Author's Note:
Okay, so I said I wasn't going to continue this. Obviously I changed my mind. I know LostSchizophrenic and all the others who've been screaming for a continuation will jump up and down in their seats now (careful, you'll hurt yourself!). Somehow this future Joaniverse grew on me, and here's your next peek through the wormhole. Leave a review if you loathe or like it. Please. Indulge me.
PS: Yes, there's more to come. LostSchizophrenic asked and I guess it never occurred to me that you might think this is all to it. You'll be glad to hear that I have at least six chapters in all lined out so far. Not all of them fully written, but it's all in my head somewhere. I don't know what happened, I didn't really want this to expand to more than one chapter in the beginning. Guess I'm having too much fun with this particular Joaniverse.
Chapter 2 – Hidden Treasure
There was this corner on the attic that Elya had never really paid attention to. It was just there and you never questioned why or what might be hidden beneath the sheets that covered the shelves and hidden objects—whatever they were. It wasn't like she ventured onto the attic a lot anyway. As a kid it had always creeped her out, ever since her kindergarten friend Eli had told her that monsters lived up there and would be awoken if you made noises that were too loud.
The attic wasn't any less dark and dingy now than it had been then, but at least she now knew that monsters didn't exist. At least not the kind that resided on their attic. She made a beeline straight for that long forgotten corner, the one where there was almost no light. It now seemed like it had been arranged that way.
She shone the flashlight in the direction and the round cone of light grazed the graying sheets that were covering up ... something. Hopefully among that something would be what she was looking for. If her father refused to show her pictures of her mother, then she'd have to find them herself. And she was quite sure that they'd be hidden up here. Unless her father had burned them or otherwise disposed of them, but he didn't strike her as the type who would just throw them out.
Drawing closer, she carefully lifted one of the sheets, coughing at the dust that rose up in the air. Underneath, she found a cardboard box with various decorative items that she vaguely remembered having seen before, in her parents' bedroom. Candleholders and candles, a few colorful cushions, a yellow and a blue glass vase and other items she didn't look at in detail.
Maneuvering the box aside so she could move forward to the next covered items, her eyes fell on a wooden box that looked like it might just contain photos or similar memorabilia. She carefully took it in her hands and opened it. Inside she found not photos, but instead a few CDs and a key. The band names and singers on the CD covers didn't tell her anything, so she took out the key, illuminating it with the flashlight.
She looked around, searching for something that might have the keyhole that this key would fit in. Her eyes fell on a small door in the pitched roof area that might just be what she was looking for. How come she had never noticed this door?
She had to scramble over some more items to get to the door, and when she put the key in the hole and turned it, she was almost surprised that the door lock indeed opened without much resistance. Carefully, she aimed the flashlight's beam at the inside. More items and boxes covered by sheets greeted her line of sight.
She edged closer, bending her back slightly because the sloped roof didn't leave enough room for her to stand upright. The object she was standing in front of reached up to her hip and when she removed the dust-covered sheet from it, she didn't immediately know what she was looking at. It was a sculpture of some kind, bent wires melting into each other, metal objects contorted and entwined in a way that the didn't know whether to decide it was beauty or crap. She made a face and moved on to the next item.
There were more of these sculpture-like things, and Elya began to think that maybe these had been made by either her father or her mother. Why else would they keep something like this hidden in a locked up compartment?
The next sheet-covered mount looked like something more square in shape and revealed a set of paintings in oil or acrylic, she guessed. She had never been interested much in art. The first one was something abstract, something she couldn't identify. She went through a couple of them, losing interest after the third or fourth meaningless patterned one. But the next one captured her attention, almost making her gasp. A woman's portrait looked at her, her hair long and brown, her eyes filled with something she couldn't quite explain and yet something that tugged at her subconscious. And even though her recollection of the appearance of her mother was vague at best, she immediately knew that this was Joan—this was her mother.
She pulled the painting out of the pile and looked at it more closely. In the bottom right corner was a set of initials: A.R. Adam Rove. So her father painted? And painted well, if this was really his artwork. "Wow," she said in awe.
She put the painting down and went through the rest of them, but she didn't find any others that had any particular meaning to her. She moved on to the shelf on the right, finding a small portfolio binder that she opened with rapt curiosity. Inside were sketches and drawings. A lot of them depicted her—Joan. Elya looked around for a place to sit and chose a vacant spot near the wall for lack of a better object to sit on. The binder in her lap, she put the flashlight on the shelf next to her and went through the drawings one by one.
She admired each and every one of them. A lot of them were of her mother, smiling, sad, sleeping, sometimes with a pregnant belly. There were also sketches of her—of Elya, as a baby or a toddler. Or at least that's who she assumed they depicted. She hadn't found any photos, but maybe this was even better.
One drawing caught her attention especially. It was a portrait of her mother, who couldn't have been much older than sixteen or seventeen. Her hair was as long and straight as on the other images, but this time she didn't smile or laugh. Her eyes were desperate, sad, maybe even angry. A single tear slid down her face. It was as if Elya was overcome by the very sadness that her mother must have felt in that moment. This was her mother, through the eyes of her father.
Her head shot up when she heard noises, then her name being called. Her father must have come home from work, seeing the attic ladder down. But she didn't really care whether she had just been found out. She wanted answers from him, answers why he was hiding all these beautiful drawings and paintings away.
"Elya?" he called again, his voice coming closer. She stood up just as her father's head appeared in the doorway. She couldn't read his face very well because of the murky light, but his voice told her he was angry. "How the hell did you get in here?"
"I ..." she first stammered, then defiantly told him, "I found the key." She lifted the portfolio binder and then took the flashlight to illuminate the painting of her mother on the floor. "Why are you hiding all this, hiding her? Dad, these are beautiful."
He snatched the binder from her hands with a force she hadn't expected, putting it down heedlessly on the floor, away from her. He took her by her upper arm so firmly that she was sure she'd have a bruise there the next day. "Let's go," he hissed, almost dragging from the room so that all she could do was lift her feet to not stumble over random items strewn on the floor.
"Ouch," she yelped. "Let go of me," she spat at him. But he didn't relent his grip on her arm and only released his hand when they stood outside the small compartment's door and Adam had closed it behind them, locking it with the key and pocketing it.
Rubbing her arm, she glared at her father in the dim light. "You have no right to keep this from me!" she yelled at him. "She's my mother too. Just because you don't want to be reminded of her doesn't mean that I have to feel the same way! I hate you!" With that she turned and stormed towards the attic's opening and climbed down the steep stairs as fast as she could. She slipped and stumbled down the last two steps, yelping, "Shit!"
Limping slightly, she ran into her room, slammed the door and locked it behind her. In the silence that followed, she heard her father coming down the stairs as well, approaching her bedroom door.
"Elya," he said, his voice muffled by the door between them, but sounding apologetic all the same. "Look, I'm sorry. Can we talk about this?"
"Not now," she called towards the door, sitting on her bed, rubbing her aching ankle.
"Open the door. Please," he begged.
"Go away," Elya told him, her voice cold.
Silence greeted her and she was quite sure that her father had left. She just didn't understand him, didn't understand why he was getting so angry at her for wanting to know who her mother was. He couldn't blame her for wanting to know, could he? He'd feel the same way if he was in her shoes, she was sure about that. And it made her even angrier.
If her father wouldn't tell her who her mother was, then she'd have to find someone else who could. She switched on her computer and went online. If in doubt, ask Google.