A/N: Sorry this took so long! Everything got crazy and I'm apparently Agent Carter trash now.
Disclaimer: All discernible characters are property of P.L. Travers and the Disney Company.
Mary Poppins awoke the next morning and the world, which had seemed murky and unsure the day before, now seemed clear. The sun was shining. Mary could hear birds chirping, which was already a change from the previous week. She opened her eyes and her vision wasn't blurry. Looking around, there was not a sign of the man in black nor the barefoot woman, but she was well enough to sit up and swing her own bare feet onto the floor and stand. She nearly collapsed from an overwhelming dizziness, but as she had not stood in weeks that was to be expected.
When the room stopped spinning, she let go of the wall and took her first steps. They became easier the longer she was up and she noticed that she felt none of the weakness that had marked the past few weeks, that rightly should mark the recovery from such a devastating illness. But it wasn't there and Mary felt more like herself than ever.
She crossed to the window and looked out as she pulled a silk dressing gown around herself. The sunlight was warm on her face and she threw open the window, bidding the musty stench of confined illness to leave the room. A lark landed on the sill and Mary held her breath, not wanting to scare the thing. The bird hopped closer, closer than she had ever seen a bird get to a person without food. Mary's hand rested on the sill and, much to her surprise, the bird tilted its head and perched on her pointer finger. It sat contentedly while she gently raised her arm to extend outward. In fact, it showed no signs of being incline to move at all.
On a whim, she pursed her lips and whistled softly; she had always been a decent whistler, something that had never been encouraged but was a fun skill to show at parties. The lark chirped back, nothing like the tune Mary had whistled, but it seemed to almost be replying. Of course, that was impossible.
She was so enraptured by the bird, she was taken entirely by surprise when the room was filled with a near shout. "Mary Poppins! Come away from that window this instant!"
The lark flew and Mary whirled around just in time to be pulled into her mother's arms. "What on earth were you thinking, Mary? Come, get back in bed."
She just laughed and looked at her mother. "I'm fine!" she promised, trying to make eye contact with the woman. "I promise."
Mary's mother stopped. Her daughter showed no signs of the illness that had nearly carried her away. Her eyes weren't glassy, her face no longer pale. The roses in her cheeks, which had enchanted so many young men, were back and she was standing tall. With a gasp, Mary's mother pressed a hand to her forehead; the fever was gone. She was the picture of health.
Doctors were called and left in confusion by Mary's complete turn around. The house celebrated that night, though everyone watched Mary Poppins carefully, wondering if the miraculous recovery was only a temporary respite, that Mary was destined to collapse over the lamb shank the cook had prepared. But she wasn't; Mary stayed strong and happy through out the evening.
The servants whispered in the hall. What had been done for the girl? For the past week, Mary Poppins had hovered on the edge of life and death and even her parents had resigned themselves to the fact that she was going to tip over into endless sleep. The doctors had expected her to leave the earthly realm within the week and by the time the lights were extinguished the night before, all had assumed it would be that night. And now, here was that same body appearing healthier and more youthful than she had since the passing of the young man who was to be her husband. By any account, it made no sense. Some of the more superstitious of the staff whispered of dangerous deals with things beyond the world, of late night visitors behind closed doors and terrible prices exacted, but the more sensible quickly shut their mouths with sharp words. There was nothing new or different about Mary Poppins, only that she was even stronger than they had originally known.
The days passed quickly and Mary seemed to gain more strength every day. Within a month, she was back in society and life returned to normal. Her father returned to work, her mother to her charitable causes, and Mary Poppins found that where she had once felt most at home with a novel, she now wanted to explore the world she had so nearly left. Of course, with her miracle curing had come a new scrutiny; her parents were too scared to let her out of some sort of supervision and she was never without some member of the staff checking on her every move. Mary took to long, rambling walks but that couldn't satisfy her new cravings for the world.
With time, Mary became more and more adept at slipping away unnoticed. Then she would travel the city, not just the parts she had seen her entire life. She found hidden alleyways where undoubtedly shady dealings happened, she found different parks than what she knew, and she found the parts of town where the buildings were stacked on each other. It was claustrophobic there; the smell of the industrial smoke carried through the air. It was a kick in the stomach. Life near the river was different. Even the children worked there; there was no leisure time. It was as though Mary had stepped into a mirror world.
It filled her with a desire to help; she had never been so filled with such zeal. Every day she began looking for opportunities to help someone— a tuppence to woman on the steps of the cathedral, a back of cast-away clothing delivered to a doorstep— but it wasn't enough. She knew she needed to do more. It was difficult, knowing she was meant to do something and feeling entirely powerless to do it. She'd never been quite so frustrated.
Months slipped away as Mary began to form relationships with some of the women of the area; they'd been slow to accept her help or even her company, but she was finding that the more she ingratiated herself to the children, the more likely the adults were to accept her presence. Fortunately, she was naturally good with children. She found particular warmth in the home of a woman who worked in a laundry, though Mary had no inkling of how she managed; the family was big, at least seven children ranging from Mary's age all the way down to ten years old. And beyond that, the woman herself was too kindhearted for her own pocketbook— she'd taken in two infants left on the steps of her church. Mary Poppins knew she had found someone that was the very definition of a good person.
She spent more time in the woman's home than she did her own. Her own was stifling, she was sure she was being eaten alive by constant worry and fear. She learned to not comment on the chill in the air—her mother was sure to send her to bed with at least seven blankets and a roaring fire. In her heart, Mary Poppins knew that she was complaining of something beyond selfish; her parents loved her too much to lose her. She could hardly be considered unfortunate.
But as the days passed and her mother grew more worrisome, Mary grew more secretive. She didn't enjoy the fact but it was a necessity. For Mary Poppins was holding a secret so beyond anything she'd encountered before.
It started with a glass. Her mother's water glass shattered on the table in the midst of a disagreement with Mary. The servants and her mother assumed she had slammed it down too hard in the heat of the moment; Mary Poppins knew better. She couldn't explain how she knew, just that a piece of her, buried deep within the recesses of her mind, a part of her that had never existed before, that it was her. She had shattered the glass; to be more precise, her emotional reaction had shattered the glass.
Mary Poppins had no knowledge of the occult, no interest in the supernatural. She believed her miraculous recovery from illness to be a result of her own indomitable will and an impressive immune system. So it quite stands to reason that she had no logical claim to the fact that she had managed to shatter a glass without touching it.
In fact, Mary Poppins had done so and as she grew stronger, so did the incidents around her. A lark greeted her every morning, though she assumed this to be a strange, if lovely, coincidence. When she was angry, things broke. When she was sad, clouds tended to block out the sun. But none of this caught her notice. In fact, it wasn't until she was straightening her mood, in an uncommon sunny mood, that anything even struck her as peculiar.
For there, in the middle of the room, hovered the pitcher of water kept on the table by her bed. Mary's eyes grew wide and the pitcher clattered to the ground, shattering. Three separate maids came to check on her and, shaken, Mary very quickly sent them away, claiming clumsiness but that she would clean the mess herself. Somehow, deep within herself, she knew this was something she needed to keep secret.
Late that night, Mary was still awake, running through the strange events of the past few months. Suddenly things made sense, if it could be called that. Still, these events had never happened before her sickness, and Mary was worried.
The clock in the hall chimed midnight and the taper on her table was burned nearly down. Resigning herself to a night of restlessness, Mary reached over and pulled out her diary, aiming to write down anything to make herself feel better.
When she looked up, there was a woman in the corner, a woman who only barely sparked a memory in Mary's mind. Still, it was hard not to remember a woman with copper hair and a lack of shoes.