October 29th 2022
Chapter 302
Our Hands to Transform
"Daddy, I found one! I found one!" a voice hollered from above. Lucas' ears perked up already at the call of his title, and then he had to wonder for a moment exactly what it was that Kacey – at least, what sounded like Kacey but could just as easily have been Remy – had found. He looked to Maya, to see if she knew, and she seemed to have some idea of it. She was already making her way up the stairs, her steps lightly echoing in the empty house.
Even though they had 'de-haunted' the place, Juliet's former home, Marianne Sullivan's before her, still felt a bit strange when seen devoid of all furniture, all decoration… For as long as either Maya or Lucas had visited this house, regardless of its occupant at the time, it always felt so full of life. Plenty of that merit went to those occupants, it did, but then the décor had plenty of its own space in this, too. It was an outward expression of their inner qualities. Now, whatever they would make of this place, they were going to have to find a way and somehow live up to that standard. They were here today to start and see what they might do.
"What did you find, cub?" Lucas asked when he and Maya had reached the first floor to find their daughters. They'd had Aubrey below, in Maya's arms, but they'd been hearing these five running around up here for a few minutes already before being summoned.
"A fairy mark!" Kacey declared with outstretched hands. Behind her, in one of the bedrooms, they could spy Remy, Lucy, and Mackenzie crouched inside the closet, while Marianne held her flashlight on them. She'd insisted on bringing it, and now she looked proud to have found use for it.
"A fairy…" Lucas slowly drew out the word as he looked to Maya. She only had to give him a slight look for him to read it as 'play along, Huckleberry,' and then he turned back to Kacey. "A fairy mark!" he matched her tone, and she excitedly grabbed his hand before drawing him forward. "Now where did you hear about those?" he innocently asked, figuring it was the easiest way to piece things together without Maya having to pull him aside.
"Mommy showed us one, outside," Lucy pitched in.
"She said maybe there's more in here," Remy added. Already this was helpful to a point, and it became more so once they did go in closer to where the other girls were clustered. The beam of the flashlight showed him the floor inside the closet, where Lucas found his own name, carved into the wood… Ah. It was a very short leap for him to figure out the rest. There was another carving just like this, by the swing on the porch.
Whether Maya had pointed it out to them, or they had seen it first, he'd be willing to bet that she'd introduced the story of 'the fairy mark' in an effort to not introduce the idea of carving one's own name anywhere. It didn't matter that the triplets were still learning letters, the last thing they wanted was either for them to pick up any sharp object they were too little to handle, or for them to start writing their names on any and all things. To the best of their knowledge, Kacey, Remy, and Lucy Friar were none of them fairies, able to leave these marks.
"Bet your grandparents just loved that the fairies visited them like that," Maya told Lucas, with a smirk barely contained.
"You know, they weren't that big of fans," Lucas scratched at the back of his neck.
Later, he would tell Maya the story of this particular 'mark.' He wouldn't have remembered it just off the top of his head, but as soon as he'd seen it, he could practically see himself, crouched there. When he was very little and it would be time for him to go home, this would be his favorite hiding spot, never really understanding the fact that, if he kept hiding in that same spot, then people would know where to find him. He'd gone and hidden there, the day of his grandfather's funeral. Jax Murphy had meant so much to him. He couldn't be gone, just couldn't. So, when he'd been up there, he'd carved his name into that spot, because when he would hide, trying to stay here longer, it would so often be Jax who came looking for him. He could still see his face, hear his laugh…
"This little scar right here," he'd show Maya his finger, and she'd gasp and laugh despite herself to discover its origin after all this time. "I finished the last letter, went to close the pocketknife, and then I cut myself. Tried not to let people see, didn't want to make a scene. Michael was the one to find me. He'd just lost his father, but he knew I was missing him almost as much as he did, so he got it. Fixed up my finger, and no one knew about it until after the day was over."
Maya would easily be able to conjure up an image of a twenty-three or so-year-old Michael Sullivan, tending to a Lucas no older than their firstborn with her flashlight, grieving for his father even as he'd find a moment of peace with his nephew, a moment of shared grief.
After the fairy mark had been found and observed by all, the girls were finally convinced to leave the closet and continue on their exploration. None of them except for Marianne seemed to really be able to look at the empty walls, empty rooms, and connect them with Juliet's house, which they had all known intimately for as long as they could remember. They had approached the house from outside, they'd walked through the door, but then it was a whole other place, not the house they'd known anymore…
"Is someone else going to come live here now?" Marianne asked her parents.
"Not exactly…" Maya tipped her head. Marianne considered this for a moment, then looked up to her mother, blinking.
"Are we going to live here?" she now asked, and her little sisters looked from her to Maya. It was impossible to tell if they thought this was a good idea. One thing was for certain, and it was that Marianne did not want to live here, or maybe more to the point, she didn't want to leave their current home, the home she'd literally been born and raised in.
"We're not," Lucas was quick to reassure her. He could have joked about the length of the commute, as Juliet was known to do, but he doubted that sowing any more doubt would be helpful at the moment.
"We always said that we would turn it into a bed and breakfast," Maya pitched in, and Lucas nodded.
"What's that?" Marianne and all three of the triplets asked at the same time. Never to be left out, Mackenzie chirped a 'that?' after her sisters.
"Well… It's sort of like a hotel, but smaller," Lucas started to explain.
"It's almost like when we do Sleepsters, except everyone's got their room, and bed," Maya added. "And they pay to stay there." The girls listened to all this with growing curiosity. It sounded fun!
"We would still have the campers staying here over the summer," Lucas went on. "And someone would live out here to help run the place. We haven't worked that out just yet, but we will. First, we need to fix up the whole house and decorate it. That's going to take a few months at least.
When Maya found herself playing bathroom round-up with the triplets and the little sisters, Lucas took a moment to sit in the stairs and was there joined by Marianne, who observed his notes with diligent attention. It made Lucas smile even as he pretended to just keep working like she might not have been there, watching him. After a few moments, Marianne spoke up.
"I want to help," she told him. Lucas looked at her, intrigued.
"With this?" he asked, indicating his notes, and she nodded.
"Ella got to do the dog retreat with you," she pointed out, and he had to tip his head to her. She had a point. He happened to have another to supply to her.
"It was your great grandmother's house, Marianne the first. It would seem only right to have another Marianne on the job to transform it," he told her, and she smiled. Yes, that was exactly right, wasn't it? "I would love for you to be my partner," he offered her his hand, and she clasped it at once, the better for him to give it an exaggerated shake that made her giggle. "Right, well, first things first, we have to look at the house the way it is now, and we have to figure out what we want it to become. How many bedrooms will we have, what about the other rooms? What kind of work are we going to need to get done before we can think about decorating?" he explained, never minding the fact that she was seven years old. He never believed in talking down to his daughters as though they were far younger than they actually were. He knew what they were capable of, and he wasn't about to shortchange them. Marianne listened so attentively, nodding along.
"Then what?" she asked.
"Well, then we need to bring in the furniture, we need to paint the walls, or maybe put some wallpaper, we… we get to pick out all of that, tables, and chairs, and sofas, bed sheets and blankets, dishes, everything… You get to help me do all that." Her excitement only increased. "If there's someone that I trust to pick colors," he confided, and she pointed at herself as though in disbelief. "Yes, you," he laughed. "You, and your mother, of course."
"Of course," Marianne repeated. "Can I go tell Mommy?" she asked.
"Yeah, go for it." Marianne got up and started up the stairs in haste. "Ask her about the jingle," Lucas called after her with a smirk.
Sitting here, with the house empty, he'd been finding that it felt easier to recall when this had been his grandmother's house, as strange as it sounded. He could still see it when it was Juliet's house, but sometimes it would be harder to see past 'the Juliet of it all' and see the way things had been back when it had been Marianne Sullivan's house. But now that the distraction had been removed, it really felt like his memories found it easier to settle in and expand, like they'd had nowhere to go until now. It would be one of his last chances to see it that way, wouldn't it? Soon, there would be a brand new layer to distract him from seeing all this, and… it was okay, it was how it should be. Could he have found a way to turn things back the way it had been, as close to it as possible? Probably, yes, but he wasn't going to, especially now that he had his special partner on the job.
As he stood from the stairs, Lucas took a few slow steps, thinking… He looked around, listened to the sounds from upstairs, telling him that everyone was still there. He walked over to the door to the cupboard under the stairs, tugged to pull it open. Juliet had not used it in all the time she lived here, to his knowledge, and the fact that the door resisted the pull at first seemed to confirm it. There was plenty of dust in there, some cobwebs… The only flashlight he had was in his phone, but shining the light in, even with everything that was in the way, he could just make out the letters, carved there into the floor. Another fairy mark that had touched this house. He had really been a menace with that pocketknife in his childhood, hadn't he? Good thing his daughters weren't fairies… to his knowledge.
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
