the hall is heard.
"Momma," Sophie calls, loitering at the threshold of the bathroom.
"Hmm?" Olivia answers, glancing momentarily at her daughter and then returning her gaze to the dewy mirror, mascara in hand.
"I got dressed," she states, an accomplished look forming on her face.
"Good job," she says, in a commending tone. "Did you brush your teeth?"
Sophie's proud expression quickly fades to one of impatience. "Uh…Yes."
Olivia turns to face her daughter and gives her a fixed look, cocking one eyebrow. Sophie's serious facial expression melts guiltily under her knowing gaze, and a cheeky pout appears. "Fine," she grumbles, and treads to the sink culpably, a frown on her face.
Olivia makes room for Sophie to join her, throwing a hasty look at her watch. She is already ten minutes behind. 8:04 AM. Late, late, late. She wants to break that clock, if only to stop its scornful ticking.
"Liv!" She hears Elliot call from their bedroom, impatiently.
She sighs in exasperation at his bad and well-practiced habit of yelling to her from across the house. "Yeah?"
"Did you wash my pants?" He asks, urgency clearly audible in his tone. She can hear him digging hastily through the drawers of their dresser and mentally chastises him for unfolding all the laundry.
"Which pants, dear?" She sighs, trying to keep her frustrated voice light, and watching Sophie place her toothbrush back in the cup by the sink. "Done, Momma!" Sophie exclaims, hitting her impatiently on the hip to get a reaction of praise from her mother.
"The dark blue ones…" Elliot answers in a distracted mutter, and Olivia hears the closet door open harshly as he digs through the hamper. "Dammit!" The closet closes with a bang. "Olivia!"
Olivia gives Sophie a guiding push out of the smoky bathroom, into the hall, and directs her to the breakfast table. "Hurry, Sophie," she urges, pointing to a chair. "Your breakfast is ready, honey, eat," she says hastily, and then louder, "Don't yell at me from in there, Elliot."
She paces into the bedroom to find it in aggravated disarray, the navy comforter thrown back carelessly, and several of the dresser drawers hanging open, their unfolded contents chaotically overflowing the borders. She almost trips when her foot snags on his boxers haphazardly strewn across the floor. "Dammit El," she sighs. "Clean up after yourself."
"Liv," he says apologetically, and although he sounds genuine enough, her irritation is still sparked high. They're both late, late, late. Unintelligent, stupid clock. "So did you wash them then?" She knows he doesn't mean to be irritating.
"No, Elliot, I didn't, and in case you need a reminder, the Good Fairy doesn't live here." She says in exasperation.
"What fairy?" Sophie's voice is heard from the door, and a giggle follows. "I want the fairy!"
Olivia turns on the spot. "Sophie, if you aren't at the table by the time I count to three, I will be very angry." She stands with her hands on her hips, and begins the count. "One."
Sophie grins devilishly and jumps up and down on the carpet. "Mommy's mad! Mommy's mad! Mommy's mad!" She chants in screeched delight.
Olivia glares unhappily at her thrilled child. "Two," she warns.
"Grumpy! Meanie! Grouchy! You stink!" she shrieks wildly, and continues to jump up and down in the doorway, her peanut butter sticky hands gripping the wall and leaving marks of grease.
Elliot emerges from the small second bathroom adjacent to their bedroom, sensing his wife's agitation. He wears boxers and an undershirt, his face half covered in white foamy shaving cream. "Sophie," he scolds, with a serious fatherly look. "Do not talk to your mother that way."
Sophie sobers a little under her father's chastising look, but after a moment of petulantly returning his glare, she defiantly looses it once more. "SANTA!" She exclaims shrilly, and erupts into a fresh round of screeching cackles.
Elliot approaches her and grasps both of her wrists in his hand. "Sophie. Stop – no – Stop. Look. At. Me," he says sternly, trying to get her attention.
Finally, after another fit of irrationally shrill laughter, Sophie sobers and stares at her father with sparklingly lively blue eyes.
"What do you say to your mom?" he chides, holding his daughter's gaze. Sophie doesn't speak; only she breaks his gaze and stares at a spot on the carpet. "I can't hear you," Elliot points out, still holding her wrists.
"Sorry," Sophie mumbles, her gaze still focused intently on the carpet. Olivia looks at her disapprovingly, until the child chances a look up at her mother. Olivia raises an eyebrow for a moment, letting her disappointment sink into Sophie's mind, before sighing and smiling slightly. "Please go eat breakfast, Sophie. We're all late, okay?"
"M'kay," the child answers quietly, a small pout perched on her bottom lip, and she disappears down the hall.
"Thank you," Olivia sighs running her fingers through her hair and giving Elliot a small smile of his own.
Elliot nods. "Uh, what was that about?" he asks, with cautious grin at his irritated wife and wiping the shaving cream off his face with a towel.
"Ugh," Olivia sighs, throwing her hands in the air. "I don't know. She's been like this so much recently." Olivia walks to the dresser and fishes for her clothes, picking them out from between his rumpled outfits.
"She probably gets it from someone at school," Elliot reasons, giving up on the blue pants and picking out a pair of black ones from the closet.
"Maybe," Olivia agrees. "But – I mean, I tried talking to her… she just – Christ, that's not the way we brought her up, El. And – what if she does it in public!"
"Hey, hey," Elliot chides, walking toward her. He places his hands on each of her shoulders and squeezes reassuringly. "Olivia… Relax." He waits patiently until he feels the hard tension in her shoulders melt under his warm touch, and then slips his hands up to frame her face. He presses his lips to hers once in a reassuring embrace, before pulling back and brushing a stray hair out of her eye. "Okay?" he asks, his eyes searching hers for signs of distress.
"Okay," she murmurs, with a small smile.
oOoOoOo
Olivia watches the sky anxiously as she rings the doorbell and knocks twice on Laura Moore's front door. From her spot on Sophie's babysitter's front porch, the clouds are threatening and ominous, a warning of the impending rain. Although she doesn't like to get wet, it has been very dry recently and everything green in the city would benefit from it. She's had enough of New York appearing crusty when all the plants wither in the dry climate conditions. With this promised downpour, she hopes that green will once again spring to life and the city will find its beauty again.
Her attention is refocused on the door as she hears the footsteps approaching on the other side.
"Oh hey, Olivia," Laura greets with a smile. "Come on in."
"Thanks, Laura." Olivia says, stepping in and inhaling the comforting scent of freshly baked cookies. "Mmmm, it smells good in here!"
"We were just baking –its indoors today because of those clouds," Laura says, walking towards the basement stairs. She leans over the banister, and cups a hand beside her mouth. "Sophie!" She down to the playroom. "Your mom's here!"
"So, how was your day?" Olivia asks as they wait, leaning against the wall.
"Oh, fine, fine. You know we're all very relaxed here. It's nice."
"Hmm, I'll bet," Olivia answers, with a sideways smile. "So-phie," Olivia calls, when it becomes clear that the girl is having entirely too much fun with the other children downstairs and isn't prepared to come up without being nudged. "C'mon, honey!"
A moment later, Olivia hears the quick pounding of footsteps racing up the stairs. "Momma!" Sophie exclaims, scampering into the entryway and crashing into Olivia's legs.
Chuckling, Olivia smoothes her hand over Sophie's hair lovingly before crouching down to Sophie's level. "Did you have a good day at school?"
"Yes. And guess what? I got to tell the answer in math. I got it right, Mom!"
"Great! Make sure to tell Daddy," Olivia says. "Put your coat and shoes on, Honey, we have to get to the store before it closes." Sophie disappears quickly into the small yellow room on the right, reserved for children's outdoor wear.
"Thanks again, Laura," Olivia smiles at the other woman.
"No problem," Laura returns, but there's something in her expression that doesn't seem right. There is a trace of an emotion unrecognizable to Olivia printed across her face.
"Is…is everything okay?" Olivia asks, hesitantly.
"Uh, Olivia?" Laura asks tentitavely.
"Yeah?" she answers, concerned.
"If you have time…I think there's uh, something you should probably see." Laura speaks cautiously, and gestures to the upstairs. Warning bells ring in Olivia's head at the unease written on Laura's face.
"Okay…" Olivia says hesitantly, and follows Laura up the stairs. "I'll be right back, Sophie."
The carpeted staircase leads to the second story of the large house, a platform that Olivia rarely sees on her visits here. Illuminating their path with the gentle glow of the hallway light, Laura stands at a spot approximately halfway down the passage.
"Um, Sophie drew something today," Laura begins, pointing to the white wall in front of herself.
Olivia takes in the red scribbles covering the wall. "Oh, Laura, I'm so sorry!" Olivia exclaims, mortified. "Oh, she knows not to do that!" Olivia can't count the number of times that she told Sophie that colouring was for paper only when she was younger.
Laura shakes her head. "Olivia. It's okay. Really. The other kids do it all the time…That's not really what I'm concerned about." Laura gazes at the red markings on the wall, and she fidgets.
"What is it?" Olivia frowns, stepping forward.
The paralysing dread that splashes through her veins feels as cold and as dark as the menacing sky outside. Her mouth moves to speak, but no sound comes out. Her lungs feel frozen, constricted, and she cannot get any air inside her body to relieve the complete clenching of her muscles in distress.
On the wall in front of her, drawn in bold red crayon, is an image too disturbing for Olivia to believe her child could possibly imagine.
A woman bearing every sign of being with child lies on her back, a long, sharp knife protruding grotesquely from her chest. There is blood spatter on the ground around her, and on the wall above, and the poor woman's face is contorted in a miserable grimace of pain. She has no eyes, only empty, eerie red sockets. Her lips are sewn together all the way across with tiny, ugly stitches. The only beauty Olivia finds in this sinister drawing is the long wisps of gorgeous red hair coloured in a fountain around the dying woman's face. Even that seemingly attractive section is rendered ugly and marred by evil by a pair of jagged scissors making the impression cutting the lovely hair into hideous tresses. Underneath the picture, the words 'Don't Lie' are scribbled in Sophie's familiarly messy penmanship five times, one underneath the other.
Olivia reaches out and touches the wall with trembling fingers, unable to stop the terrifying pounding of her heart in her chest. "S-s-she drew this?" she whispers, unable to tear her eyes from the horrifying image of death.
Laura nods solemnly. "I was finishing the cookies. The other kids had all gone downstairs to play, and I assumed Sophie had gone with them."
"But she hadn't…" Olivia stifles out, eyes still glued in alarmed awe at the picture on the horrible wall. She has no idea how Sophie, a child so innocent, could conjure this image.
"No. She was up here when I can up to use the washroom. She was just sitting against the opposite wall…watching it, staring at it. I called out to her and told her to go downstairs with everyone else…I was just in shock…I mean – I'm worried about her. Who draws something like that?"
Olivia takes in a shaky breath, almost choking on her air. "I…don't know what to say, Laura. I…oh, that picture is terrible," Olivia says, and her mind immediately latches on to a familiar memory, one of rocking her frightened daughter in the middle of the night when the nightmares plagued her sleep. Memories of the screams of terror and the bed-wetting.
From downstairs, Sophie's impatient voice calls up, "Momma, are you coming? I thought you said to hurry!" She rattles the handle on the door.
oOoOoOo
Olivia leans against the counter in the kitchen, her arms crossed tightly across her chest. Her agitated demeanour mirrors her thoughts; her mind spins and spins and replays the disturbing image of the Red Woman again and again in her mind. She observes as Sophie sits relaxed on the couch, watching television and eating from a bowl of dry Honey Nut Cheerioes. Sophie hadn't brought up anything about the Red Woman at all since they left Laura's, and although Olivia knows that she needs to speak to her daughter about it, the whole ordeal is much too fresh in her mind to talk to her about it calmly right now.
Relief floods her system when she hears the lock click and sees the door swing open, and Elliot steps into the kitchen, rosy cheeked from the cold night, small droplets of rain sprinkled in his hair. He's home from work a little late, but at least he isn't out on a case or getting a beer with his partner. She needs him at home tonight.
"Hey Liv, sorry I'm late," he says, shedding his coat and slipping out of his shoes. He straightens up and takes in her tense demeanour, the worry swimming in her eyes.
"What's wrong?" he asks, immediately picking up on her unease.
"El," she says, and walks to him numbly, seeking his warm embrace.
"Olivia?" he asks, in bewilderment, folding his arms around her. "What is it?"
oOoOoOo
oOoOoOo
oOoOoOo
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