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Sins of the Past
-:-
Chapter Twenty
I tossed and turned in bed for what felt like hours after Elsa's disappearance, never once being able to get comfortable no matter how many times I shifted around. Thoughts of her plagued my mind, forcibly keeping me up throughout the night despite my ever increasing desire for the welcome embrace of sleep.
Elsa, the girl pushed by society to change a fundamental aspect of her identity, through a process so traumatic it even now is hard to believe happened despite her mere physical presence providing ample proof. The fact that she so willingly subjected herself to mutilation in search of a cure for her supposed "disease" really spoke a lot.
Maybe her incredible will to survive's why she's still hanging around after death, despite the world having it out for her.
I'd laughed self-deprecatingly at myself at that thought, because it wasn't like I'd been any better to her. Anna, the "friend" who'll unhesitatingly intrude on your most private thoughts just because she's bored. Could I possibly get any more insensitive and self-absorbed?
I continued to toss and turn through the night, catatonic with these depressing feelings for what must actually have been several hours, because the next thing I knew sunlight was creeping through the cracks of my blinds and my alarm was suddenly screeching at me to haul my ass out of bed and get ready for the bus.
Sigh. Looks like I'm not getting any sleep.
I didn't do too well in my classes today.
I zoned my Calculus professor out when he started droning on about the principles of differentiation, and spent most of today's Economics lecture fiddling with the volume control setting on my phone. Hell, in my sleepyheadedness I even accidentally ended up attending Mr. Weaselton's awful History lecture.
I absentmindedly noted that the Weasel really did look a lot like an actual weasel during the small timeframe before I realized my mistake. Not sure if that was my sleep deprived brain talking or anything, but I laughed to myself regardless upon seeing the resemblance, before immediately turning on my heel to haul ass out of there because I didn't hate myself nearly as much as I'd need to yet in order to willingly subject myself to a lecture from the Weasel, even if I was fairly confident that I'd be asleep within seconds of him opening his mouth.
I stumbled home that afternoon after I'd finally managed to blunder my way through all my classes, giving Mom a halfhearted hello and sorry when I accidentally bumped into her as I shambled up the stairs to take a nap despite knowing full well that it'd wreck my sleep schedule.
Dinner wasn't all that great either once I woke up, despite Mom actually having the time for once today to prepare a real meal instead of falling back upon the tried and true microwavable dinners or instant noodles like we do every other night. Mom gave me this weird look when I pushed around some mashed potatoes, but didn't seem to press the issue. I found that just I didn't really have much of an appetite.
Tuesday as it turns out wasn't all too great either, since my nap earlier had predictably ruined any attempt at falling asleep on a reasonable schedule. Wednesday wasn't any better as well, in fact it was worse because by then I'd already begun to make a habit out of being chronically late for class. By the time Thursday rolled around I finally was able to arrive on time and fully rested for once, but to my frustration I discovered that even then I still couldn't focus on my studies.
Elsa never showed up once throughout the week, but I could hardly blame her for that.
Mom was waiting for me in the kitchen after my 4th consecutive day of uselessly moping around, watching me from where she sat at the kitchen table as I tiredly stumbled my way down the stairs to begin the 5th. She had this strange look in her eyes when we made eye contact, like she was a hawk staring down a meal.
I imagined the hawk swooping down on its prey as I passed by, and sure enough...
"Sit down."
She was using her authoritative voice, the one I knew she'd use whenever dealing with a cranky patient at the hospital who'd refuse to take their medicine, or a young Anna who'd refuse to eat her vegetables. Knowing this, I silently and unceremoniously plonked myself down onto the nearest stool, feeling uniquely reminded of how Elsa had been cornered by her own father in this very same house several years ago.
"What's up?" I asked, the fatigue in my voice apparently more obvious than I'd thought.
"What's up?" Mom repeated incredulously. "Why don't you tell me what's up?"
"I'm fine, Mom." I lied instinctively, albeit rather unconvincingly even to myself.
"Mhmm," Mom hummed, clearly skeptical. "You and I both know that's not true. Want to talk about what's been on your mind?"
I thought long and hard about this question. On one hand, I'd really like to get myself out of the funk I've been in lately since I knew my grades would suffer if I kept this up. But on the other hand... I've already done enough damage to Elsa, and I could definitely do without the guilt of having potentially revealed her existence to the entire world weighing on my conscience. But maybe if I—
"—Is it about the ghost girl?" Mom asked suddenly.
My shocked reaction must've also been more obvious than I'd thought, because Mom immediately went on to muse "Huh, so it is about her after all," to herself.
My mind went into overdrive. How did Mom know? Did Elsa reveal herself to her sometime before everything went down the pooper and didn't tell me? Or did Mom just catch a lucky glimpse of Elsa or something while walking past a mirror? Or maybe she—
"—What?" Mom asked, upon seeing me staring back at her with my jaw agape, and once again interrupting my internal monologue.
"How did you know about Elsa?" I stammered, after struggling with the words for a few seconds.
"I didn't," Mom admitted. "I was suspicious of course. Was pretty hard not to be. But it wasn't until you reacted the way that you just did that I knew for certain."
"Suspicious? Suspicious how?"
Mom gave me a look that all but screamed 'are you serious?' before shrugging.
"Well..." she obliged, taking in a deep breath before leaning back in her chair to recount a story.
"...It all started on the first day we moved in actually, when you suddenly flew down the stairs as though your very life depended on it after your Rapunzel friend had told us about the Elsa myth. It didn't take a genius to tell what you were doing up there, but I thought you were pulling my leg at first until I saw that you seemed genuinely terrified."
"Yeah, but I didn't—"
"—I thought that you'd simply managed to pull off a very convincing performance that night, but then I woke up the very next day feeling incredibly sore in my hands and wrists for a reason I just couldn't understand. I was certain that I hadn't overexerted myself the other day, but just as I was beginning to doubt myself it just so happened that you somehow managed to scrub off over 60 years worth of caked on dirt and grime off the stove through sheer manpower alone. I still didn't suspect much at the time, but it got me thinking."
"Okay, but then what about—"
"Anna, please. Let me continue."
"...Fine."
Mom paused to rest her chin on her fist, deep in thought.
"There was also that one time where you were attacked by that horrid man."
I shuddered at the reminder of Hans. I hope he's rotting in jail.
"You said to the police that he chloroformed you, but then that you still managed to beat him senseless somehow. I don't mean to say that you're out of shape or anything Anna, but knowing you that's pretty hard to believe ever since you quit rock climbing, so I suspected immediately that there was something you weren't letting on at the time."
...I guess we haven't been doing nearly as good a job at covering our tracks as we'd thought.
"And lastly, there was that one time when I caught you somehow dancing a perfect waltz in the middle of your room. You and I both know that you'd never taken a dance class before in your life, so that alone was a pretty big sign something was up. There was also the fact that your eye colour was blue for some reason instead of teal as well, but do you know what really did it Anna? What finally got me to believe that this ghost friend of yours might actually be real?"
"..."
"Well?"
"I don't know," I huffed. "You tell me."
Mom began to laugh.
"Because Anna," she began, now laughing as though she hadn't ever laughed for a very long time. "Not once, for the entire 19 years you've been alive, have you ever called me 'Mother' instead of 'Mom.' So when you did all of a sudden... I knew for a fact that the girl standing in front of me was not my daughter."
...Wow.
So Elsa's formality had come back to bite her in the ass, and to think that we were done in by something so simple...
"Okay, so you know she's real," I conceded. "So what?"
"So what?" Mom repeated in disbelief. "So clearly something must've happened between you and Elsa if you're to suddenly stop talking to yourself and start acting all moody and depressed, which means that I feel obligated as your mother to ask you what's wrong, even if it's been practically 3 years since I've last had to ask that of you."
I let out a long sigh, because Mom had a point. I took a deep breath of my own, before explaining to Mom everything that had happened since the very first day we moved in.
I told her about how I'd caught a glimpse of Elsa even before we'd ever heard about her from Rapunzel, and about how Elsa had promptly scared a few years off my life after we did. I told her about how Elsa had borrowed her body to reach out to me afterwards in order to apologize and make amends, and of how she'd been the cause of her wrist pains that morning. I then described how Elsa and I had slowly bonded with each other both before and after discovering the powers of the sapphire earrings that currently hung from my lobes. I let Mom try the jewels on for herself when she asked, but without Elsa around there really wasn't any point.
I then, somewhat begrudgingly, admitted that she was right to be skeptical of my physical prowess because it indeed was Elsa who had driven away Hans that night when he broke in. Mom made me promise to set up a meeting with Elsa later so that she could thank the ghost properly.
I then tried my hardest to explain what little I understood about our ability to share bodies, though I don't think I ended up making much sense at all since I barely understood it myself. I figured that a demonstration would be best, but Elsa not being here and all made that impossible.
I finally then got around to telling Mom about Elsa's journal, of how I had intruded upon it, and of how Elsa had ultimately died. Mom made this weird face when I mentioned Belle, but when I called her on it she shrugged and urged me to continue regardless.
"That's pretty much it," I replied, when she did. "Elsa just disappeared afterward. And. I—I don't know. I felt really bad for what I did to her and couldn't sleep that night, which lead to me not paying attention in class. And even yesterday when I wasn't feeling dead tired, I found that I just couldn't focus on anything. That's why I've been acting the way I've been lately."
Mom took a small sip from mug of coffee she'd made for herself during my spiel.
"You feel guilty," she said simply.
"...I do, yeah." I admitted.
Mom rose from her seat, quietly walking over to the nearby window to stare outside.
"Can you tell me more about this Belle person?" she casually asked.
I shrugged, forgetting momentarily that Mom couldn't see the gesture with her back to me. "Don't know much about her, honestly. I'd get Elsa to tell you, but as far as I know she's gone gone. That, or she's just choosing not to show up."
"Hmm, unfortunate. Do you know how old she and Elsa were then, back in 1928?" Mom asked, trying a different line of questioning.
I shrugged, again forgetting that Mom couldn't see it. "I'd guess around 20, or something? Hard to tell."
Mom took another sip from her mug, and I heard her counting under her breath for some reason. She slowly turned back around on her heel afterwards, taking yet another sip as she did.
"If that's right, then if Belle and Elsa were still alive today they'd be about approximately 110 years old, correct?"
"Sure, I guess? Why's that important?" I gave Mom a weird look. Where's she going with this?
Mom closed the distance and returned to her seat at the kitchen table, setting aside her mug and steepling her fingers to stare at me.
"Because Anna. Hard to believe as it may seem..." she began. "...If what you say is true, then I believe that Belle might still be alive."
Oldest confirmed person alive ever is a French lady who clocks in at 122 years, so it's plausible!
-:-
In response to the very valid points made by a Guest, in what might be one of the longest reviews I've ever received:
(I'm not trying to defend myself here or anything btw. It's an excellent review and I felt that these points should be addressed publicly.)
Q: How are Elsa and Anna ever gonna get together? There's like no romantic subplot here whatsoever.
The romance tag was something that I threw in at the beginning with the idea that I'd figure out later how to incorporate it into the story. But now, having finally fleshed out Elsa's history over the course of several months, I honestly can't see it happening anymore anytime soon.
Elsa died believing that homosexuality was a legitimate disease, and for all we know she's spent the entirety of her afterlife believing as such. Therefore, I feel as though that she'd need a whole lot of legitimate therapy and support before she could even possibly begin to entertain the idea of entering a relationship with another woman. Even if it's with Anna. As such, I may actually end up removing that tag because while I wholeheartedly believe that romance is possible between the two, it just isn't the focus of this story.
Q: If Elsa's backstory is set in 1928, then why's alcohol being so widely touted during the middle of the Prohibition? I'm also feeling that most people wouldn't be in much of a partying mood after the Wall Street Crash...
Turns out I'm pretty bad at history, because I completely forgot about both those events when writing the story. Oops.
However! As it turns out, the crash would not yet happen for several months by the time Elsa died (she died a couple weeks after Valentines Day, and the crash apparently happened during October), and that Norway (the very loose setting of the story in my mind) had supposedly lifted their ban on alcohol by 1927. Whew, crisis averted!
But, as was pointed out, the story not being set in America only raises more issues. Why is everyone speaking English? And why are people using dollars as currency? Swing dance? Neon signs? Why does the setting basically scream America? And to that I say...
...Darn.
Because those inconsistencies can't be simply explained away since they're brought on by the fact that I'm wholly unfamiliar with Norwegian culture, and filled in with what I knew. I'd forgotten about the Prohibition and Wall Street Crash because we don't necessarily study it in Canada.
I mean yeah, I could say instead that everything takes place in Canada, and thinking about it that actually seems to work out quite well for this story, but I'd rather not make up convoluted excuses to hide the fact that I'd always intended from the start for the story to be set in Norway but didn't really do the proper research in order to support it.
I know it sounds like I'm making a big deal of all this, but realism in my stories is something I've always tried to strive for (to varying degrees of success since cough my other story ATAL is not very realistic now that I look back upon it cough). That being said however, I'm not going to be losing sleep over these mistakes because I feel confident that these details can be overlooked since they don't affect the story nearly as badly as a plot hole would.
But I'll admit that deep down they do bug me a little since I've always liked to write my stories as though they could've plausibly happened in real life.