Trying to write as fast as I can guys! Know it was kinda mean leaving the last chapter on another cliff hanger but I hope what's to come will make the frustration worth it ;-)
As mentioned, back to the twenty-first century...
Chapter Thirteen
"So I imagine this is another of those instances when you are forbidden to divulge the truth," Helena guessed as she gazed stonily at her nineteen-year-old daughter.
Christina winced. Of course her mother would be listening in. Even exhausted and distracted, she was still HG Wells and one of the most inquisitive people she knew. "How much did you hear?" she asked tentatively.
Shaking her head, the older woman turned on her heel and marched back to where she'd left Norie's journals. "Enough to despair at the people who instructed you to keep certain confidences to yourself. Those people most likely being your parents, meaning that I instructed you to keep things from me and the absurdity of it all is driving me rather mad I'm afraid." She gazed, unseeing at the books in her hand and reached up to rub at her temples with the other.
"Mum," Christina stepped close to her mother and placed a hand on each of her shoulders. "In a couple of days, Mama will be back and you'll have answers. Please, I know you hate just waiting, but you need to rest."
"I am not some frail petticoat who must sit to be told that the baker has fallen off his bike so there will be no rolls for supper," Helena complained sharply. "What possible reason could there be for keeping me in the dark when I am in no position to affect any change in our situation!?"
"None," the teen admitted with a sigh. "Mama thought that it might be best to tell you but you were adamant that I wasn't to let anything slip." She caught the utter frustration in her mother's eyes and pulled them both onto the couch. "Precaution. That's what you told me. You said that there was nothing you could do with the information and since she didn't remember being told anything then we should maintain the timeline as strictly as possible, that you would hate yourself more for ruining what you have and will have more than you would hate being kept in the dark for a week."
"Preposterous," HG muttered, though her words were somewhat more subdued.
"We all thought the same, you included, but the alternative... It doesn't bear thinking about, so it's a precaution, that's all." She watched her mother sink her head into her hands, the journals lying forgotten on the coffee table in front of them. Deciding to take charge, Christina stood and began stacking cushions against the arm of the couch. She grabbed a blanket and threw it on the opposite end, but it wasn't until she started unlacing Helena's boots that the inventor looked up to see what she was doing. "You are exhausted," she insisted before her mother could get a word in. "You are going to lie down, close your eyes and sleep for an hour or two."
"You are not my mother. I have... there are things I must do..." HG protested weakly.
"What things?" The teen looked deploringly into red-rimmed eyes, demanding a reasonable excuse. When no more words came, she continued with her task. "Just try, Mum. Please? For me?"
Helena huffed and grumbled even as she followed the instruction and collapsed against the cushions. It was a sign of her complete lethargy that she wasn't even able to lift her feet on her own, but there was something comforting, a symmetry to being tucked in by this young woman above her. She smiled as warm lips pressed against her forehead. She reached into the top of her shirt and wound long fingers around the ring that lay there. Was it warmer than usual? She blinked once... twice... three times, before she was fast asleep.
Voices drifted through the house from the kitchen, finally waking the napping inventor. For a moment, her heart leapt, thinking that Myka was home but as she scrambled to her feet, untangling the covers from around her, she felt a lead weight fall into her stomach.
Swallowing her disappointment, Helena folded the blanket and rearranged the cushions, giving her hands something to do as she prepared to greet her guests.
Irene and Leena's voices she recognised, along with Christina's of course but there was a fourth with them that didn't immediately bring an identity to mind. Who was this stranger and what was she doing in her house?
She glanced at the hall clock as she passed and was surprised to discover that she'd been out for over four hours. On entering the kitchen, she made a bee-line for her daughter and ruffled her hair as she leant down to whisper in her ear.
"One or two hours?"
Christina had the grace to look sheepish, though she didn't regret her decision to let her mother wake up in her own time. "You needed it," she defended.
HG stayed behind the teen, her hands resting lightly on the girl's shoulders as she looked to the other people gathered. "Mrs Fredrick. Leena," she greeted those she knew, her eyebrow raising the question she decided not to put into words.
"Agent Wells," Irene acknowledged. "I'm glad to see that you managed to get some sleep at last. Christina tells us that you've been given access to some of your grandmother's journals."
"Yes, I hope to find something useful in them. Perhaps something that will help me understand why I feel as if everyone is deliberately keeping information from me." Her words were sarcastic but her tone held only a fragment of the steel it had that morning.
Tilting her head back to look up at her mother, Christina grinned. "Paranoia," she commented. "You need to lay off the opium, Mum."
"Quiet you," Helena tutted and clipped the girl lightly across the head, smiling to herself at the chuckle that followed. She squeezed the shoulders under her hands, grateful for the support.
A series of amused smiles passed around the room. They were all aware of the tension in the air and the gaping chasm that existed without having Agent Bering or the eight-year-old Christina Wells around. The injection of a bit of light comic relief was what all of them needed to break the ice.
"Agent Wells, I would like to introduce the newest member of our team, Abigail Cho. As well as helping Leena at the bed and breakfast, Ms Cho will be available to offer counselling to any agent who would like it." Mrs Fredrick sipped her tea but watched the inventor over the brim of her cup.
Helena frowned. "A Warehouse psychiatrist? Am I the catalyst for this?" She took a deep breath, fighting with her gut reaction. Mental illnesses had not exactly had the nicest of stigmas attached to them where she'd grown up. She felt the stranger's eyes on her and couldn't help but wonder what the woman was diagnosing her with. In her day, women were all tarred with the same hysterical brush.
"The Warehouse and its agents are long overdue the services of someone with Ms Cho's skills," Irene explained in her usual matter of fact manner. "Your experiences, Agent Wells, may have triggered renewed effort on behalf of myself and the regents to find such a person, but you are by far the only one who will find her services useful. Now," she finished her tea and stood primly from her stool. "I must return to my duties. I will leave you to get better acquainted. Christina, if you would escort me to the door?"
HG had no time to protest as her daughter jumped up at the summons and followed the caretaker out. She fidgeted for a moment, itching to follow but managed somehow to resist. Seconds passed before Leena's compassionate voice broke through her distraction.
"How are you, HG?"
Sighing, Helena bit back her instinctive response. "As well as can be expected I suppose. Is there still tea in the pot?" she asked as she took Irene's abandoned seat.
"I'll make a fresh one," Leena offered, standing before anyone could protest.
Left alone at the breakfast bar, HG observed the woman opposite. "So, what is it like, being a psychiatrist?"
Abigail levelled an even stare at the Brit. "What's it like, being HG Wells?" she countered.
Helena chuckled and ran a hand through her slightly sleep-mused hair. "Not as glamorous as it sounds, I assure you. I'm proud of many of my accomplishments of course, but if I've learnt anything in a century and a half of existence, it's that I am much happier just being plain Helena."
"Why do you think that is?" Abigail asked, hoping that she sounded simply curious and not too 'shrinky'.
"HG was and always will be an ideal. Helena is who I am. She is a simple woman who wants to enjoy being with her family." There was a stoniness to her expression as she said this and she was grateful when Leena placed a cup and saucer in front of her.
Not wanting to push too far but finding that she couldn't help herself as the inventor continued to respond, Abigail chanced one more question. "You don't think you could be both?"
Helena's gaze fell into the middle distance as she tried to give the question fair consideration. It was the sound of the front door closing and Christina returning that prompted her answer. "If we do not learn from history, Ms Cho, we are doomed to repeat it."
Leena and Abigail declined the offer of dinner and saw themselves out while the Wells women remained to debate what they were going to eat. As neither of them were in the mood to cook properly and HG was eager to finally dive into her grandmother's journals, they both agreed to settle for reheated leftovers from the freezer.
Diligent as she always was, Myka had stored what they were too full to eat so that there were a dozen or so miniature meals in handy little labelled tubs filling one of the freezer drawers. With sleep having renewed her appetite somewhat, HG pulled out shepherd's pie and hotpot, leaving Christina with chilli to add to her microwavable rice.
Helena eyed the pouch of rice with suspicion, prompting an exaggerated eye roll from the teen. "Still don't trust modern convenience foods?"
"Very few of them I would actually call food." HG eyed the rice again. "This one is somewhat acceptable, I suppose."
They carried their meals to the table and ate quickly; the only conversation passing between them was a short and ultimately futile interrogation over the girl's private conversation with the Warehouse caretaker.
Once the dishes were stacked on the draining board to dry (because Myka always insisted on leaving the sink clear), they retreated to the living room and settled once again on the couch.
Feeling her own exertion catching up with her, Christina pulled the neatly folded blanket from the back of the couch and spread it between them as she curled her feet up beside her and dropped her head onto her mother's shoulder. "Read to me?" she asked softly.
Helena looked down on the teen with a fond smile. If there was one silver lining to this whole impossible situation, it was the joy she found in being with her child at this advanced age. When the hours until the promised end seemed to drag on and on, she just had to glance at this miracle before her and remember to have faith.
"Certainly, darling." She wrapped an arm around Christina and opened the earliest of her grandmother's journals.
Helena spent the evening reading to her daughter, only occasionally breaking for the call of nature or light refreshment. There were many early entries that involved her and her brother and the mischief they sometimes got up to, but there were also many brief insights into the Warehouse and the secret life Rupert and Eleanor Wells had lived. By the end of the night, there were around a dozen entries that interested her enough to reread and analyse.
"August 9th, 1889", HG read aloud for a second time.
"Caturanga informs me that the Warehouse is shifting. Restless, is his word. I do believe he rather thinks that it has a mind of its own and, though I am hesitant to admit it, I am coming round to his way of thinking.
Imagine my surprise when I discover that the new agent we are directed to is none other than my darling Helena. She is but two and twenty; the bane of her mother's existence and the joy of mine." Christina chuckled again and her mother bumped her shoulder lightly. "She will make a marvellous addition to the Warehouse, for she is an endless wonder in and of herself, though I fear what this life could do to her.
I dearly wish to take her under my wing as I have always done but know that I cannot. Whatever destiny lies out there for her, it is not my place to interfere. I will do what I can from the shadows and leave the rest to her.
Perhaps there is a note of hypocrisy there? I am certain that the fine line between grandmother and regent will cause some consternation but I am determined only to do my duty on both fronts."
Helena scoffed, irritation once again warring with the warmth she felt from her Norie's words. "Of course it's bloody hypocritical. She couldn't tell me anything in case it interfered but she decided to interfere 'from the shadows'?"
Christina shrugged, lost in her own guilty thoughts about keeping secrets from her mother.
"Though I suppose I should consider myself a black pot or kettle, being as I apparently like to meddle in my affairs too. From the future no less," she grumbled, not able to let the issue go as long as it kept returning to her mind.
Swallowing the lump in her throat, the teen shifted so she could see her mother's expression. She recoiled at the frustration she found, though in the back of her mind, she couldn't help feeling somewhat vindicated for the years her parents had spent dancing around the truths of her past.
Laying her head back down, the girl closed her eyes, feeling her fatigue more sharply. Listening to her great-grandmother's words, Christina was dragged back to her memories of her childhood in London. Mostly the memories were of her time with Myka but occasionally, images of her early years with Helena intruded too.
She had vague memories of being six years old while the streets of London were draped with decorations for Victoria's diamond jubilee. Helena had insisted on them spending the day in Hyde Park, in their Sunday best with a picnic, blankets, books and games in hand. Uncle Charlie had joined them for an hour or two in the afternoon and several of her Mummy's acquaintances had stopped by to share a drink and toast the long-lived monarch. Days like that stuck in her mind. At a time when Myka wasn't a part of their lives, their best memories were of the hours they spent together.
As a child, though curious and bright, she had been far too disinterested in challenging the status quo. Particularly after moving to America, she should have been full of questions but had been too content with her home and her family to bother. On returning from Victorian London with Myka, she had struggled with her emotions and retreated into herself, causing her mothers yet more stress, but eventually, she had settled again and found her place in the world with her growing family. Had she suppressed the questions that arose later in her teens? To this day she wasn't sure when they first began niggling at her thoughts but as she glanced up at her mother again, she was reminded by how dreadful the unknown could feel.
Her mother was right. Secrets were practically a profession in their family. With this thought, she decided that she needed to at least share the reason for her conversation with Mrs Fredrick. As it was late though and her mother was still absorbed in Norie's diary entries, she decided that it could wait until morning.
Helena noticed the moment the teen's breathing evened out, indicating that she'd finally succumbed to sleep. Deciding that she preferred the girl's company, she gently encouraged Christina to lie across her lap, repositioned the blanket and continued to read to herself.
"October 15th, 1889
I never doubted that my Little One would perform amazing feats but I cannot deny the conflict I feel between pride and terror.
Jack the Ripper. Evil incarnate if ever there was an example of it, and my little girl was instrument to his downfall.
Caturanga states that he has rarely seen such daring or tenacity in an agent and was practically giddy at the notion that Helena could be just what the Warehouse needs to bring it into the new century.
Her fellow agents are a mixed bunch and not altogether delighted with the idea of a woman in their midst. I have asked my Rupert to keep an ear to the ground. He is familiar with some of these gentlemen and likely will glean more of their thoughts and opinions than I.
HG grinned briefly to herself, feeling renewed pride at the knowledge that her grandmother had been so amazed by her capture of the notorious murderer. She remembered wanting to tell people, to brag, she admitted to herself. Norie had known all along.
"Crafty old bat," she mumbled.
February 1st, 1890
I am nevermore convinced of the Warehouse having an essence of sentience, and nevermore thankful for and wary of it.
It favours her, my Helena. She smells apples.
"Still do."
I am reminded of Eve in the Garden of Eden and cannot help but wonder if the Warehouse could be likened to a benevolent deity or its counterpart. Perhaps both? Perhaps neither?
Perhaps I am simply an old woman who reads too much into a mere coincidence but regardless, my instincts lie with Caturanga's; the Warehouse favours my Little One and I cannot help but feel that it has great plans for her.
May 16th, 1890
Something stirs in the air. Rupert and I paid the Warehouse a visit today. It is as it was prior to Helena's induction - restless.
Many of the agents are busy elsewhere, following leads or gathering information. Agent Kipling was in the archives when we arrived. He regards us with a dismissive attitude, as if we do not belong there. Helena sometimes speaks of a man amongst her acquaintance who is more ego than sense. Though neither of us can discuss the Warehouse, I gather that this is the man she speaks of.
"Too bloody right he was."
Genevieve is up in arms over the latest rumours. With Helena's frequent jaunts out of town, tongue's are wagging. I'll never understand what my son saw in her as a prospective bride but I can only be grateful for the joy of having grandchildren. Still, I feel the need to speak with Helena on the matter. Much as I care not for Genevieve's vexations, it pains me to hear of the unnecessary social pressures she puts on my granddaughter.
July 27th, 1890
In a little over a week, Helena will have been with Warehouse 12 for a year. She has risen to every challenge and defied every conventional restriction placed on her.
I feel at times as if she carries the weight of the world on her shoulders and yet she bares it so brazenly. I know there will come a time though when that boundless strength is put to the test. Something tells me that it is inevitable. I can only pray that she will find it within her to overcome the challenges she's faced with.
Swallowing a sudden rising fear at the memory, Helena glanced down at the young woman lying across her lap and remembered to breathe. Norie had felt the tragedy in her future. How? Eleanor had suspected that the Warehouse had plans for her? Had those plans involved Christina's death?
September 3rd, 1890
Helena was seen meeting with the journalist, Mr Phelps. Dear God, I hope she knows what she's doing. I hope for her sake that he knows to keep their affair under his hat. It is one thing to be seen entering a bedroom with a woman; excuses can be made, but though I adore her courage and candour, I fear for her well-being if this incident impacts negatively on her reputation.
"Good God, I'd forgotten about that. Poor Richard," she shook her head, reminiscing over her thoughtless actions. "He should never have had to face mother. I should have been more careful."
Old age is creeping up on me. There was a time when I would have cheered her on. Now I pray that she will slow down.
I can only continue to listen and guide her where I am able. Though I have asked Chaturange to leave Helena out of any investigations for the time being. Genevieve behaves like a woman possessed and the last thing that would help the situation is Helena disappearing for several days.
"Hypocrite," she chuckled to herself, thinking of her grandmother's wish to not interfere.
I've suggested to my daughter-in-law that she allow my granddaughter to stay with her brother more often. Helena will breathe easier out from under her mother's scrutiny and it will be simpler to explain her absences; the girl is known for spending days below ground when her experiments demand her attention. Eccentricities are simpler to accept than public displays of affection sadly.
"Thank you," she added as she remembered her mother's ire and the refuge she'd found with her brother.
I pray this world will one day realise her genius and accept it. That she could be judged not by her gender but by her deeds. If not for the Warehouse, I think this world might drive her to the brink of destruction.
HG lowered the journal onto her lap and closed her eyes. She had stumbled over those words the first time, feeling shame for the destruction she'd left in her wake after Christina's death. Norie had been so proud of her, what would she have thought to her granddaughter's madness?
Flicking a couple of months along, Helena left her darker thoughts where they belonged and returned to an entry just a week before Myka and Christina's arrival in 1890.
November 2nd, 1890
Something is coming. The Warehouse is as restless as ever. There are four curiosities now in our possession that were not last week; a number unprecedented in the history of Warehouse 12.
Caturanga reports this unusual behaviour as a sign of excitement or anticipation. Rupert finds the idea amusing but I confess myself feeling a sense of unease. Anticipation does not automatically suggest events of a benign nature.
The agents appear to be feeling the change in the winds also and I've suggested to the other regents that we would do well to observe them in the field and review their performance. Rupert will be in charge of the agents working in London and its surrounding countries, should a curiosity appear in those areas.
Taking a breath, she turned another few pages.
November 8th, 1890
We were right to be concerned about the agents in the field. They've grown arrogant and impatient. Agent Kipling is suspended from duty and Agent Darling will be working under supervision for the foreseeable future. All agents will partake in a period of retraining.
"Training which I aced."
In a shocking display of superiority, Mr Kipling attacked a young woman he believed to be in possession of a curiosity. "Bastard. Had I been there, you would have lost the use of your legs." My Rupert was thankfully on scene and able to offer the young woman and her daughter aid.
Doctor Gravestock offers his services and reports that she is merely unconscious. It is with this news and the promise that her mother will wake that I am able to encourage the daughter, Christina, to have supper with Rupert and myself.
Christina is well mannered and quiet. She appears exhausted yet politely refuses to rest until her mother wakes. "My brave girl," Helena whispered, her hand stroking absentmindedly through cropped hair as she pictured her eight-year-old scared but holding it together. I attempt to make small talk, trying to find answers to their peculiar state of dress but she is bright and evades my questions with deflection. I cannot help but feel a sense of familial attachment to this child. Her demeanour is calm though she clearly worries for her mother. Her eyes however remind me of my Little One.
HG smiled and gazed down at the head beneath her hand.
I do not think I am far wrong to believe that these foundlings are in some way connected to the disturbance at the Warehouse.
I will attempt to discover more information from the mother when she wakes.
The inventor paused before reaching for the next page. Having read through all of the journals once already, she knew what was coming next.
Ooh, I think I might be enjoying teasing you all a little too much! Digging a hole for myself; I'll just never be able to stop writing!