Guest: Thanks, I will
Guest: Thank you, I take pride in my discriptions, they are the bread andbutter of the story.
Mood: Im glad the scenes sparked in you, that the goal as a writer! Thanks for your insight, I'm so glad you can draw comparisons to real life.
Happier than Most: I love how you single out your favorite lines. It's the hight light of your review. I dearly enjoy it.
lulusgardenfli: A work of art!? Thank you thank you! There's nothing better than that.
songsingsitself : Johnny back at the end and we'll get his pov next chapter again. Promise!
Chapter XI
S*S
Dad stood in front of the twins, his hands on both their shoulders like a captain at the helm, one that hadn't been grasped in sometime now. Sam and Eric just looked bewildered, eyes darting to each other secretly, in their own Morse code under their father's watch, comparing notes, sharing intelligence. Trying to find the right course of action. And beside them on the porch step, Wendy's heart hurt at how unfamiliar the boys had become to Dad's direct attention. Such a contrast to what Uncle Jerry had with his boys.
"Wendy and Connie are in charge," he told them for the fifth time this morning, ever since she and Uncle Jerry had come back from their walk. And found everybody but Aunt Jeanie up...and the car packed with Con already in the driver seat, staring stonily ahead. Ready to go...though Dad would be staying behind, to try and gather up the pieces.
"You obey your sisters like you would me. When they tell you to come in, you come in. When they say its time to go to bed, you go to bed. Understood, boys?" Dad commanded, calm and clear, medic like, like he was telling someone how to keep a bandage on a wound as blood and bullets flew around them.
Sam and Eric nodded hard in brisk unison, though they shuffled closer together like they were trying to become one person.
"Yes sir," they repeated themselves, standing straight and stiff in air, trying to make themselves taller.
Dad breathed, tension relaxing from face somewhat, at the boys' easy obedience. His hands moved from their shoulders to ruffle fondly, lostly, through the rich raven tangle of their hair, making their heels picked up like petted kittens.
"Good," was all he said. Then he turned to Wendy, and she tried to pretend she didn't notice how her brothers' shoulders dropped with the return of the status quo. Connie's fingers had tightened the wheel of the car, and the edge of the window, but she still stubbornly refused to look.
"I'll only stay for a few days, honey," he said, pulling his second-born close, so she could hear the sad beating of his heart. "A week at the most...just to make sure they have things under control here. You can handle things, can't you Wendy?"
"Of course," she answered, forcing her features into some broken rose window of a smile, clear and still for his shake. It was what she was needed to be at the moment.
Dad gave her a sad sorta grin before letting her go. For a moment, he looked for Connie, but her drumming fingers loudly advised against the futility of calling to her.
He sighed. "You better get going then."
"Okay Dad," Wendy whispered back, before turning around, taking her brothers by the hands, and tucking them into the back of the car, before sliding in herself.
She'd barely had time to pulled her own two feet in as her sister floored the gas pedal, and flung all her siblings against their seats with startled yelps. With the speed of a runaway train, the Woods' house -or what remained of it- was a swirl of dust in the rearview mirror. Windrixville soon followed, folding into the emerald gold shroud that centuries of ghosts, and the blood of fallen boys, had wreathed about it like blooming poppies.
Wendy flinched at the thought, and trembled with it, finding that she couldn't let go of the twins' hands until Connie -at a less frightening acceleration- had driven them over the cover bridge that marked the town's limit, ending the power of the curse to reach them.
Once that matter was taken care of, she let her gaze sweep to the fields sheltered behind wooden fences that stood like uneven crosses, like those that marked ones' place, while high in the sky, the horned larks still bravely singing, flies.
Goodbye Pete, she mouthed silently, to the soft land Uncle Jerry was certain held their souls, if not their bones, by reason of their love. Goodbye Joe...Godspeed.
S*S
It was late afternoon when the Allen children rolled into the driveway of their house, quietly unloading their bags and bringing them into the house, up to their rooms. Wendy sighed as she put Great Expectations on her comforter, a pointed reminder on how she'd planned to wake up early today and get it down before going of with the twins to explore the town. Well, that had certainly changed. But it still needed to get done.
But not today. It was only Saturday after all. Today...she could take it slow. They could all take it slow, relax, eat together, think together...
Yes...they could take it slow.
Then she sighed again. Or at least, the others could take it slow. Wendy had to get started on dinner.
So while Connie disappeared up the stairs into her room, and the twins looped around outside, halfheartedly sprawled on the grass watching the clouds, Wendy got to work; boiling the leftover chicken in a pot on the stove, while pulling spices from the cabinet and flavor from the icebox. In between that, she used her free hand to flip through the Great Expectations work packet, pencil in hand.
Hey, if she was going to be busy anyway, might as well multitask, right? After all, the more she worked, the more she spread her thoughts about, the less time there was for them to dwell on the crippling wound her family had taken.
Uncle Jerry would be fine, she felt...any man who could find the strength to comfort his niece, rather than the other way around, mere hours after losing his children was clearly steady in spirit. And hopefully capable of taking care of Aunt Jeanie...God...it had hurt to see her break like that.
Not that Wendy blamed her, far from it...losing one piece of heart was horrid enough. She couldn't imagine losing four pieces to violence. And that wasn't even counting the pay toil age and time demanded from all upon this earth, from the moment Adam and Eve ate that stupid apple -or whatever it was- and doomed all the human family to rot and decay. Wendy huffed and used her spoon to push the chicken corpse down, under the broth of its own bones. That story had always bothered her, even when she was little...the sheer unfairness of it, the selfishness.
Really, you had a paradise, a perfect home, someone wonderful to spend time with, and the Almighty tell you its yours, so long as you leave so-and-so tree alone.
And what did the parents of mankind do? Ruin it, ruin everything for their children, before they even had a chance. Selfish, selfish, selfish.
Wendy bit her lip, an old thought guiltily making its way to the forefront from where it had formed in her five-year-old mind at Sunday school. Truthfully… Adam and Eve together had always reminded her a little bit of her sister. Just a bit...
Upstairs, Connie's Elvis record suddenly blasted to life, announcing that the Warden was throwing a party in the county jail.
...Or a lot.
Then snap of the shower turned on, dimming her irritation a bit. None of them had taken the chance to wash before leaving Windrixville, so she really could blame Connie for that...though...the fact that she'd turned on Elvis meant that Connie had likely brought a chair in there. She and the twins wouldn't be washing up anytime tonight.
Or possible the next day...
S*S
Apparently, it also meant that Con wouldn't be joining them for dinner...again. Honestly, it was a little ridiculous. No, more than ridiculous. It was nearly eight o'clock, the water had to run cold by now, and Elvis had been restarted twice. But Con was apparently too good to grace them with her presence.
Sam dinged the rim of his bowl against his spoon, scrunching his face up past the crystalize stars dangling above their heads for light. "Jeez Wendy, what's she doing in there?"
She chewed particularly hard on a piece of chicken, not caring that it was steaming hot in her mouth. It kept her from saying something particularly unladylike in front of the boys. "I don't know Sam. I really don't know."
Something in her tone was frozen, despite the heat in her mouth, colder than Wendy herself had ever heard it, and there was the echo of Mama in the edge of her tones. The clipped, snow-bitten edge of loosening temper, of harsh flying words in three separate languages. From the way their mouths dropped open, the twins cleared recognized it. Eric scooted his seat away from her a little, staring like he'd seen a ghost. Sam swallowed.
"Okay then," he said in a small voice, returning to his soup with newfound interest, seemingly fascinated by the piece of chicken skin adrift in the delicate china. For a while, they ate in silence, no more lively than the distorted reflections of themselves in the glass cabinet panels. Wendy paused and stared at the trapped images for a few hard seconds before she couldn't stand it anymore.
Then the record suddenly turned off, followed by the shower. Soon after, the clank of those prison manacle heels came the stairs.
And the moment Connie turned the corner to peek out the window, dinner was officially over. Sam stared. Eric blinked. Wendy felt something similar to the atom bomb go off in her head. Her sister wore a red skin-fitting blouse and black pants, like something Ann-Margret wore in Viva las Vega. Add that to expertly curled-haired, gold-hooped earrings, and dolled-up face, and it was clear Connie had no plans on staying in the house.
"...Con," Wendy said, in a forcibly level tone, standing up and gradually making her way around the table. "...What are you wearing?"
Pausing, Con carefully let her fingers released the curtains she pulled aside before rolling her head their way, her body following suit.
Arching that brow, the oldest Allen made a sweeping motion with hand to her attire.
"I think its kinda obvious hon," she answered. Wendy sucked in her breath.
"Okay, maybe..." she allowed. "-but what I mean is... why are you wearing it?"
That brow arched higher. "Why do you think? I'm going out."
It took a moment for that to translate from her ears to her brain, the connection suffering from some miscommunication.
"...You're going out."
"That's what I said, sweetie."
"Out."
"Yes, Wendy. It's Saturday night and that makes it alright -you know...little something called the weekend?"
That atom bomb was growing larger now, with every word Con spoke.
"I know what the weekend is Connie!" she bit out, face reddening.
"Do you?" Con droned, chin dropped, but nose somehow lifted to the air. Her weight shifted, like a gunslinger from the old west, though her hand curled around her hip like that in and of itself was a weapon.
"Yes!" then she blinked. "But that not the point!"
Con laughed, and tossed those curls, their volume dangerous, challenging. " And what is the point, as you so elegantly put it, Wen?"
Bamboozled, Wendy fumbled for her train of thought...blurting what first came to mind.
"The point is Cousin Pete and Joe just died last night!" she cried out, hands waving through the air, glaring hard. "How'd you feel if you kicked the bucket and we went out to party! You don't do that."
Connie's green gaze narrowed.
"First of all," she bit back, "We only heard about it last night. Don't you know anything about telegrams? It probably happened weeks ago, while we were all doing whatever and didn't even notice-"
"Connie!"
"-And second of all...you don't stop living when you lose someone. I thought you knew that. You all just want to live in a vacuum whenever something like this happens and you need to cut it out. Newsflash...it's going to keep happening. Again and again. Life goes on and I'm getting on that train for the ride."
She gave Wendy a short once over, tightening her purse strap. "You could to hon if you actually had a guy that wanted you."
Her fingers had clenched together so hard, her nails had been driven into her palms, the pain a short relief from the burning in her throat. But she wasn't without ammo in this shoot-out. But her aim became shameless.
"Life's not about it just going on Con," she hissed, as their brothers stared, dumbstruck, eyes darting back and forth between them. "It's about loving people...giving it and getting it back. Can you do that? Do you even know how?"
Con's eyes flash and that volume of curls seemed to turn into snakes.
"You don't even know what love is Wendy. And I'm not about to take advice on it from someone who hasn't even had their first kiss yet," she spat back. "You can talk to me when you do!"
Worse things probably could've been said...and probably would've been said if a familiar car horn didn't blast from the driveway. And Wendy's already Lowered Expectations of her sister dropped again as she recognized it.
Sam and Eric were under impressed as well.
"That's the jerk who would leave Wendy alone at the fair!" they exclaimed. "You're going out with him?"
"I'm not taking relationship advice from you shrimp either," Connie finished drily, whipping the door open and slamming it shut behind her.
Seeing red, Wendy stormed to the front and locked the door behind her sister.
S*S
"...She's wrong you know."
Blinking, Wendy looked up from her page in the Lord of the Rings to meet Eric's solemn gaze, peering out from under his blankets and pillow as he lay swaddled in bed.
"You're supposed to be asleep Eric," Wendy reminded him softly. It was ten o'clock now and Sam's snores proved how long of a day it had been. Eric ignored this and sat up more.
"But she was wrong. Connie I mean. You love the most out of any of us." He looked down now, drawing circles on his comforter in long loops. "I think that's why you're Dad's favorite."
His tone wasn't even wistful. Just sad. And Wendy's heart broke as she reached out to smooth his hair.
"Oh Eric...no honey, it's not like that. Really it's not. Dad, he...he loves us all the same. He just needs me more now."
Eric shook his head. "No Wendy...but it's okay. I don't mind. Neither does Sam, so long as we got each other. Con doesn't need anyone, so she's good I think...who knows, maybe she's the lucky one, not caring about stuff."
"It's not that she doesn't care," Wendy fumbled, hoped she sounded like she believed the words. "I think she just finds it easier to pretend she doesn't."
Eric pressed his lips and pointedly glanced over at her book. "What's that funny print?"
"What?" Wendy looked down at the page she was on -where Aragon was telling the story of an Elf Princess who loved a mortal man. "Oh, it's a poem."
Eric held out a hand. "Can I see it?"
Wendy had no objection. She'd noticed that on the rare moments she could get Eric by himself, he enjoyed reading and thinking as much as running around with Sam. And he was fairly decent at it, way ahead of his brother. (Sometimes, it made her wonder if Eric purposefully struggled with homework just to be at the same level as his twin.)
But now, his finger carefully traced over the prose -the poem, while beautiful, wasn't difficult to read at all, though some of the imagery might be over his head. Gosh, even Wendy found that she needed to keep a dictionary handy when-
"Wendy? What does this mean?"
Case in point. "Let me see."
She read swiftly: The Sundering Seas between them lay. And yet at last they met once more. And long ago they passed away. In the forest singing sorrowless...
She was quiet for a long moment. "It...well, in the story that's being told, the Princess and her hero were sundered. Which means they were separated from each other."
Eric's gaze turned anxious. "How?"
Wendy shrugged. "Probably because of the adventures they had together. I mean, listen, Through halls of iron and darkling door. And woods of nightshade morrowless. Things were threatening the kingdom, so they had to protect it. And well...they ended up on opposite sides of the ocean somehow."
"But it all turned out okay in the end," she added hurriedly. "It says they found each other again."
Eric looked at her funny. "Yeah, but then they died."
Well, he had her there...still.
"Well...that's better than nothing," she said softly. "It says they were happy until then."
Eric was quiet for a moment. "I wish it could go back to the way it was...when Dad was Dad, and Con was Con, and...and Mama..."
"I know baby...I know."
S*S
Connie never came home that night. Which meant Wendy had no car to take the boys to Mass at Our Lady of Guadalupe church. Thankfully, she knew the bus could get them there, though they had to leave earlier (Sam and Eric didn't much like that part) and walked down to the bus stop...which happened to be nowhere near their neighborhood. After all, everyone had a car, why would they need something like a bus stop? (She was going to kill Connie...)
Their clothes were clean, and nice all around, the boys with their hair comb and button shirts while she wore the same white dress they had when they first arrived. But Wendy was thankful she hadn't dressed them nicer when an older boy at the bus stop, leaning against the sign and looking them over with dark eyes under curly hair, picking his teeth with his nail. She'd seen him in school...occasionally. His last name was Shepard. Which was ironic, given that his smile was that of a scrawny wolf. Sam and Eric just gawked at him, almost admiringly.
Eventually, he seemed to figure that they didn't have anything worth bothering them about, cause he shrugged lazily and strolled off. And Wendy let out the breath she hadn't know she'd been holding. But the time the bus came, she all but hauled them aboard. ("Ah Wendy!")
The Guadalupe church was small but well crafted, made in a southwestern Spanish style with a bright red roof. Wendy liked it, more so than the other churches she sampled after arriving here. Its beauty wasn't in its size but its details; carefully tended to since the last century. The high cloistered ceiling protected a simple white decor. And the aspe had a vaulted dome where hung a wooden cross with the Savior upon it while before it a soild alter with a cloth drapped over it -
"So let me get this straight Pony, this is where you an' Johnnycakes choose to spend y'all Sunday mornin's?"
Wendy froze in the middle of guiding her brothers into the nearest pew, and their ears perked up as well.
"Hey...that's Bonnie's brother!" Sam whispered. And indeed it was, though Wendy had to blink a few times. 'Cause honestly, church was one of the last places she would've thought to find Two-Bit Matthews. But there he was. And he wasn't alone. Trailing beside him on his left and his right were Sodapop Curtis (apparently off bed0rest) and Steve Randle, who scowled at the interior as if it had personally offended him, though Soda looked mildly curious...for about fifty seconds.
Bring up the rear, and looking like they wished they weren't, were Ponyboy Curtis and Johnny Cade. Actually, they were looking like they were wondering why they'd bothered to come at all. Pony seemed to be having a premonition, cause he was forlongingly gazing up to the Christ and mouthing pleads for either aid, mercy...or maybe just to be put out of his misery.
Well...this would be interesting.
Reviews, reviews! Sorry it took so long. Real life and all. I wanted to end this chapter on a high note from the last. Lots of drama going on, so what do you think of Wendy and Connie hitting the breaking point? Up next while of Johnny's POV of the famous church disaster. Nothing worse than your friends making you look terrible in front of your crush.