Gravity.
I am sorry it has been so long, but I assure you, the lack of updates was not for lack of trying. This chapter has a bit too much going on and is a little muddied because of that (it is also quite long, by far my longest chapter), and I apologize. I had too many thoughts and ideas for this one and was having a hard time marrying them all together, but I hope you will enjoy it all the same. This is the last chapter before the epilogue. Thank you all for hanging with me on this story! Warning: mild swearing.
I don't own the Penderwicks.
…
The Penderwicks were squished into the car once again, watching the clock tick down to the time of the poetry slam with their breaths held tightly between their teeth. They got lost just once, finding themselves not near any coffee shops but by Harry's poinsettia stand. He happily pointed them in the right direction as he did so many years ago. They pulled into a parking spot on Main Street in front the Daily Brew just as the clock announced the time for the poetry slam to start, making Batty squeal and the rest of the family to cheer.
The Daily Brew was perfectly picturesque. The room was small and cluttered, with exposed brick walls and bad lighting. The counter at the front was long with heavy stools and hipster baristas slouched behind it, and the room was full of over-stuffed and mismatched couches and chairs, all squatting around sagging tables.
Jane Penderwick was in love.
She clutched a blue notebook to her chest, smoothed her dress that she had been wearing for far too long now, and clicked her heels as she stepped, no, danced into the shop. Against the far wall was a raised platform (to call it a stage would be a stretch) and hanging overhead was a banner announcing the poetry slam. Beneath it, several poets with long hair and thick rimmed glasses mulled about, muttering poetry under their breath. Jane was in awe, all a flutter as she practically floated towards the poets with a wonderful sense that something great was about to happen.
The rest of the weary group from the hospital filed into the small shop, quickly filling up the entry way. The Penderwick clan was the first to enter, followed by Aunt Claire and Turron, then by Alec, Jeffrey, and, by some radical change of heart, by some act of Christmas magic or by some impressive begging on Jeffrey's part, Mrs. Tifton. They shuffled into the back of the shop, their rather late arrival meaning there was standing room only.
Jane checked in with a man with a clipboard and lots of tattoos.
"You are a little young for this, don't you think?" he asked, squinting down at her.
Jane smiled and patted the man's shoulder. "Poetry is an art that knows not the mechanics of numbers." She turned to the back of the shop to beam at her family as they squeezed into the tiny room. "That's why my sister is so bad at it," she added, watching Skye watching Jeffrey laugh.
The man blinked, then shrugged and wrote her name down. He gestured at the long line of poets against one of the brick walls. "You are a little late, so you are going last, kid."
Jane smiled brightly at him and danced away toward what was surely her one true moment, her big break, her new beginning.
The poets ahead of her were impressive. They took to the microphone like flying things take to the sky, like gypsy souls take to the road, like a writer takes to the pen. Their words echoed through her bones and hung heavy in the air. Jane clutched the notebook tighter in her hand, wondering if her words would hold the same weight. Wondering if her words could have the same transforming effect as those of the other brilliant people ahead of her. As the line in front of her dwindled, Jane felt a particular fluttering in her stomach that was entirely unwelcome. Her muddled brain did not seem capable of even taking the fluttering and making metaphors from the butterflies, and Jane hated the muddied nature of her thoughts.
Just then, a smiling face, a clear thought among the sludge that cluttered her brain, pushed his way through the crowd. Jeffrey. He came up to her smiling that smile that was still the same after so many years, and the butterflies scattered. He put two warm hands on her shoulders and the words from the poet standing at the microphone seemed to fade into the background noise.
"Are you nervous?" he asked.
"Positively petrified," Jane said, her throat thick and dry. Jane Penderwick did not get nervous. She was born for the stage! Why then could she not seem to catch her breath?
"Jane." Jeffrey's voice was calm. He seemed to read her mind. "We all get nervous. I get the jitters before every one of my performances."
"You do?" Jane was relieved to hear her own voice.
"I do. Breathe from your stomach and relax your shoulders. You were born for this, remember?"
Jane smiled. "I was, wasn't I?"
Jeffrey nodded. "Picture the entire audience in their underwear," he said. "But not me," he quickly added when he saw Jane's eyes twinkle mischievously.
The man with the clipboard and tattoos called her name then. "Jane Penderwick?" Jane looked at Jeffrey, her eyes wide as the nerves coiled ice cold around her ribs. Jeffrey looked at her with eyes understanding and smiling. "Jane Penderwick, your shining moment awaits."
With a deep breath and two quick steps, Jane was up on the platform, looking out on a sea of faces looking at her expectantly, of noses red with cold, of ears, waiting. She took two deep breaths from the bottom of her stomach and three steps to the microphone. Her shining moment hung there in front of her, and Jane felt it fill her up.
…
Batty fought her way to the front of the audience with knobby elbows and "excuses me's" mumbled into knee caps. She emerged at the front of the audience, standing in front of the stage and her sister. But Batty was distracted then, by a baby grand piano crouched in the corner like a slumbering beast all in black. She stood frozen where she was, staring at the creature before her with wide eyes.
She was drawn to the instrument as if by some inescapable force like gravity. Batty skirted along the side of the stage, making use of her small size to disappear among the clutter accumulated at the back of the stage and slip up to where the piano lurked.
Batty was a beast tamer.
…
Jeffrey shuffled his way to the back of the shop towards Skye. Skye was as petrified as Jane, if not, more. When Jeffrey took up the place next to her she gave him a small smile, but never took her eyes off Jane as her sister walked up to the microphone.
"She's got this, Skye," he said, his voice a soft rumbling in Skye's ear.
"I know she does."
Jeffrey looked down at the girl beside him, her eyes glued to her sister and her fists clenched tightly at her sides as if she was trying to squeeze away the nerves for both herself and Jane. Jeffrey reached down, carefully, cautiously, and with each quick heartbeat like a punch to the inside of his chest, he took her hand in his, opening her palm and tangling his fingers with hers…
Skye jerked away.
For the first time since Jane took the stage, Skye tore her eyes off her sister and turned them on him, wide and searching. Jeffrey looked away quickly, a soft pink spreading beneath his skin of his cheeks.
"I'm sorry," he said.
Skye grappled with herself for a long moment before turning her gaze back to the stage.
"No," she said firmly, eyes still focused straight ahead. "No, it's fine."
Jeffrey felt her hand return to his, and this time when she laced their fingers together, neither one of them pulled away. Jeffrey, try as he might, couldn't help the corners of his mouth from tugging up.
"You are so dumb," Skye muttered as the lights dimmed and a spotlight appeared on Jane turning her frizzy hair into a halo around her head.
Jeffrey's smile broke across his face fully and all he could do was nod in affirmation. "I know."
Skye stole a sidelong glance in his direction. "Your hands are sweaty too," she noted, dryly. She refused to give into the smile that tickled at her lips.
"That's because you make me nervous. You are a little scary sometimes."
This time Skye could not help the smirk. "Good," she said.
…
"It's about time," Iantha murmured.
Mr. Penderwick shook his head as he watched his blue-eyed girl take another man's hand.
"Much too soon," he said.
Iantha laughed and looped her arm through his.
…
Jane adjusted the microphone with fumbling fingers. The spotlight on her made it difficult to see out into the crowd, blurring the eager faces with a too bright light. Jane opened her mouth, willing poetry to tumble out but finding nothing there but silence.
She wiped her sweaty palms on her dress and swallowed thickly. The first line of her poem was eluding her. The entire English language seemed to elude her. The silence grew long and incredibly loud in the most paradoxical way and Jane was for once at a loss for words.
Then, music trickled down through the quiet. Piano music. Jane spun away from the crowd to face the back corner, where Batty sat at the baby grand with her eyes closed and her fingers dancing over the dusty keys like the piano was her own. The dreadful silence was shattered in the room. The dreadful silence was shattered inside of Jane.
Jane turned to face the crowd again, and with eyes better adjusted to the light now, she could see her family in the very back; Rosalind and her warm eyes, Skye and her look of determination and steel, and Jeffrey, all happy green eyes and freckles. Green eyes like algae. Freckles like stars.
And Jane knew the first line. And every one after that. And when she opened her mouth and her words joined Batty's music in a swirling and dancing duo, something wonderful happened, something magic and dizzying. Jane's shining moment.
Jane's words had a seemingly magical effect on the motley crowd huddled together there, growing in hearts and the cracks between bones and then settling like dust on eyelids and tongues that no one wanted to brush away.
When her words stopped, everyone sat there, so quiet you might be able to hear the snow settling on the sidewalk outside if you listened hard enough, if Jane's words didn't echo quite so loudly in everyone's ears. The seconds stretched a little longer than normal, long and quiet, and then the crowd erupted into cheers. The Penderwicks, Jeffrey, Turron, and Mrs. Tifton alike, raising their voices in a joyful salute to a young girl's words.
Jane Penderwick took a bow.
Batty, with stars in her eyes, did the same.
…
The Penderwicks' jeep pulled into the long driveway to Arundel first, followed by the Tiftons and Turron. The jeep pulled to a reluctant stop in front of the mansion standing proud in the snow, and Jane tumbled out. She ran up the marble steps, taking them too fast for the icy conditions, and not caring one bit as she slipped and slid up to the front door and knocked loudly on the brass knocker shaped like a lion head. Dexter opened the door, squinted against the bright light reflecting off the snow and bit down hard on his smoldering cigar in annoyance upon seeing Jane there, bouncing on her toes in front of him. His face was wreathed in cigar smoke that looked ironically like a halo when the white light caught it.
Jane gave him a cheeky grin and handed him a newspaper. The column on page 12 had her name as the title, and underneath it said "The Youngest Winner of the Dailey Brew's Annual Poetry Slam Yet!" From the jeep the Penderwicks couldn't quite make out what Jane was saying, just that she was talking very fast and excited as he took it, his squinted eyes skimming it roughly. His eyes grew wide and his mouth slipped open as he read, the stub of cigar falling from his lips and landing with a sizzle in the snow. He looked up at her with a strange mixture of surprise and annoyance and growled something low before shoving the paper under his arm and walking back into the house. Jane stood there for a moment looking gloriously triumphant with her hands on her hips, smoke wrapping around her like a hero's cape before she ran back to the warmth of the car.
"He said it was good! He said my poetry was good!" It was the most reluctant compliment Jane had ever gotten, and she couldn't seem to stop smiling.
…
The cottage was filled with noise and color. Skye stood in the middle of it all, wishing she could freeze time. The sounds of laughter, burnt cookies setting off a screaming fire alarm, Hound barking, Jane stopping every few minutes to remind everyone that was, indeed, a published author, Batty and Ben gleefully singing Christmas carols over the mess… it was a glorious catastrophe of sounds, smells, bodies… family.
Aunt Claire and Turron were both staying with the Penderwicks for the night, so as to avoid the long and dangerous ride home and another trip to the hospital. Jeffrey was spending the evening with them as well, along with Alec, who would later spend the night in the Tiftons' mansion. Jeffrey found Skye where she stood taking in the scene unfolding around her, and he slumped against the wall there beside her.
"It's funny," he said, low, so just Skye could hear him.
"What is?"
He shrugged "Life, I guess? Out of pain and fear, you get this..." Jeffrey stopped for a moment, waved his arm in the air in front of them to indicate the chaotic kitchen, the quiet living room with stockings hung over the fireplace and the tree adorned in homemade ornaments. Looking around them, Skye understood what he meant by that wave of the hand; understood the gravity of a life lived well and in the company of others. She looked over at him, his face highlighted by warm lamplight.
"You know my… Alec is staying with us tonight. It's going to be our first Christmas together. Me, him, my mother..." He looked down at his hands. "I mean, I guess it doesn't really mean much, because everything is still so broken," his lips twisted around the word broken, "but we will be together."
He looked up at her, eyes hopeful, and Skye nodded because she felt like he was looking for her to do so, to see. Like he desperately needed someone to feel the same weight of living.
And so the day went, full of light and laughter and people until the night fell silent around their shoulders and everyone gathered around the table for dinner. Jeffrey sat beside Skye, his knee pressed up against hers, Rosalind was laughing in Tommy's ear, and Batty and Ben were not so discreetly slipping pieces of ham down to Hound, whose tail thumped loudly in appreciation against the floor. After, Batty and Ben scrambled to get out the milk and cookies, bouncing on their toes, shivering with excitement as the rest of the family watched fondly on. Even Jane sat out this year, instead standing next to Skye, her head tucked into the curve of Skye's neck as she hummed Silent Night. Skye let her be. She never thought she would see the day when Jane Penderwick would stop believing. Growing up is the most treacherous inevitability.
Skye lay on her back on her bed after Jeffrey and Alec had gone back to Arundel and after Rosalind had slipped into Batty and Ben's room to put them to bed. The moon outside cast a silvery glow on the room and the snow falling outside cast shadows on the wall, falling silently like their icy counterparts outside. She thought of her mother, of Jeffrey's warm hand in hers, of everything and nothing at all. The door opened then, and Rosalind slipped in, wearing one of Daddy's sweatshirts and her hair in an elegant twist on top on her head.
Skye rolled over to face Rosalind's bed, where she had crawled in. "Rosy?"
"Hmm?" she hummed.
"It's just, I never apologized to Jeffrey for yelling at him."
Rosalind twisted to look over at her and gave a small, knowing smile. "Well you wouldn't want to be impolite."
"Stop looking at me like that," Skye said, sounding accusatory.
"Like what?" Rosalind still had that tiny smile on her lips and Skye squirmed.
"Like you can see into my soul."
Rosalind grinned. "Must be the mother in me."
"So I can go?"
She nodded, and Skye hurried to get boots and a coat on. She had just reached the door, opening it with a click when Rosalind piped up again.
"And Skye?" she asked. "Be brave."
And Skye nodded, and was gone. She pulled her coat tightly around her as she stepped into the night, crushingly silent and shockingly cold. Skye shoved her hand into her coat pockets, thinking about all the stories in the bible about Christmas, about Mary and Joseph walking through the cold. Skye didn't know what to think about all of that. So much of it seemed just downright impractical to her, like God making the earth in seven days or women being made from the rib of man… but sometimes she would be sitting on the roof or in the gardens and she could feel her mother. And as strange as that sounds, Skye could feel her presence as if it were as tangible as a blanket around her shoulders. Like now, Skye felt something sacred in the air, something that she couldn't quite put a finger on, but that felt the same as the way her mother's arms felt, the way her laughter vibrated her bones, the way her lips tickled against her forehead. And so she believed. She had to have faith that her mother was still somewhere looking over her. With her mother, faith was all she had left. Faith and memories.
As she walked toward Arundel, toward Jeffrey, she knew that something radical and terrifying would happen between her and her freckled friend. It was a great inevitability, like growing old, but not quite as tragic. It was an icy slope with him, had been since the moment she crashed into him in the hedge, and Skye knew that she had lost her footing years ago. And today, huddled in the coffee shop, cold fingers finding each other in the dim light in a way that was nervous and desperate… it was the moment that Skye wished away the safety of the matters of her heart, the moment she leapt of the cliff that she had been hurdling towards since she was eleven. Nothing would ever be the same. Walking toward him now, it should scare the hell out of her. And it did, oh it did. But Skye could feel her mother in the weighty silence, hear her in the nothing, sounding very much like Rosalind and whispering "be brave, be brave." And she wasn't so scared anymore.
Skye fumbled up the rope later, hanging where it always did from the tree outside Jeffrey's window. She struggled only slightly with the icy rungs and was at his window in no time, her heartbeat the only noise, roaring in the quite night. Jeffrey was in his room, in pajama pants and a white tee shirt as he sat at his piano.
Getting into the window was more difficult than getting up the tree. Skye clutched the icy ladder in one hand and leaned toward the window, grasping for the icy ledge with the other. Things looked treacherous for one teetering moment as fingers slipped on ice, but Skye recovered, shoving the window open and heaving herself up onto the sill. She flopped through the window rather ungracefully but successfully nonetheless. When she stood back up Jeffrey was in front of her, obviously startled out of his piano playing by the intrusion, welcome as it was.
"Ha," Skye said once she regained her balance. She looked up at him triumphantly.
He was grinning and shaking his head at the same time. "I thought you were afraid of heights."
"I'm not."
"I didn't think so. So why did you lie to me in the air duct Skye? What were you so afraid of? You jumped like-"
Skye's browed furred. Why could he understand? She cut him off, spat out one little word. "You." She flinched as she said it, like she scared herself. This was the end for sure. The radical something between him and her.
Jeffrey stopped, grass green eyes wide. "Me?"
"Yes you!" she hissed, now glaring at him like he had committed some great atrocity. "You were looking at me like I was something…" Skye fumbled for words, running a hand through her hair and making it stick out at odd angles. She looked wild. "… like I was something worth looking at." She should stop. She had to stop. But her mouth was a leaking faucet tapped into her heart and she couldn't seem to cinch the flow of words. "You were looking at me with those green eyes that I can't stop seeing everywhere and you were looking at me like I was your oxygen, your muse, your world-"
"God, Skye. You are all of those things. I was looking at you because I can't seem to take my eyes off you when you are laughing. Or smirking mischievously like the way you do. Or-"
"Jeffrey, please. Please." Don't do this. I don't want it. I can't.
"Skye."
That was all he said, just her name, and Skye wished desperately that he would say something more to fill up the quiet ringing in her ears. Instead there was a moment of silence where she could hear the snow falling against the still open window like moth wings against glass and his breaths that smelled like tooth paste. She wondered if he could hear her heart like a drum beating out of her chest. Or if he could hear her now useless brain rattling around her head, a fragment of the brain she once loved so, chock full of equations and theories, now only capable of thinking his dumb name over and over. Then finally, weakly…
"I have these…" Jeffrey stopped, looked up at her a little helplessly. Skye's limbs failed her, the damned things forgetting how to be limbs under his gaze, and Skye thought she might just crumple to the floor where she stood. They were both teetering on a dangerous edge and a buzz of electricity jumped between them, so real that Skye was fairly certain one could start a fire with it all. "… feelings. For you," he said finally, on an exhale that he had been holding for six years.
Skye opened her mouth to say something, any playful, sarcastic comment would do, but no words would come. She swallowed hard. The only coherent thought that her brain was capable of forming was a line she read in some physics book years ago, and who knows why that is the thing her sluggish brain insisted upon latching on to? It was a quirky little fact about gravity that said if you stood 0.00075 of a meter away from someone, gravity would draw you two together with the same gravitational force that the sun exerts on you on a daily basis.
"Say something," Jeffrey whispered.
Skye forced herself to focus, to form words with her mushy brain. But her words all died in her mouth, and she simply looked up at him all wide eyes and soft mouth. In that moment something shifted, something aligned, something came tumbling down. And suddenly Skye was standing a fraction of a meter away from him, so close that she could count the shades of green in his eyes…
And she kissed him.
Skye blamed gravity.
It was a clumsy, weak-kneed kiss, stumbling and slipping, literally slipping, as Jeffrey tumbled backwards upon impact, falling against his piano with a crash of what sounded like a million notes played at once. It was dissonance, discord, and a rattling of the eardrum but to Jeffrey's ears pounding with blood it was a symphony, and he twisted his arms around Skye, pulling her closer. It was a cautious first touch, a confident second, and a third hard enough to make Jeffrey see stars. It was trembling hands knotting in hair, noses bumping with a lack of experience, skin on skin and Jeffrey mumbling hitched words in Skye's mouth, something shocked and breathless.
"Jeffrey!?" a shrill voice from the other side of his door made them jump apart, eyes opened wide for what felt like the first time. He stared at her for a moment, lips chapped from the cold and bruised by kisses, turning up into the ghost of a wondering smile.
Then a huge, cheeky grin split Jeffrey's face. "Run."
…
Skye tiptoed across the threshold and slipped through the cracked open door, quick to shut it against the cold night behind her. She flinched at the loud click the door made shutting and froze as she waited to hear the house come alive at the noise. When the little cottage remained slumbering, she relaxed and started to the stairs, quietly, on her tip toes.
"Skye." Skye jumped, her heart thundering against the inside of her chest.
"Daddy!" she hissed. "You scared me."
Mr. Penderwick chuckled gently. "I think it was you that had me worried, slipping out in the middle of the night like that."
Skye rounded the couch and saw that Batty was there too, asleep with her head in Daddy's lap. She looked so small, clad in her favorite pair of pajamas; blue, with little clouds on them. They were once Skye's, given to her by her mother so many Christmases ago, and Skye loved those ironic pjs dearly (her mother thought it was hysterical-"Look Skye! You are wearing the sky!")
"I didn't mean to scare you Daddy. I told Rosalind where I was going." Mr. Penderwick motioned for her to join him and Skye slid down next to him on the couch.
"Were you with Jeffrey?"
Skye squirmed a little uncomfortably. "Yes."
"Do you, um…" he pushed his glasses, which were perpetually slipping down his nose, back up. Skye suddenly became intensely interested with her knees. "… have feelings…"
"Daddy!" Skye scolded, groaning a bit at the awkward direction of the conversation.
"I know, I know. I just feel like it is my responsibility as a father to do this."
"I can handle it, Daddy, really. And I am positive that Rosalind has a similar talk prepared for me later."
He looked at her with a very particular look, expressing something big in his chocolate colored irises that looked just like Jane's. Skye was no good at feeling but guessed it was pride she saw there collecting at the rims of his eyes, and perhaps a touch of nostalgia.
"He is a good boy," he said, decidedly.
"I know. But Daddy, please…"
"Ok," he said, chuckling now. "Perhaps that would be more comfortable for both of us."
Skye nodded resolutely and obviously relieved. Mr. Penderwick put an arm around her and drew her closer. Skye leaned up against him and was at once wrapped up in the familiar scent of parchment and ink and old knit sweaters that she loved so. She looked down where Batty's head was resting in her father's lap. The dying fire cast a warm glow on her face, cheeks still soft with childish roundness and chapped from days running through the cold and snow. Her eyelids fluttered slightly and Skye was hit suddenly and painfully by a wave of nostalgia, and wondered if her father felt something similar a moment ago.
"She absolutely insisted upon waiting up for Santa Clause," Mr. Penderwick said.
Skye grinned wryly. "Just like me and Jane used to."
"I must say, I never thought I would see the day when Jane stopped waiting up."
"Growing up is the most treacherous inevitability," she said with a sigh, repeating her thoughts from before.
"Very true my love." He looked unbearably sad for a long moment as he gazed toward the fire, surely watching a series of memories dance across his mind's eye of four tiny girls and their childhood. As the clock struck midnight the look lifted and he looked down at Skye with a smile. "Sed sapientia in hiemem." But wisdom comes with winters. It was a Wilde quote, which Skye only knew grudgingly as Jane always talked her ear off about the guy. She wondered if it was true, wondered if now that another cold Massachusetts winter had rolled around if she were any smarter for it.
"Right then," Mr. Penderwick said. "To bed, my beautiful girl."
Skye stood and kissed his cheek. "You know how I hate that adjective. How about my brave girl or my smart girl?"
He smiled. "Merry Christmas my brave, smart, beautiful girl."
Skye rolled her eyes, but fondly. "Merry Christmas Daddy."
…
If you found the kiss scene to be rather reminiscent of my recent piece, Gravity, then you are absolutely correct. I got about half way through this chapter before taking a break and writing Gravity. The line "She blamed gravity," is what actually inspired that piece.
Also, this line "…skin on skin and Jeffrey mumbling hitched words in Skye's mouth, something shocked and breathless," is not mine, but the wonderful Spark Writer's, whose advice and stimulating conversations late night have inspired me in so many more ways than one. Thank you for it all.