It was raining that Sunday morning. Heath yawned and poured himself some coffee. After they left from Winnifred's, Johnathan went to his medical dormitory, or whatever he had, while Heath stayed overnight in the old mill. The damp wood boards creaked under his bare feet as he made his way down the attic. Wrapping a small towel around his broad shoulders, Heath walked to the doorway and stared outside, sipping coffee. The rain mercilessly pounded in the ground. The thicket was sheathed in a low fog, giving the latter a surrealistic look. Heath took another sip. He would probably have to stay at the mill for another night. Not that it bothered him, really. He spent entire winters here. Walking back into the mill, Heath placed his cup of coffee on a broken stool and slapped his hands on one of the numerous beams above. What should he do? Johnathan was working at the hospital, Winnifred was probably locked inside by her lovely aunt. Heath sighed, grabbed his worn, shaggy, trench coat, and ran out into the rain.
"Winnie, dear, pick up my yarn, will you?"
Winnifred obediently handed over the ball of yarn, which rolled under her armchair, to her aunt. The old woman pulled some string and continued her knitting. Winnifred snuggled into the armchair, sleepily following the quick movements of the needles with her bobbling gaze.
"Your friends are wonderful young men," Aunt Martha continued.
"And do refrain from sleeping while I'm talking!"
Winnifred jerked her eyelids open, jolting from sleep.
"Sorry," she apologetically stretched her legs. They numbly dropped down. "Yes, Johnny and Heath are great friends," Winnifred picked up her aunt's topic.
"Strange that I never met them before," Aunt Martha thoughtfully mused, clicking her needles.
"Who are they?" Winnifred stretched down across the armchair's arm to grab a pillow from the floor.
"Well, I met Heath in first grade," Winnifred plopped the pillow on her knees.
"He was new in this village. Remember, that loner among first graders? He had this extremely oversized coat, black singlet, and army pants. He still has the coat and the shirt, actually. That's what he mostly wears."
"No, I..." Aunt Martha wrinkled her forehead, eyes focused on the knitting.
"I don't remember him at all. How was he as a child?" Winnifred smirked, resting her head.
"You would've hated him. A reckless troublemaker, little brute, obstinate to the point of foolishness. He would always get into fights with Jack."
"The Browning's son?" Aunt Martha specified.
"Yeah." Winnifred paused. "They hated each other. They still do. Thank god Jack moved away to another town." They were quiet for a moment.
"And what about Johnathan?" Aunt Martha finally asked, finishing her row and turning her work over.
"Johnny?" Winnifred smirked, watching her aunt's work. "Johnny moved her seven years ago for med school. He and Heath knew each other from some external ties. Apparently, Heath knew a guy from Johnathan's high school, and through that guy Heath met Johnathan..." Winnifred shrugged.
"However it was, it was Heath who introduced me to Johnathan. He is finishing his internship this fall."
"Well the both seem to be a very good company to a young lady, not like those in your class," Aunt Martha noticed. Winnifred smiled and looked into the window. It silently cried, raindrops rolling down its glassy cheeks.
Johnathan knocked and entered the ward.
"Mr. Elliot?" He called. The patient abruptly lifted his head up, dark eyes glimmering.
"Mr. Crane?" He asked. Johnathan smirked and closed the door, undisturbed that Elliot found out his name. It wasn't hard really; you just had to read the badge hanging on his coat. Johnathan pulled the chair out of the table and sat down. Elliot watched him out of squinted eyes. They sat in a small silence.
"Did you like the visit from the doctor?" Johnathan finally asked. Elliot shrugged his broad shoulders.
"It was like you predicted."
Johnathan thoughtfully clicked his tongue, looking to the side.
"Well then, let's continue from where we stopped." He shifted his gaze back on the teenager.
"Last time you mentioned that you were influenced by people. That they, quoting your words, are no mad than you are."
Elliot furrowed his brows, biting his lip in thought and measuring the pros and cons in his mind.
"You want me to tell you? He said, judging the intern with his eyes. Johnathan shrugged and leaned back on his chair.
"I mean, it's always in your best options. Your willingness to collaboration will determine your further state." Elliot snorted.
"So you are trying to say that my confession will get me out of loony bin?" He raised his brows in sarcasm.
"Every bloody psychologist says that! What makes you think that I would tell you anything?"
"Do you want to stay here?" Johnathan rudely slashed, finally losing his some of his patience.
"If not, I suggest you, Mr. Elliot, to explain your phrase that you said last time."
Thomas grumbled, casting angry glances at Johnathan.
"Fine," he finally admitted. "I was talking about my mother and a former friend I used to know. She's is a very weak woman," he spit down on the floor.
"That bitch can't stand up for herself, nourished every possible abuse you can think of, just to keep herself these cheap toys you call a lavish life." Unknown to himself, Elliot was getting more and more open as his anger boiled up.
"She allowed my father to beat me. Tell me, Mr. Crane, can sanity be preserved when your body is dying? Can your mentality possibly come out unharmed when your physicality is destroyed?" Johnathan did not answer, thinking something to himself.
"And Bruce..." Elliot bitterly laughed. "His father saved my mother from death. How can I be thankful for him?" He fell silent. All this time, Johnathan was carefully watched his face. When he finished, Crane sighed and stood up.
"I will discuss your case with the doctor, Mr. Elliot. Even though I find that there is little to discuss on your matter."
"Can I hope for a release soon?" Thomas sarcastically asked. Johnathan paused at the door.
"I cannot give you any guarantees. That's beyond my jurisdiction."
Dr. Collins glanced at the intern from his papers.
"So you insist that Thomas Elliot is not mad?" He inquired.
"He's about as mad as me, doctor," Johnathan answered. That was the truth after all.
"And what do you propose?" The doctor frowned.
"Let him go. The wisest decision so far. His outburst is like your outburst on Lewis when you find out that he drank while on duty."
"That's not what..."
"Elliot was probably disliked by some external party, which decided to get rid of him," Johnathan continued to press his point.
"But then we are sending him back to those people!" The doctor exclaimed, rubbing his forehead with the tips of his glasses.
"It's not our concern," Johnathan indifferently moved his shoulders. "We cannot treat him here because he requires no treatment. It's just a waste of time."
"He did pass all the tests we gave him," Collins thoughtfully muttered under his breath.
"And he is mentally well, there's no argue about that..."
Johnathan patiently waited for the doctor to make up his mind.
"Very well," Collins agreed, approvingly looking up at the intern. "Tell Lewis to take care of the matter."
Johnathan nodded. Just as he was about to leave, the doctor called him back.
"Crane?"
"Yes, doctor!" He turned around. The doctor was pointing at him with his glasses.
"When does your internship end?"
"In November, sir."
"Alright. You may go."
The dirt flopped under his barren feet, staining his skin and the hemline of his pants. The cold penetrated his body, crawling under the skin, freezing the veins, and stopping the thought. The wind tore his hair across his face. Heath did not even try to get it out of his eyes, the wind would knock them back again anyway. Vision blurred, he hoped that habit and reoccurrence would bring his feet to where he wanted. He knew everything in this town, unfortunately...
The faint outline of the church started to draw out in the raindrops. Heath quickened his pace, breath painfully breaking out of his lungs, feet skidding on the slippery ground. Without stopping, Heath stuck two fingers into his mouth and deafeningly whistled, shrill cutting his throat. The black umbrellas hovering next to the church wall sharply turned his way. Heath slowed down to a walk, roughly sitting down on an old crate. A small boy immediately placed an umbrella above him.
"Deal me in," Heath ordered Billy, who paused in his shuffling of cards. That one disapprovingly glared at the addition, but said nothing and simply switched the position of the cigarette in his mouth with his tongue and teeth.
"Omaha?" Herald asked, a lean student from the humanitarian faculty. He was gripping the umbrella to the point where his knuckles gone white.
"Texas Hold'em," Heath retorted. He broadly grinned and messed the boy's standing next to him hair.
"Get those younglings something easy to learn, right?" The boy wriggled away from his hand, both shyness, excitement, and pleasure painted on his face. Heath smirked and turned to the players.
Winnifred was washing the dishes after dinner. They had fish. Aunt Martha sat in her rocking chair, knitting needles spinning in her fingers. Margaret snuggled on the couch, watching their little television. The voice of the news caster monotonously mixed with the sound of rushing water.
"Winnie," Aunt Martha suddenly said,"Are you to be done soon?"
Winnifred raised her head. "Why?"
"I need to talk to you." Winnifred dutifully turned off the water and took the stack of plates out of the kitchen. Placing them on the table, she took the top one and began rubbing it with a towel.
"Yes, Aunt?" She lowered the plate separate from the others and took a new one.
"Your uncle died," her aunt seriously began, straightening in her chair and lowering her needles.
"Uncle?" Winnifred calmly asked, not lifting her gaze up from the plate.
"Your mother's brother."
"Well, I never knew she had one," Winnifred remarked, shortly glancing up at her aunt. Her voice was somewhat taut, as if cautious of what to say.
"He has given me no news of himself, even when they were alive," The towel roughly razed the plate's surface.
"What am I to do?"
Aunt Martha pressed her lips.
"We - and I mean you, Margaret, and myself - must travel to his residence. There are some formalities to be made. You don't want his house to be overcome with thuggery?"
Winnifred quietly smirked, deciding not to answer. A wrinkle quickly shot above her brows, before disappearing again.
"Where is his residence?" She asked instead.
"Maine." Winnifred quietly whistled.
"And for how long?"
"The rest of spring and some summer."
"And what about my diploma?"
"You'll do it this week. I've already talked it over."
"Alright," Winnifred took the new, dry stack of plates to the kitchen. But when she came there, she could not hold her feelings. Her arms all by themselves let go of their hold, and the plates went spilling from her hands. One by one, they crashed to the floor, splitting into a million pieces, flying in all directions. For Winnifred, the crash was deafened by the beating of the hammer in her head, but the others heard it.
"Winnifred!" Aunt Martha stopped right behind her. Margaret looked scared behind her shoulder.
"Winnifred, what did you..."
"I had a spasm," Winnifred turned to her aunt. Her face melted to regret and slight confusion.
"I-I...I'm sorry. I'll clean it right now." She lowered down to the floor, picking up the cracked plates, ignoring her aunt's stare. She heard her sigh behind her and by the shuffling of the dress, understood that she left. Winnifred was alone. Passing her hand over the broken china, she felt how the little splinters sharply cut invisible lines in her hand. She lied. She did not have a spasm. It felt nothing like a spasm. If it was, her mind would've went black. And it was pounding with...anger? Indignation? Bitterness?
Winnifred slid the shreds together, their edges roughly digging into the softness of her palm. She remembered her parents. Vaguely, but still. She remembered her father. He would always come late to work. She would run towards him, and he would pick her up. She would always run away from his embrace, running away from his cold from the night hands. Mother stayed only as a misty air of honey, warmth, and pine cones. This stark difference between the two memories then collapsed into a painful blur of announcements, men in black, monotonous speeches, wind, coarse pebble stones, wild hunger, and constant resentment of an outcast still resided in Winnifred. She disliked news of any relatives. It meant that they were there, they could help her. They just decided not to.
Winnifred messily brushed the splinters into the dustpan. Now this new uncle. She did not owe anything to him. Why should she come? She never knew when he was alive, nor did she really wanted to be acquainted with him after death.
"Winnifred?" Margaret looked into the kitchen. Winnifred turned around.
"Margie? I'm almost done."
"No, you're not," Margaret sighed and squatted down next to her. Silently, she took Winnifred's both hands and turned them palm up. Strings of blood trimmed her palms, crimson drops slowly seething from the cuts. Margaret raised her eyes on Winnifred, who silently stared at her hands.
"You lied," she quietly said. "You did not have a spasm. I know."
Winnifred did not answer, wordlessly taking her palms from Margaret's hands. Margaret watched her stand up and tilt the dustpan over the trash bin. The china fragments sprinkled down.
"Should we carry out obligations to the dead?" Winnifred quietly asked, observing how the broken pieces waterfall into the trash.
"Even if we didn't owe anything to them?"
"Well yes," Margaret admitted. Winnifred sighed, and squeezed her eyes right, trying to get rid of the pulsing pain in her eyelids. Once the final splinter slid off the dustpan, Winnifred turned back to Margaret, refusing to look at her.
"Can you pick up the plates that are more or less intact? Please."
Margaret bit back a response and did what was ordered. Her cousin quickly mopped the floor just in case of any overlooked pieces. Finished, Winnifred tossed the broom next to the fridge. Margaret watched her leave; her eyes transferred to the broom. Shifting, she went over to the sink, dampened her hands, and then passed them over the broom's handle, washing away Winnifred's blood.
Winnifred silently stared at her cuts on the palms. How could she be so careless? Better yet, how could she not feel the pain? Winnifred slowly clenched her hands. Needle like pain pierced her palms. Winnifred pressed her lips and unfolded them again. Sighing, she looked out the window. Her dark reflection reflected in the rain-stained glass.
A/N. So, we've finished the first few chapters of intro, even though this part is mostly insight into the characters, Winnifred's departure to Maine is one of the critical points in the plot! I may or may not have the "Maine" chapters ready for next Friday, but definitely in the range of two weeks. Please write your thoughts in the reviews considering this, the silence on the comments front is kinda unnerving me! ;)
Last but not least, thank you to all who are reading, following, and favoriting this, it really means a lot to me! You're all AWESOME!