TQ- Dare I say Erik's feeling a little "Von Trapp'd" in this next installment. As adorable as it sounds, I would like to assure, though, that there will be no making play-clothes out of drapery or leading catchy solfege song numbers in the mountains for him. No puppets or Nazis either...for Queenie is still not sure which she fears more gaspeth
Chapter 8: Bittersweet
"So...I presume there to be some schedule you follow," the angel inquired while busily rolling up the endless ribbon of gauze Soisette had let trail throughout the house. The girls followed keenly. Bijou was nowhere in sight. He assumed her to be stalking him out, waiting in some hidden crevice to spring out at him like the fanged monster she was. Soisette and Elyssa had attempted to coax her along with them but she only glanced blankly over to Erik, stuck up her nose and pranced out of sight- as if she did not think the spirit good enough for her company.
"Oh yes. Papa always makes sure of that," prompted Elyssa, "Structure is one of the most important cornerstones of our early development. Without a constantly enforced set of boundaries and respective instruction children cannot be fully productive or function at their utmost potential within their constant environment...that's what he always says."
"Well he sounds quite the perpetual ball of fun," Erik mumbled, rolling those golden eyes. Was this a five year old or a psychologist? 'Leave it to M. le Better-Than-You to make drawn out lectures about discipline when he can't even keep his own children from inciting wild brawls in the middle of dinner. And I thought I could brainwash with the best of them...' he considered smugly to himself.
"Quiet Lyssie!" snapped the older child.
Erik wound another loop of fabric around the growing spool and considered. Considered what was to be done with them. Nothing had gone too terribly wrong yet. That is to say, everyone was still alive and the house still intact. All he had to do was give them two- maybe three feedings a day, make sure they sleep at some point, keep the kitchen knives out of reach...what more is there to it? If Raoul could handle it, anyone could. Perhaps he had overreacted earlier. After all, the entire mansion was his- aside from the lethargic old broad in the drawing room- and could very well be taken advantage of. That alone could make up for a wee bit of maintenance.
While everything was in order at the present he thought it a sensible time to have them do something, though. He reconsidered his ideas of letting them rut and run at free will but thought better of it. 'Oh the things they could break!' he thought, giving himself an acceptable excuse. It wasn't that he wanted to be with them. Idol hands are the devil's playground, are they not?
"I don't want to be made the enemy here," he looked them both in the eyes, "and I've no intention of ruling this place with an iron fist. What I do ask is that you might show me how things run around here. I didn't receive the most thorough briefing before I came after all."
'Are you happy now Good Saint Cherise? I'm talking to the little vermin like equals- don't be too proud,' he thought harshly.
"Well, I suppose..." hesitated Soisette, playing with the tip ends of her hair, "our walk is first in the afternoon."
'A walk. That sounds reasonable enough,' he assured himself.
-
It was not long before the angel realized that there was nothing reasonable about a walk with two hyperactive children. What began as simple jaunt down the shaded Rue des Noisette would eventually turn into a battle of the wills.
From the moment they stepped out of the gate there began a fierce argument over which direction should be taken. Naturally, Soisette was not content with her sister's decision to go left instead of right. Also just as naturally, she threw a crying fit when Erik vied for Elyssa's way over hers, dirtying her freshly cleaned frock in the process by rolling on the ground in the dirt like a wild animal. This resulted in much fussing and wailing from the rear of their trekking party as Soisette lagged behind in a sour mood. But the ordeal was soon forgotten when a rabbit leapt out of the nearby brush into plain view on the road. Erik cursed the dreaded thing, for as soon as it was spotted his walk became a run... and run became gasping struggle. Nothing he could say or threaten would hold their attention long enough to keep them from getting too far ahead of him. He had never remembered being so dreadfully out of shape, but then again, how in shape can one be living underground for the majority of one's life? The air kept to a suffocating humidity and made walking through the kicked up dust and scalding summer sun even more unpleasant than it was to keep up with the girls' doings.
"Out of the brush! Keep away from the ditch, there's-...Soisette you're entirely too far ahead. Get over here or so help me we will turn right around! And will you put that filthy stick down before y-...didn't I tell you not to-...Soisette!" and so on and so forth.
One incident followed another in rapid succession until he finally gave up the useless affair of keeping them from trying to kill each other. That was not to say that he could keep up with them either. Sometimes the two would disappear as seamlessly as ghosts into the surrounding thickets not to be seen or heard from for minutes at a time. When they would reappear, hair full of twigs, leaves and other various forrest grunge, Erik would wearily greet them, breath labored and sides splitting from running after them, with stern words before they would dart carelessly back in again. Each time their drunken zigzags brought them back onto the road they were covered with more scrapes and scars than he had seen of them last. Their laughter was ceaseless. The road seemed to roll on forever.
"Where the devil are you taking us?" the angel demanded, clawing for breath.
Soisette grabbed hold of him to stabilize his shaky steps and replied,"Oh, just up to the meadow where M. Fourche keeps his sheep. They look so soft to pet..."
"Bloody old sheep! Is that what I nearly went into cardiac arrest for? A flock of mangy sheep? Ahhh no! Not this time. Back to the house with both of you. You're filthy. Besides, you have that psychopathic dog you threw a fit for waiting to be petted. It's the same thing! Blast it, I've had enough animals for one day," he halted in his steps.
"But we've always, ALWAYS wanted to. Won't you please take us Erik? Maman never lets us see the sheep up close," pleaded Elyssa meekly.
"Then she must have good reason," he said, tone authoritarian, placing his hands in a clasp with the two indexes pointing neatly upward, "You must learn to obey your mother. After all, she is such a fair, just, beguiling, refined, intelligent, prepossessing, virtuous, well bred, charming, winsome..."
"Erik? Are you alright?" Elyssa gave a brisk tug at the hem of his saddle brown breeches as he continued to rattle off enraptured adjectives- some not even actual words- in complete daze.
"He looks like Monsieur Jean-Pardeau when he's had too much to drink," giggled Soisette, covering her laughter with one hand.
Soisette gave him a swift shove from the rear which got him to move along but didn't do a thing for his mindless drollery. Steps resistant and oblivious, Erik was pushed on with the little girl's force.
"Come on you great useless thing!" Soisette snorted joyfully, "We don't want to miss them."
"Soisette?" Elyssa interrupted.
The older child gave the angel another nudge foreward, "Yes Lyssie dear?"
"Whatever is sensuatiousinalatous supposed to mean?
Scowling on your back in the middle of a manure splotched pasture for hours gives one more time to reflect than one knows what to do with. There were plenty of fleeting white clouds, wildflowers blossomed to bursting, little birds frolicking with the lambs, butterflies and all that smut to watch aimlessly while the girls dawdled in the fields close by. But my mind was restless. I was a spirit. It was rather disturbing, I realized, once I had the time to turn it over in my head sufficiently. Disturbing is knowing that you are not really there and that if you were standing there in the flesh you would see nothing of yourself, perhaps only a rustle in the grass that so resembles the blowing of the wind. To know that what you touch you are not really touching, per say. You are nothing to those who cannot see you. Nothing. A microscopic speck floating in the air has more physical significance than you. You are nothing. But was that not what I had always pretended to be? A phantom? To not be seen, to not exist? The tables had been so gracefully turned on me alright. This thing called death is not pleasant...and I had awaited it for so long. I had awaited peace at long last...
Neither beauty nor peace could break that barricade of uneasy calm that embalmed me. But two exasperating little girls certainly could.
With their sloven heads now adorned with rings of little white flowers, like adorable, 45 pound forrest fairies, they made sure to pounce with extra finesse onto my unprotected chest...both of them...at the same damn time.
And of course they had to add insult to injury by cuddling into me as if I were a great, stupid stuffed bear.
"When I say 'get off of me' is it as if I'm speaking some sort of foreign language?" I spat, currently unble to move.
"We're sorry Erik," said Soisette cheerfully, disregarding my deterrent so willfully that she couldn't help sticking a tiny white flower into my hair, "but you're just so...mushy. Like jam!"
It was true. One of the strangest anomalies of my halfway reincarnation was the way every part of me felt like it was filled with some kind of gooish substance. I would guess it to be the lack of internal organs, to be straightforward. My state very strange indeed. Nevertheless, when was the last time you took someone filled with jam seriously?
Without having to be told again they climbed off of me on their own. I was thoroughly ready to get back to my sour recollections, expecting them to leave a squishy old grouch like me alone to find something more interesting to do. But instead, they nestled into the grass, careful to copy the exact way my arms folded behind my head, on either side of me to look up at the sky. It was late afternoon now- the day caressing the evening before the evening would be embraced by the night. Blueness of sky remained but the sun cloaked itself in a heavier shade. All was still as the passing of the day's heat was heralded by the sultry kiss of a fleeting breeze. For a moment I forgot the little pests, forgot the past, forgot the present. I lived inside my mind.
"Maman and Papa never take us anyplace like this..." Soisette's little voice lilted to my ears, breaking my beloved silence again. But the sincerity in her innocent tone moved me, if only for a second.
"...I mean not anymore." she finished
"Don't go getting ideas now. Anything that will get you two out of my hair is my pleasure. Just don't expect to be coming back anytime soon," I forewarned bitterly.
"I'm not," she sighed, "but 'twas fun. Don't you think?"
"Hmph. Would rather have spent an afternoon like that studying a good batch of musical texts...alone preferably."
Out of the corner of my eye I noticed the child sink back a bit. A more melancholy expression fell over her face. Feeling no more remorse than a rock could, I returned my concentration to the sky.
After several moments she piped again, "Erik?"
"What?"
"It's no fun being dead is it?"
"What makes you think I've ever been anything but an angel?"
"The way you're always...the way you are all the time, I guess."
"The way I am all the time? Good lord, you've only known me for a day and a half child!"
"It's the way you talk. There's something...something in the way you talk. It's just not very nice," she answered hesitantly.
"I've got more than enough of an excuse to be 'not very nice'. Dealing with you two all day is enough to put anyone over the edge! And what does the way I talk have to do with anything?" I sneered, sounding more childish than the child did.
"You sound just like Papa...when he's tired. Mama always says it's not our fault. Most of the time, she says, it's hers. She says Papa's gone through a lot of hurt because of her and sometimes...sometimes she says she brings that hurt back. But she doesn't mean to. That's what makes him so angry. Sometimes she is too, but not as much as him. She says when bad things happen some people can't help but hold it in and it makes them mean"
She paused. Her articulation had stunned me.
"Some people," Soisette continued, "That's what she said. You had to be a person at some time to be so..."
"Perhaps," I interrupted, mildly for the first time that day, "...perhaps it would be best if we headed back before dark." I would have given anything to change the subject. Anything if I had anything to give.
"But I don't want to leave yet," whined Elyssa.
"Haven't you had enough of this place already?"
"Nope."
"And why not?" I turned to the younger.
"Because I like it here," she pouted, "I want to stay."
My nose wrinkled, slightly displacing the mask,"Well how would you feel about me leaving you both here?"
"I wouldn't like that at all!"
"And why not?" I asked a second time, becoming quite annoyed.
"Because it wouldn't be the same without you."
Through the cheesiness, somehow, my devoted, this angel caught the first remote spark of a kind thing a human being had ever said to him, no matter how quaint it may have been.
There was only one thing I could think to say in reply: "Wanna bet?"
