Chapter Four: Twisted Visions
Lucy had fled to her own room, too.
The window near her dressing table felt safer, somehow.
As she rested a hand cross the blue lid of her musical jewellery box, trying to decide whether to open it. Her hand flew to her face, and she began laughing as she felt the heat of the red mark on her cheek.
She blinked away a tear, then another. Then another. After a while, she didn't bother blinking anymore.
The latch on the delicate blue wood box lifted easily; there were her pearl strings, her ruby earrings. Her sapphire brooch.
Picking up the box, she held it out from her body, stretching her arms farther and farther. Was it her, or did the room seem somehow telescoped? Lucy felt as if her hands were someone else's as she dumped her treasures on the white hand-hooked rug. Everything was white in her room. The wind from the open window was on her face. All she could see was white, everywhere.
It was snowing, yes, it was snowing now!
Her bare feet dug into cold ice, and Lucy felt calm.
She rose from her chair and clutched the open box to her heaving chest. She could feel the breeze as she lifted the false bottom up from its ribboned catch, revealing a well-kept, polished Glock 17. She stepped through the snow on the ground, letting the box slide down her legs to nowhere.
"Lucia?" she called after her daughter, "I've got a present for you! Come to Mommy now, dearest…"
The sound of her daughter's name drove the snow away.
She sat down heavily on her bed, playing with the gun in her hands and thinking of Harry.
Mummy, you wanted to see me?" came a voice.
Lucy turned to the door and saw Lucia, shaking and tears rolling down her face.
"You saw him….attack the Doctor?" Lucy asked, horrified.
All Lucia did was nod and ran into the welcoming arms of her mother as they embraced; Lucy made sure the gun pointed upwards towards the ceiling as they hugged so it wouldn't hit them if it accidentally went off, and then she began to sob, comforting her daughter.
"Mummy it's not safe here. I wanna get out of here; I want the man with the big blue box to take us away from this place!" Lucia sobbed.
"I know baby, I know." Lucy replied.
An idea hit her and as she put the gun down on the bed, she grabbed a suitcase and began flinging clothes into it.
"We're gonna get out from here, away from your father-"
"Mummy, what's the gun here for?"
Lucy sighed and then helped her daughter up on the bed.
"It's for Daddy, Sweetheart…" she said simply, cradling Lucia's head against the neckline of her red dress. Her poor baby… surely Lucia was frightened by the thunderous beating of her mother's one heart?
But Lucia curled out of her mother's grasp. She leaned up, planting a kiss on her mother's cheek as she dragged the shiny weapon away from Lucy's loosening fingers.
"I think it's time to leave now," she said, patting her mother's suitcase.
Lucy smiled and touched her daughter's hair.
"Yes, baby. Let's go see the Doctor."