"You know, when I appointed you Sheriff, I assumed you had the ability to control your wife..."
Ian sighed in irritation, rolled his eyes at the interruption, but plastered on a false smile as he spun in his chair to face the familiar annoyance. "Elizabeth, what a lovely surprise," he deadpanned.
Ignoring his false niceties, Elizabeth pressed on, "Do you know what she's been doing?"
"You know, I really do have quite a lot of work that needs doing, so if you've come here to rant, would you mind terribly getting on with it?" Ian asked pointedly.
Crossing her arms firmly over her chest, lips pursed in an obvious display of her displeasure, Elizabeth snapped, "In fact, I do mind because your laissez-faire attitude is going to ruin everything..."
"Well, then, by all means, do continue..."
"She's been visiting him!" she hissed. "You know full well what that could mean for everything we've built."
"So, what would you have me do?" he asked.
"Stop her! Control your wife! Do whatever it takes to make sure they don't find out the truth!"
"Hi Daddy," Emily greeted softly, settling in the chair next to the man hunched over a puzzle.
She tried to visit her father every week, but it was hard to see him locked up like some kind of animal, drugged to his eyeballs until he was barely himself. Her mother had insisted that he be committed after she said he'd started showing signs of dementia. Emily had fought tooth and nail against it, willing to care for him at home, to do anything to keep him from being locked away, but ultimately, it had been her mother's decision.
(Maybe it was guilt that brought her every week like clockwork, over not having done enough...)
Eyes bleary and confused, the man looked up and, for a moment, he seemed not to recognize her. But only briefly. Then, his face lit up. "Bella!" he greeted, leaning in to kiss her cheeks. "I've missed you!"
"I missed you too, Daddy. How have you been?"
He glanced about suspiciously, ensuring that no nurses were nearby, then gestured for her to hold out her hand. When she did so, he spit several pills into her palm with a mischievous grin.
She sighed, closing her palm around the pills. "Daddy..."
"They're trying to silence me because I know the truth and she doesn't want anyone to know what she's done..." He said the same thing every time she visited.
"Who, Daddy?"
"The Queen," he insisted, "She doesn't want anyone to remember who they really are. But I remember. I remember everything."
She smiled, but it was a smile that said she didn't quite believe.
He must've read it in her face because he dropped the matter, asked, "How's life, Bella? How is that man you married?" (He'd never quite been able to call Ian by his name, had obviously never liked him. Not that Emily could blame him...apparently his paternal instincts had been spot on.)
Emily sighed, eyes shut tight. "He, umm... He hurt me, Daddy." She told her father everything – things she never told another soul. Because he was safe... Anything she said to him, no matter how fucked up, would either remain a secret or be dismissed as the rantings of a mad old man. "I've never seen him so angry – it was like...he was possessed by something evil."
He hummed a note that she couldn't quite decipher.
"I never should have married him," she continued in a whisper. "I can't even remember falling in love with him in the first place."
"That's because you didn't..." She raised a brow in question at that. "She wanted you to be with someone who would control you, keep you from finding your other half, because she knows you can stop her."
She nodded, smiled, patted his hand. But a thought niggled at the back of her mind, dislodged by his curious words..
"What is it, Bella?" he asked, missing nothing.
"I met someone..." she murmured. "He's that stranger who lives out on the edge of town and never leaves his house. When I first laid eyes on him, it was like I'd known him an entire lifetime – a thousand lifetimes. I can't explain it, but...he's important somehow. Does that sound totally insane?"
"He is important," he insisted with an encouraging nod. "More than you know. It will all become clear with time. This is only the beginning – you've only just found each other again."
Emily's brows creased in confusion. "Again?" she repeated. "What do you mean again?"
He just shook his head, sighed, returned to putting pieces into the puzzle. He'd said too much.
Following his lead, she joined him in piecing together the puzzle and changed the subject, "A new girl came to town..." It wasn't particularly interesting gossip – she wasn't even sure why she'd brought it up, other than this feeling inside her that he needed to know for some reason.
He visibly perked up. "She's here?" Something about the way in which he said it, as if gripped by a combination of sadness and hope, made her perk up and pay attention.
If she found his phrasing odd, she ignored it. "Her name's Clara – barely eighteen if I had to guess. Running away from something – or someone – with her boyfriend."
He nodded, smiled expectantly.
"She matters to me, somehow, for some reason. I barely know her, but I feel like I need to protect her from something... Someone..." She let out a shaky breath. "Am I crazy, Daddy? Or just lonely? Desperate to connect with someone, anyone, that I'm imprinting on total strangers like a baby duck..."
"You're not crazy, Bella," he assured her. "Trust me, I should know," he added jokingly, gesturing widely at his surroundings.
"Then what?" she begged. "What's happening to me?"
Her father smiled. "It's starting," he said enigmatically.
She smiled indulgently, if sadly.
He reached over, squeezed her hand. "You need to look out now – once she knows, she's going to do everything in her power to ensure you stay under her thumb. Believe me, she'll stop at nothing..."