I do not own this story it belongs to The Black Arrow and it's an amazing story
I do not own Austin and ally or anything else you may recognize
Ally's car slid down the hill towards her hometown like a toy train on a rail. She imagined her car was a sentient creature, that knew its way, and she smiled at the silly thought.
When she was a child, she had always fancied inanimate objects to be alive, to have personalities and opinions, purposes and fates, things that she herself was denied at every turn. She had instead contented herself with naming a tree, a chair, her bicycle, ridiculous childish names, imagining them to be her friends, aides on her quest.
When Austin had found out, she had been taunted mercilessly, and she had forced herself to abandon these thoughts.
Austin, her traitorous mind squeaked with a tinge of hysteria. Stop, she warned her mind, taking a healing deep breath and began a short visualization technique.
Her psychologist, Amy, always told her to envisage the best possible outcome instead of jumping to a worse case scenario.
Ally imagined arriving, the sun breaking through the clouds and the rain stopping. She imagined stepping out of her car, feeling the crunch of gravel in the Moon's sweeping driveway.
She imagined walking up the stone steps to the gothic revival stone mansion, and for once it didn't look like a haunted house.
Getting into the vision now, ally relaxed further, picturing being met by the moon family in the foyer. Ethan would lift her off her feet like he always did, and she would lay her head on his shoulder and think of a bear.
Mike would kiss her cheeks and she would smell his distinct smell; like a musty library.
And Austin would be there, too. He would politely exclaim that it had been at least five years since they had seen each other. Six, actually, she would correct with a smile. He might joke with her about some of their childhood crimes, and as he leant down to embrace her she would feel…. Nothing. And he would hear nothing.
As they pulled away from each other, they would look at each other in relief, knowing it was finally over. They would all congratulate her on her engagement, and Ethan would go to the cellar to find a bottle of champagne.
And then, ally would climb the stairs to the second floor, to see her Godmother Mimi. She would be propped up in bed, looking remarkably well and not at all ravaged by cancer, and a dark suited specialist would exclaim to Mike that it was a miracle. They would all drink toasts to Mimi's health, to ally's happiness, and…..
A deer leapt nimbly out of the wet green foliage and in front of ally's car, snapping her out of her far-fetched fantasy. She swerved sharply and let out a hollow laugh. There was positive visualization, and then there was deluding oneself. Her heart heavy, she drove onwards towards grief.
*o*o*o*o*o*o
She found the concealed driveway with no trouble. She could have found it in her sleep. Her little cream mini's nose nudged aside the ferns, and she was in their world now, into the Moon Dimension as she privately thought of it.
The drive sloped down sharply, and she lost her stomach, the world seeming to tilt on its axis momentarily. This happened to her every time.
She wondered briefly who was now living in the house she and Lester had shared together during her childhood. It had been sold about four years ago. She felt no pang for it; she had never considered it to be her home. It had stood just outside the Moon Dimension, separated by a thicket of trees that were almost permanently shrouded in creepy mist.
Running through the field and trees as a little girl, she had imagined that she could feel the exact moment that she crossed over.
Ally truly felt privileged to have been raised as an honorary Moon. After her mother had died when Ally was five, Lester was completely destroyed and to this day had not recovered.
He was like a city that had been bombed, and no one could bear to rebuild. Life post-Penny held no interest for him, and he continued with his endless cycle of waking, policing the town, returning, eating, sleeping. He had been beyond grateful that ally's Godmother (and penny's best friend) had taken ally off his hands. That way, he did not have to look at the tiny, worried face, the mocha brown eyes that were so like her revered mother's.
He would hold out her gum boots, one at a time for ally to thread her legs into, and she would start the long trek across the fields to the Moons, usually carrying a satchel containing a nightgown and her school uniform.
Ally smiled as she thought of Mimi. How she would have survived those post-Penny nuclear wasteland years without Mimi, she did not know. Extravagant, bohemian, warm Mimi. She was one of those people who exuded a light.
Ally was acutely aware of the honour bestowed upon her every time the front door was opened. Ally had always felt on the outer edge of their sphere, and even though she was included by Mimi and Mike as if she had been their daughter, she had always felt separate; analyzing every gesture for any traces of pity.
She had realized long ago that there was one person tangled up in and inextricable from every memory of her childhood. Austin. He had been born three hours before ally; penny and Mimi had always joked that they were twins born to different mothers.
They were born at the same hospital, and slept their first night on Earth in the hospital, in cribs side by side. They were definitely a strange sort of twins.
Ally shook off the disturbing thought as she felt her car's tyres crunching the gravel driveway, and with dizzying relief saw that Austins car wasn't there. She let out a breath that burned her lungs like acid and felt like she had been granted a reprieve. She could pretend he didn't exist for a while longer.
*o*o*o*o*o*o
Ally tried the front door. Finding it unlocked, she stepped inside hesitantly, the nostalgia washing over her. The air tasted different inside these walls.
"Mike" she called. "Ethan" She took in the wide staircase directly before her; the dark wood paneled walls, the portraits of Moons past.
Ally stuffed her keys into her pocket and crossed the foyer to the right, down the dark hallway, past the empty sitting room, into the sunlit industrial kitchen. Nobody. There was not a sound, apart from the tick of the clock and the drone of the refrigerator. There were some dishes in the sink.
Mike had told her to wait until he had spoken to her before she went up to see Mimi. Ally knew this meant that Mimi was very bad. That she had very little time left. Ally was amazed that she was not crying yet. She was so used to the lump in her throat she barely felt it anymore.
She stood on tiptoe, absently noticing the pots of fresh herbs on the windowsill needed watering, but could see nobody outside in the garden. Perhaps they had gone out, she thought, exhaustion gripping her suddenly like a mugger in a dark alley. She had been driving for almost seven hours.
She drank from the kitchen tap, marveling at how delicious the water in this house was. It truly was like a strange kingdom she had stumbled into. She splashed some water on the herbs. Maybe just a short lie down, she thought to herself, going back out of the kitchen and into the sitting room, collapsing on the musty chaise that had cradled her through countless childhood illnesses. She managed to toe off her sneakers. She fell asleep so instantly that it could have been a faint.
*o*o*o*o*o*o
Ally was dreaming, knew she was dreaming. She was watching her younger self and Austin, sitting on the lowest branch of a tree in the ghostly thicket of trees separating their houses. Probably seven years old.
They were holding hands, as always. People found that sweet when they were five, slightly unusual when they were ten. By fifteen, it caused a great deal of concern, and phrases like 'unhealthy bond' were tossed around. By sixteen, Austin held her not by the hand, but by the wrist, a human restraint. She could still remember the hot, electric sting of his skin on hers.
"Ally," Seven year old Austin was saying, "You are mine. You are my person. Don't argue," he added, though she had not spoken, "It won't help. I own you."
Adult ally, watching this dream through a window in her memory, opened her mouth to scream at her younger self, scream at her to fight back, to drop his hand and sever the connection.
She watched as her younger self bit her lip, wanting to speak up, opening her mouth to speak finally to argue back but biting back the words as Austins frown darkened. She saw his fingers digging into the back of her palm, and marveled at how strange and unnatural, yet irrefutably true his assertion was.
The dream shifted, altered, and she recognized the setting: the school gym, her junior prom. She was seeing the scene now through her own eyes, rather than an observer. Standing on the edge of the dance floor, awkward in her black sleeveless dress, waiting for hours to be asked to dance. She was supposed to be here with Austin as her 'date' (Mimi had insisted) but he had abandoned her the moment they had entered the doors.
A new boy she recognized from Math class approached her, and they chatted for a moment about how he was enjoying Chicago. "Do you want to dance?" He had asked awkwardly and she felt herself smile.
"No, she won't ever dance with you." Austin, materializing out of nowhere, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
As he dragged her away to deposit her somewhere else, she heard another boy's voice say, "Dude, that was asking for trouble." Ally felt the pull of his hand on her arm, like she was being dragged into a vortex.
It was her strangled scream that jolted her awake. That and the sound of a car door slamming.
*o*o*o*o*o*o
Ally leapt to her feet, wincing as her stiff back protested and went to the window.
She could see the back end of a silver Aston Martin, formerly mikes car from his college days, parked half in the patch of marigolds bordering the drive. There was no movement visible. No sound from the front door. If Mimi saw those crushed, muddied marigolds she would have dragged Austin over the coals.
Still no sound. Ally stood still, like a frightened rabbit. Her stomach cramped painfully in anxiety.
Hating herself, she stuffed her feet back into her sneakers, and ran through the kitchen, out into the air, and ran across the fields. Her heavy brown hair kept swirling around, obscuring her vision, causing her steps to grow irregular in the squelching wet turf.
She had no thought of deep breathing exercises, of positive visualization, of little affirmations about how she was a strong person. All her months of cognitive therapy with Amy had been leading to this moment.
But instinct had taken over, and ally did the opposite of what she had planned to do. If he was watching from the window, which he probably was, he would see she was fleeing and he would laugh in delight.
He couldn't actually hear her mind unless he was touching her skin, and ally had to remind herself that he wasn't some God-like, omniscient presence. He couldn't hear her thoughts as she ran through the muddy field. He couldn't reach her yet, but she knew he would soon.
