Disclaimer: I don't own Warehouse 13.
AN: Chapter 2. For your viewing pleasure. Thoughts?
She does not answer the phone when it rings for the second time in as many hours. The answering machine picks it up, projecting the high pitched voice of one of her colleagues from the university just calling to, "Check in!" in an overly cheerful way. The sound waves bounce down the hallway to find her where she is seated in the kitchen, cup of coffee on the table in front of her. It is black. Black like she imagines the night sky would be if all of the stars were to simultaneously wink out of existence. She used to drink tea. But tea is a comfort drink. She does not desire to be comforted. She does not deserve it. So instead she has substituted coffee, cups and cups of it, every day. She craves the way it scalds her throat, biting and harsh, and she gulps it quickly, refusing to savor it.
This cup though, in its white mug, porcelain and smooth and unblemished, sits forgotten by her elbow, cold now. She is not aware of time passing her by, of dawn slipping into early morning, into almost afternoon. She stares at the sock on the table in front of her. It is small and pink and there are green frogs grinning mockingly at her from the cotton item. She'd found it stashed beneath the long table in the hall, forgotten, without its pair, and she has been unable to turn her gaze away from it.
"Mummy? Where do socks go?"
"Whatever are you talking about?" She slides the lunchbox into the ninja turtles backpack that Christina had insisted upon that August. The girl child had lectured her mother endlessly while they'd been shopping for school supplies about the negative effects of having all 'girl' things. 'I need some color, momma,' she'd insisted, hand on her tiny hip. She found herself smiling at the memory, before running through the mental list of things to accomplish before they could leave the house that morning.
"Where do they go? I'm always missing one," and when Christina tugs on her mother's shirt and points to the floor, Helena follows her finger to see that her daughter is, indeed, wearing mismatched socks. One is black and orange striped and the other is pink with smiling bullfrogs.
"Well, I suppose they got lost in the dryer. Misplaced."
"But where in the dryer?" Christina rolls her eyes in a perfect imitation of a preteen. She's growing up much too quickly.
"I-I don't really know," she's flustered and rushing around trying to get everything ready. "We're already late, sweetheart. You'll simply have to go to school with what you have. Now put your jacket on, please."
"I mean, unless there's a magical land - Oooh! Mummy, do you think there's a magical land just for socks. Like in that book, that one with the lion and the witch-"
"The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," her mother supplies."
"'Zactly," her daughter affirms with a quick nod, sliding into her jacket.
"Perhaps," and they're late so she's pushing them out the door and locking it behind them and pulling her five year old towards the car frantically, not paying much attention to the rambling imagination creating an entire world for a few lost socks behind her.
"I hope they aren't lonely."
"What's that, darling?" she asks, searching the street behind them in the rear view mirror before pulling out of the driveway.
"The lost socks. Do you think they make friends."
"I'm sure they do," the mother responds reassuringly."Now don't forget the note for the field trip. It's in the front pocket of your book bag, and..."
The sock is staring up at her now, taunting her, returned from its jaunt to the Narnia located in her dryer and under her furniture. She can't quite bring herself to put it away or throw it away or do much other than look at it. She can imagine its pair, tucked in the top drawer of a child-sized dresser in a dark room that is probably growing dusty from lack of use. A room whose door remains firmly closed, keeping hidden the secrets of a past full of laughter and joy. Locked away, a key thrown firmly out of reach. Out of sight, out of mind. But this. This puny article of clothing that should have no significance whatsoever, tugs on her as an anchor might, pulling her to the bottom of a sea floor too deep for mortal man. She is weak under the fibers of this item, she has been woven into its pattern and cannot seem to find the thread which would signal its undoing. Instead, it has unwound her, and she is left to stare and remember and feel an echo of invisible tears sliding down her skin, leaving behind the taste of salt.
The phone rings again, screeching loudly, but muffled by the oppressive weight of her grief. She has filled the entire house with it this morning. Letting it soak into crevices and seep into the woodwork. She can feel it curling about her cold toes, hovering over her shoulder, staring with her at a pink sock on a white tabletop. Again the phone rings, and she is moving to answer it before she is consciously aware of her motion. It is more to shut it up than anything else. The, "Hello?" has left her lips of its own accord. She is a puppet, a marionette on strings controlled by the ghost of a four year old's smile and the laugh of a baby and the distressed cries of a child with long eyelashes that hide sparkling eyes.
"Helena? Helena, are you there?" It is her brother. Charles. That is his name. It takes her moment.
"Ye-Yes. I'm here." She is here. The thought burns its way into her flesh. Here. Here. Taunting her. Teasing her. Here. You're here.
"I'm glad I caught you."
Like a fish on a line who has swallowed the hook and sees the end of the tunnel at the bottom of the fisherman's boat and a knife, silver in the dusky light.
"Mhm," her throat is dry, hollow. She has not spoken in days. This revelation brings a sudden jolt of surprise. When did she come to be so silent? The words used to flow from her languidly, with not a care in the world, set free into the open air as easily as a gull swoops through the sky, riding thermals of heat in a glowing ecstasy of purpose. She was a wordsmith. Silver tongue. Glib, charming, intelligent, passionate. Words were her passion. They were her art form, her stamp upon the world, even if they were invisible. And now, she has forgotten the art of a beautifully crafted sentence, a finely tuned paragraph. Now, she is all half-finished phrases and conjunctions. Her prose has become pain and her voice is a melody of sorrow. She is lower case letters and improper punctuation, while words that have meaning and power escape her grasp effortlessly.
"...I was thinking next week perhaps. What do you say?" Charles has continued speaking, unaware of how jealous she is of the ease with which his words come to fruition, quickly, without conscious thought.
She plans each letter carefully, setting it into place alongside its brothers, until the morphemes are in their proper order. "I'm sorry. What?"
"I said," he sighed, "that I was thinking about coming to DC for a few days."
"But, you're in London." Isn't this obvious?
"And planes exist," he points out, a bit affronted. He does not realize that the amount of emotion in her tone is astounding, not something to be scoffed at.
Once, she caressed each word as it slid past her lips, but now, they are sharp. Icicles freezing her with every vibration. "You would have to miss work."
"I can take a few days off!" he rebuts quickly, excitedly. "You could show me around that capital you seem to like so much. Teach me all your American ways." She can practically hear his eyebrows waggling over the line.
"Well, I-" She is not sure how to tell him not to come. To please, please stay away. Lying is more challenging now, as is telling the truth. Everything takes more energy, and she feels as though this conversation has already used up her speech quota for the day. She'd much rather drift into silence again. As she ponders how to properly argue her point in the most economical way possible, she grips the phone receiver tightly, and when the thoughts finally make a physical appearance, she watches as they skip down the phone line and disappear across the thousands of miles separating the siblings. "I'm not sure now is a good time."
"Helena," he sounds firm. "I haven't been to see you in ages, and in all honesty, I could quite use the time away. It'd be fun. C'mon," he is urging her to agree to give in. His voice is childish in its desire.
"Uncle Charlie!" The little girl squeals into the telephone. "When are you coming to visit? I'm having my play soon. I'm the lobster! Yes! The lobster!" she giggles. "You promised you'd come see! Mummy and I will pick you up at the airport, and you can sleep in my room on the floor. There's a blanket fort and everything," her words come piling out of her too quickly to be afforded the time they need to dissipate. They are stacked in a haphazard heap by her side, leaking slowly away. "It's absolutely wonderful! And mummy says that when you come, we can go to the zoo and see the giraffes. Have you ever seen one? A giraffe, silly!" She is hyper, her little feet dancing in place. "Mrs. Robbins says they're taller than me. Taller than mommy and me put together," this comes out in a whisper as though it is a secret. "So you've absolutely got to come to stay," haughty now, her six year old charm in full force. "And mummy will be ever so happy to see you. She's awfully busy, but I know if you came she'd play with us. And I can show you my dinosaur collection! And the microscope I have in my closet. And my new favorite doll. Her name's Lissy. She's got dark brown hair, just like mommy's. She's beautiful. Have you got a favorite toy, Uncle?" She listens to his response and nods, her entire face lighting up at whatever he tells her. "Well, when you come, they can have a playdate."
Helena hears her brother laughing over the other line. "Christina," she places a hand on her daughter's shoulder, her breath catching at the joy in those brown eyes when the child looks up at her. "Let me talk to Uncle Charles, please. Your lunch is on the table"
"Momma wants to talk to you now. I gotta go. But, I'll see you soon, Unc, okay? Love you, too!" And she tosses the phone into her mother's waiting hands before skidding off towards the kitchen.
Helena places the receiver to her ear, shaking her head in response to her daughter's antics.
"She sounds just like you, Hel," he tells her.
"I know," she responds ruefully.
"She'll be a holy terror someday."
"Someday? She's already got enough attitude for an entire schoolyard of children. Sometimes I wonder if she's secretly sixteen." They both chuckle. "So when are you coming?"
"Flights are all booked. I'll be there next Friday."
"Excellent."
"Can't wait to see you."
"You either. Email me your itinerary?"
"Will do. See you soon, sis."
"Hurry. I'm not sure the six year old can reign in her excitement for much longer." And the phone call ends with a shared laugh at the brilliance that is a child.
There is no way foreseeable way of deterring him, and honestly, she doesn't feel the energy cost outweighs the benefit. Not now anyway. Not today when there is a sock for a foot much smaller than her own crushing her dining room table. Not today when she is running on only one cup of coffee and her routine four hours of sleep. "Fine," she mumbles.
"Excellent!" he crows. "I'll email you my flight stuff."
The proper response would be one of enthusiasm, but she does not remember how to make her mouth form such sounds. They are trapped behind her rib bones, and filling the empty space that is opening up as her heart disappears. The organ that contains one's love, one's lust for life. She would hypothesize that it is currently shrinking at a rate of approximately two millimeters a day, but in square meters that is two thousand a second, and in droplets of water it is a cloud an hour, and until this rate levels out, she is filling the void with forgotten expressions. It's built in storage space. She appreciates it.
When they hang up the phone, she counts her words before the conversation dissipates from her memory. Twenty-nine and a half. Her throat is sore. Twenty nine and a half. A new record.
The park is nearly empty. It's a Monday. Or maybe a holiday. She doesn't bother with calendars any longer. No need. Time is merely a human construct to force man into a uniform existence. She scoffs at the thought. It's something one of her students, twenty years old and wiser than all the men of history combined, might have dreamed up. Her students. She finds that at times she almost misses them. Their excited eyes, their ratty sweatpants in a nine am lecture, the red eyed look they shoot her way after a particularly nasty night of drinking. She'd enjoyed working with them, teaching them, learning from them. And in another universe, perhaps she might desire to become their teacher once more. But, she does not have the words for them now. There are no lessons she can provide that they will not learn in their own time. Eventually. Painfully. In the bittersweet, melancholy way life seems to enjoy so much.
If she thought she could make them understand the way silver appears to a child. Precious only because it is shiny, and not because it is rare. Precious because it is in every crayon box and shows up perfectly on colored paper. Precious because it is the color of the sky after it rains. If she could explain that black is merely another name for the absence of light and make them see that this really means full of hidden terrors, she might return. But she has lost the map to literature that will help her to express these colors in black and white ink on musty pages smelling of binding glue and traces of leather. She is without a compass and without a key, and therefore she cannot return to them. The font has become unreadable, swimming in front of her gaze like a fish tank at the dentist's office, always just out of reach, with a sign asking patrons, "Please. Do not touch glass." She cannot communicate with them any longer. Along with her words, she has lost her way.
So, she finds herself in the park on a Monday. A quiet park. There are very few people about. The children at the playground are few, and faint. Mostly babies with their nannies. Young women who chat and laugh about the infants in their care and the contents of their employers' junk drawers. Carefree. They will learn. Those junk drawers will turn out to hold far more than short pieces of twine and pens that no longer work. And the babies will grow into children into teenagers into adults. And the women will no longer be quite so free, but quite more careful. They will learn. Yet, she envies them these moments of unwary delight in pieces of trash that someone has fearfully kept hold of for a rainy day.
She loses herself easily in inventions devised of highlighters devoid of ink, a queen of hearts, two thumb tacks, the receipt for a red wagon, trick birthday candles, and some masking tape. She creates castles in the sky, which, with a proper flick of her wrist come tumbling down around her, always leaving her unscathed no matter where she positions herself. It is frustrating. And so she starts again. Foundation full of holes. Walls that are uneven. A roof of air. Up and down, and up and down. Over and over again, using the clouds as mortar and the exhaust of an already vanished airplane for cement.
"Darling, really. I'd love to go out tomorrow, but with the baby, I just don't think it'll work. There's no way that I'll be able to procure a sitter on such short notice. - Mhmmm. - Well, I've never met the girl. You say she's excellent, but, and no offense, darling, I'm just not sure about leaving Christina with a perfect stranger." She glances down fondly at the chubby baby playing at her feet. She figured out yesterday that it is much more fun to tumble the towers to the ground after stacking them. She's discovered gravity and playing God. It's amusing to watch.
"Maybe next weekend? That would give me plenty of time to find someone. - Mmm. - No, not Friday." She checks the calendar again. "I've got the department get together that night. - Saturday? - Yes? - Excellent. How's seven?" She fills in the blank line in flowing penmanship. "See you then. - Mhmm." A click and the phone call is ended, the voice on the other end extinguished, as easy as turning off a light. "Mummy's going out next weekend, sweet girl," she lifts the child into her lap, warm and soft, still all baby fat and chubby limbs. "So, you'll have to be good for the sitter. I don't want any trouble." The little girl wraps a hand in silky hair and gives a gently tug, then squirms to be let down. Her mother complies, watching with eyes crinkled in amusement as the child kicks out with one leg to see her architecture descend into a smoking wreck before her. And then she claps her hands together in delight and goes about resurrecting the building, only to destroy it once more.
She recognizes the stride pounding on the pavement, the rhythm of the gait. It must be time. Yes. It's her. Running towards her. Was it just yesterday that they made eye contact? Her eyes were green, Helena remembers. She wonders what color her own eyes are now. If they only reflect the dullness that accompanies an empty house, shutters open because there is nothing left to hide. If they have faded to gray in the months that have passed, like water streams out of holes poked in the lid of an aluminum can once used to catch fireflies, but forgotten outside one evening and left to fill up in the rain. She imagines that in place of the tears she swallows, the color has faded from her eyes and from her skin in rivulets. Evaporating out of her pores, swallowed whole by the forever shifting landscape that is the atmosphere.
The woman is closer now, almost within shouting distance. Helena could yell to her. She could throw her arms out wide and rise to stand on the bench she inhabits. To break free of the cement slowly encasing her joints, to proclaim herself as human and not as gargoyle, trapped on some lofty roof and forced to witness the evil entering through its doors, hand in hand with the good, all without any say. Forced to digest the rain water as it sluices down the tiles of an ancient roof, depositing it on the heads of humans too busy watching for cracks in the sidewalk than cracks in the heavens. But she remembers the phone conversation. Twenty nine and a half. All of her words have been used up for the day.
Instead, she stares studiously at the sliver lodged alongside her thumb nail, the point already red and pulsing, and wonders how the small piece of wood wormed itself so effortlessly beneath her skin without her noticing.
The woman is wearing a pink shirt, she'd noticed. Pink. Like the sock. She closes her eyes against the images of embroidered frogs. The riot of color behind her eyelids is pleasing in its complexity, its chaos. Pink, and hugging her tall body tightly.
The sound of running feet is growing closer. She can't help it. She is drawn to study the other woman from behind long lashes like a paperclip is drawn to a magnet. Her cheeks are flushed, her breathing heavy. She is focused inward. As always. Helena wonders if she might teach her how to do that, to shut out the world so completely. At times, she believes it is a skill she has mastered, but at others she feels altogether too present and unable to escape. This woman looks as if she would be a good teacher. Impatient perhaps. Short. Sharp. To the point. But also soft, in a way that is hidden behind a stiff posture and uptight disposition. Soft in the way of sunflowers and pine needles. Soft in a way that reminds Helena of nights spent on a beach, trying to find a way to sleep in the curves of the sand. Molding your body to find the perfect position among the multitudinous grains that wanted to welcome your warmth as much as you desired the sound they made as they slid beneath your blankets.
Helena is so busy imagining this woman as sand, sliding through her fingers, that she almost misses the smile sent her way. They are separated by only ten feet, and the woman is smiling at her, making it feel like ten heartbeats instead. Eyes have returned from their inward gazing. Soft lips have been pulled out of a grimace. There was no errant stone today, no reason for eye contact, for outward to meet inward. But she is smiling. And Helena knows, intuitively, that this smile is for her. Like the dawn upon the sand dunes, glancing off the waves of a blue sea, drawing out the green of the ocean, this smile is for her.
She wants to smile back. Desire. A strange feeling. Something she'd nearly given up on, because desiring something impossible only created more heartache. But this, this curling in her stomach is not pain, it is merely want. She wants to smile back. And the thought is so unexpected that she is frozen in indecision and surprise, until the woman is already past, taking her dawn and the sea with her, leaving behind only a few errant grains of sand between the creases of Helena's fingers.
And as the woman disappears around the bend, she feels her muscles contract, lifting her lips, her mouth forming some small semblance of a grin, a bit late, but still present. She reaches up and presses two fingers to her lips, leaving herself with a kiss.
Before bed that night, she stands in front of the mirror. She does not look at herself. She does not need to see her face or the angle of her hip or the crease of her shoulder blade to read the words written there. All the words she did not say to Charles. All the words she has forgotten. They are inscribed in invisible ink on her skin now. And it is not lemon water and heat which causes them to appear, but a sheet of glass over a silver film. No, she does not read these words. She is not sure she would be able to even if she so desired.
Instead, she stares intently at a pair of pink lips, chapped and rough. Raise. Lower. Raise. Lower. Until she has successfully smiled a total of ten times. Ten. That has to count for at least half a word. Bringing today's count to thirty. Not a record. And she feels sore, yet nearly elated. For her, elated equates to falling asleep instantaneously for the first time in seventeen weeks. For her, elated is five hours of sleep. Until she awakens in a tangled, sweaty, lonely ball. For her, elated is realizing that she remembers how the muscles work in her cheeks the next morning, that she has managed to retain the sand throughout the night, and that the nightmares have not acted as a sieve upon her muscle memory. Up. Down. Up. Down. Ten times. Smiling. That is the name of this action. Smiling.
She does not know why she is practicing this skill that she no longer has any use for. But she is aware that there is a woman who is soft like sand and who has smiled at her for two days in a row, and that she will not allow a third day to go by without returning the favor. Because it is a favor. Smiling. So she practices. She rehearses. Until she can do it successfully with great effort, great care, great precision. But successfully.
AN2: Thoughts?