Hana Hou
Chapt. 5
Where did you come from, really?
Daria leaned against the girl's bedroom doorframe as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Moonlight streamed through the thin white curtain, outlining Kimmy as she slept, turned away from the door. Some of the light was reflected from the fabric and made the wall and windowframe ripple a bit as light breezes pushed through the curtain into the room. Kimmy was a rim lit silhouette looking like nothing less than an angel fallen to earth.
I shouldn't ask, I know. That would only open doors that I know in my heart should never be opened. You are my test of faith, for want of a better term.
I've learned a lot from you. And we- you, of course, and your dad, Jane and surprisingly even I- have learned acceptance. A suspension of disbelief, the way we sit in the darkness of a theater and allow ourselves to be taken up in a magical tale being played out on the stage in front of us.
You are…you. Kimmy, my love, my magical daughter. I don't think I want to explore that rationally. When I do I sense forces that would slip free and shatter this joy into dust. You are proof that there is something greater, and it is in balance, and it is something good.
Even if our judgment is irrelevant.
"A year, typically," Daria said carefully, sliding his mug across the table. She studied his face, gaging his reaction. "If I started when Kimmy did, she could stay with me, if she didn't want to live in a dorm. Although, it would help her grow to live on her own. That's part of the College experience, after all."
His eyes revealed nothing.
I want him to ask on his own. I don't want to push him into anything, but still- I don't want to move away from him, not when it's taken such a trial to be back with him again. He could stay with me, maybe at least a few times a month, and I could fly home-
And what about Jane? Would she stay behind? Would she want to? What if-
Do I really want to do this? I'm putting my own interests before his again, after all these years. What did I learn, anyway?
"It's a couple years away, right? I could start looking for something on Oahu, if you wouldn't mind my-" he stopped.
She'd long ago stopped walling him off, but did she want to have some time away from him? She had always liked solitude; she never protested when he followed her to the table out back, but he knew that she enjoyed sitting alone and thinking. Sometimes he couldn't help himself, and they would sit together sometimes in long stretches of companionable silence, listening to the sounds around them.
Eventually he noticed that sometimes he awoke with her arm over him, her eyes bright and her skin just a bit cooler than his. He could smell the scent of flowers and coffee already brewed and realized that she had needed a moment to herself.
She'd worked it out, and had done so with grace. Sometimes he awoke to find her lips on his.
He understood that need; it was part of her creative process. She needed quiet to listen, perhaps to work out the meaning behind not-quite-random events, or the fears and wishes of her own heart. It didn't mean that she was pushing him away.
It wouldn't be hard to find a gig on Oahu. It was where things were happening, although at a faster pace than he had become accustomed to.
He stood, and she took his hand for a moment before wrapping her arms around his waist. "Congratulations, Daria. It's an honor you earned, and it'll be good for you. We'll work it out."
He felt her hug harder, her small frame relaxing a bit at the same time.
"Thank you," she sniffed, unintentionally wiping her nose on his shirt.
"Wait, what?"
Jane couldn't hold it in any longer. If she kept it up she'd explode. Or at the very least, fart. She had to wait, though, to see if Daria and Trent would work it out.
"I got an invitation too, Amiga. Same deal. Artist in Residence, I get to choose when. I think those people are talking to each other."
"God, I'll never get rid of you, will I?" Daria smirked. A moment later, her tone became serious. "What about our classes here?"
"I think I can find a substitute for me. I know a couple of ex-BFACtoids that would fight each other to the death for a chance to camp out for a year in my humble abode."
"Hmm. Not a bad idea. Maybe my Agent or Editor could find someone to sub for me."
She closed the folder of student stories and set it on one of the mismatched studio chairs, tossing the dying red ballpoint pen into the trash.
"Jane, do you know where Kimmy might have seen a mechanical clock? You know, the old fashioned kind that had gears and springs?"
"Huh?"
"Just wondering. One of her stories references the concept of an escapement, a clockwork principle. It's the gating mechanism that controls the forces that move the hands. It's kind of an old thing, one of those metaphors that used to be like a literary weed, always popping up. These days, though, not so much."
"Like hourglasses, even though most of us haven't actually seen one, except for maybe an old egg timer or a computer icon."
"Yeah. It's a common thing, but she'd used it at a level of detail that's unusual."
"So?" Jane frowned at the color she'd come up with. Picking up another tube, she cut a tiny amount onto the horizontal glass plate that was her palette. With a thin knife she mixed it into a dab of paint, working intuitively. "Probably found something on the internet."
"Seems unlikely that a teen would have the slightest interest in horological minutiae."
"Speak English."
"Clock stuff." She frowned at the studio ceiling. "Ew. You got a lot of spiderwebs up there, you know that?"
"You have my permission to clean my ceiling if it brings you joy," Jane mumbled around the paintbrush she was holding in her teeth. "While you're at it clean the toilet too."
"I'm just saying that she dropped into the metaphor a bit deeper than usual. Not only was she referring to a mechanism that most people don't know about, she was referencing the hairspring that operates the balance wheel. Its part of a mechanical oscillator that made portable timepieces possible."
"That Death guy carries around an hourglass. That's portable."
"Death's hourglass is a symbol, not a metaphor. Anyway, stuff like this keeps showing up in her work. It's why her freshman Language Arts instructor thought she might have been copying off the internet at first. There's a kind of- well, maturity to her work that's a little strange."
Jane sighed, rolling her eyes. "Whatevahs. I no kea."
Daria snorted. Jane's pidgen English had gotten so good that it sometimes discombobulated her. She sounded like Mavis, nailing the inflection perfectly.
Don't go there, just… don't, Jane was saying. The meaning was clear in her body language and tone of voice.
Daria caught her best friend's eye. "Kay den." You're right; I know.
Jane smiled. "You don't sound like an FOB Haole girl any more, you know."
"Thanks, I think." Daria hauled her butt off Jane's studio couch. "Let's go see if Kimmy's up for a drive. I want pizza."
Kimmy laughed, glad that she had avoided blowing soda out her nose. "Wait, so Death is seeing a Psychiatrist because he has an inferiority complex?" Where does she come up with these ideas?
Daria nodded. "Because Man has gotten so good at destroying creation. His last performance review was pretty bad. He might lose his job."
"And he drives a crappy rusty car?"
Daria and Jane both answered in unison. "A Pinto." Kimmy could have sworn that they were being serious.
Jane sighed theatrically. "Bastards at the bank repossessed his hearse."
Daria leaned in. "And he lives in a crappy apartment where everything is broken, except for the TV. And he has dial-up, reaaaally slow internet."
"So he lives on warm beer?" Jane giggled, eyeing her own bottle on the table.
"Pretty much." Daria picked at the olives on the half eaten slice on her plate.
Jane considered the last slice of pizza, and then slid it over to Kimmy. Wish I still had a teenager's metabolism. "Wait, I thought Death was a walking skeleton. No stomach."
"That's an old medieval cliché. This death looks like your Uncle Max."
"You never met my Uncle Max."
"You know what I mean. He looks like a regular guy, so he can sneak up on people."
"So no cloak, scythe, or hourglass?"
"Looks like anybody you'd see on the sidewalk, okay?"
Kimmy paused for air, halfway through the slice. "No cable. And his goldfish keep dying."
Jane began scribbling on a napkin.
Daria nodded solemnly as she transferred her pizza to Kimmy's plate. "He tried spreading a fatal STD but didn't get very far."
Jane held up a sketch of a seedy old guy. "Not if he looks like my Uncle Max."
Kimmy looked at the two older women. "You two are nuts."
They all broke into hysterical laughter. Jane earned a dirty look from the tourist sitting two tables away that she had been sketching.