***Thank you to everyone for waiting to long. This one really fought me. And Maria thank you for reviewing that last chapter from so long ago, ha ha. I am fully prepared to take my punishment. I even brought my own tar and feathers. Hee. Okay well I hope you all enjoy it. ~ S5M***
Opening the door Jake's eyes cast along the dark wood-planked floor. He was ready to plunge, fully clothed, into bed and sleep until the afternoon sun crept through the windows. However, a silken night breeze drove through the opened back door drawing his line of sight level with the frighten face of his wife. There was only a candles berth of glow, to very dimly light the room. He could just make out the tremble of her lips and the sound of her breath, as she seemed to struggle against something at her back.
"Teresa?" Jake took a silent step towards her, bringing into view the lunatic holding her hostage.
Teresa unsteadily reached out her hand to instantly stop him from exploding. Her plump rose hued lips, still shaking, silently mouth the words, 'No Jake'. Panicked he followed her darting eyes in the direction of their sleeping children, yet undisturbed in their bed. As Jake was looking from his wife to his children, the sudden flash of curved metal caught his attention, fully drowning him in the abject danger of the situation. Celina was holding a sickle to his wife's throat. Her slender fawn neck was cradled in the curve of the blade with the jagged tip pressed into the delicate line under her jaw. Celina had but to pull the sickle along and it would have sliced through his wife's jugular, killing her almost instantly.
Jake's brows slopped downward hooding the blue fire of his eyes. His round lips formed a straight line, seeming to hold words of fury within the confines of his mouth. Voice low and rumbling like a rolling quake, Jake growled, "Let'er go…You can have whatever you want. Just let'er go."
"I want you Jake," Celina's voice was calm and even. He might as well have asked her what she wanted to drink. "You, me, and Izzy. We'll just pick up and go. That's all."
"You're outta yah mind!" Jake's voice rose slightly. Quickly checking himself, he rapidly flashed his eyes towards his still sleeping daughters and the horrifying scene in front of him. "You ain't touchin' my girl! An' we ain't goin' nowhere."
Celina narrowed her faintly bruised eye as her finely shaped brow slowly rose in irritation. "You don't know what you're saying."
The point of the curve dug deeper into Teresa's neck, eliciting a tiny gasp, as a small bead of crimson dribbled its way down into the collar of her dress. Jake flinched, as his hands fought to stay down at his sides. He was causing her pain. Pain he'd caused her before. A vein of memories flashed before his eyes as he remembered how he'd found her that morning. The morning when they'd discovered those men had stolen Lucy. How limp and lifeless she'd felt in his arms as he'd cried out his despair until Michaela could assure him she was alive. He could have lost her…they could have lost Izzy. Looking at the pleading round darkness of his wife's eyes, Jake knew he couldn't just fly off the handle. There was too much at stake here. His world was trapped in the viper's grasp of that venomous snake.
Teresa's chest rose and fell as she fought not to swallow for fear the blade might dig further into her neck. She could feel Celina's heart beating steadily through her breast, as she pressed closer to Teresa's back. There was no need for untoward panic as of yet. Collecting as much courage as she could, Teresa held Jake's feverish attention.
"Jake," it was nearly inaudible, but Jake heard it. "It is all right. Do you hear me? It is all right. You must do what is best for our children. For our girls. You must be there for our girls."
"Well, one at least," Celina taunted, and then addressing Jake, "I know what this is. It's just a marriage of convenience. You've told me before, I know. But now we can be together. We belong in the portrait."
Jake huffed out his breath. Even with that lunatic talking at him, he was unable to tear his gaze from Teresa's face. Her hair was loose and draping over her shoulders. Arms pinned at her sides Teresa continued to watch him. She wanted him to play along. Wanted him to humor this insanity until their chances turned. But the thing he saw in the glimmer of her deep mahogany eyes made Jake bend to her. True Teresa was scared to die. She was fighting back the glossy wall of tears threatening to fall unchecked down her face. Jake knew her thoughts just as true as he knew his own. She was terrified the girls would wake up.
Swallowing hard, Jake pushed the vile words out of his mouth, "Alright then. I–I did."
"You told me you loved me," her voice was becoming strained. Celina spoke through Teresa as though she weren't locked in her grasp. "I'm your dear heart."
Teresa squeezed her eyes shut against the words that Celina was breathing past her ear. How often had she so lovingly called to Jake as Her Heart? Hadn't she spoken those words to her daughters moments ago? Now hearing this woman, so clearly disconnected from her senses, plying these same sentiments made Teresa nauseous.
"You're only pretending…I know. Pretending for the audience of the world. I remember how you told me. For Amie's sake," Celina prattled on. "But now I'm here and you no longer have to pretend."
Jake had been so preoccupied with the green hued daze Teresa seemed to be swaying in, he'd almost missed it. But there it was… Amie. One of the names scripted on the black felt backing of Hank and Randall's stolen picture frame. Mind struggling to catch up, Jake took a solid step forward.
"Yeah that's right," his hands were steady in the air before him, as though he were pushing the tense atmosphere down. "I did say that... didn't I? But…uh. I can't let yah hurt, Teresa. Now can I?"
Celina narrowed her eyes at him, sensing the oddity of the shift. She pulled Teresa back a step, propelling her with the blade. "Hurt her? She hurt me Harris! She did this to my face! My face that you loved so when you first laid eyes on me. And you went to her." Her voice was rising. Angry and hectic, her tone sliced through the air, causing Izzy to stir first. The autumn crowned babe murmured lightly, not entirely breaking through the surface of her dreams. Jake broke his focus then, wanting to bolt for his children. The small sound had set Lucy to stretch her little arm farther around her sister's tiny body. Gently she pulled her closer for warmth and comfort.
Celina taking full advantage of Jake's broken attentions encouraged Teresa by way of sickle to sit at the simple cherry wood vanity by the back wall. She faced her towards the room, their backs to the oval framed mirror.
"Feels uncomfortable, doesn't it?" Celina brought her curling lips down close to Teresa's ear. She could feel the woman's warm breath tickling at the delicate skin there. And something else. Teresa had been in such a stricken state, she hadn't noticed it before. The smell coming off Celina's clothes was slightly familiar. Daring to turn her head just so, Teresa's eyes completed the journey, observing the dampness of her dress and the chilled clamminess of her skin. She smelled like the muddy banks of the creek. "Sickles were made for cutting harvest, not wringing the necks of…well…your kind. Look Har–"
She froze looking up at Jake. His body was turned toward the girls sleeping on the bed; however, as she had addressed him thoughtlessly, Jake turned his head to face her. She was watching him with a quizzical expression on her face. It almost seemed Celina had surprised herself with the sight of him. Tendrils of frazzled scarlet hair stuck to her pale alabaster temples. Flaring within the curling chestnut of her lashes, her emerald eyes seemed to be on the alert.
"You're Jake?" Celina straightened, never loosening her hold on Teresa.
"Don't yah remember?" Jake began about to attempt to rush her in her show of weakness.
However, Celina was faster. She snatched up a handful of Teresa's hair in her fist and yanked her head back showing the small cut just under her reddening jaw. Jake froze once more, his foot hovering an inch off the floor. Slowly he backed off, taking a step back for good measure.
"Please," he pleaded for his wife's safety. "Please. Yah don't know how much she means tah me." In truth Jake couldn't have stopped those words from coming out, even if he had wanted to. But the damage was done. The final thread had been broken and Celina shattered the spell over the room.
"What she means to you!" she shouted.
Teresa and Jake started as Lucy shot up in bed, looking around the room in sleepy confusion. The sudden movement of her bedfellow nudged Izzy's eye's open just enough to deduce that not all was well within her shelter. Slowly Lucy and Izzy took in the room.
xXx
Under the moonless sky, the town was drenched in darkness. Here and there, brief sconces of light from the outdoor lamps were dying out. Even the lights from the depot were blacked out, blocked by the massive midnight engine sitting on the tracks. Loren stood awkwardly on the walk in front of the barbershop. His hands nervously ran over his chest, over his stomach and up again. Finally, Loren hooked his thumbs in the armholes of his vest. The steam from the freight blasted up into the sky, looking like pale preternatural ectoplasm stroking at the dark abyss around it.
Mashing his lips and pivoting his head to and fro, he turned his back on the street. Loren had to get back into the shop. He heard no movement from within and there was no longer a faint glow illuminating through the pulled shades. Then he saw it. Through a small gap between the end of the shade and the front windowsill, the town charter sat untouched on the bench, where Loren had forgotten it.
Straightening himself, Loren cast about surreptitiously before reaching overhead along the frame of the doors. His fingers ran the length of the narrow rough strip of wood until he felt the small metal object nudge at his pads. Jake's spare key hidden unoriginally over the door. Holding the round brass key in the palm of his hand, Loren began to weigh his options. He'd seen the look in Jake's eye at the meeting. They clearly weren't done sorting out the flaying threads of their friendship. Now, Jake had a solid determination to himself. A determination which Loren had seen sprout on the boy's wedding day. He'd wasted no time gathering the council members together in the church to right the wrong of voting Cloud Dancing out of town.
Loren squeezed his eyes shut at the recollection of that memory. In hindsight, keeping Cloud Dancing in town was a blessing in many ways. In the way of Dorothy being the happiest he'd ever seen her. In the way of Lucy being brought safely into this world. In the way that those girls brought peace to Jake's being.
But that peace had been broken these past days, with the coming of Celina. Loren could see that now. He supposed he was just being course headed where Jake's pleadings were concerned and the nagging of certain town members only served to make him just as stubborn as a mule in mud.
Loren turned the little brass key over in his hand. In the cool breath of the night, he could feel the essence of the metal seeping out onto the surface of his growing clammy skin. "Aww, guess this can hold 'til tahmarrah."
There was an odd sound then. Like the muffled rush of feet over wooden planks. Loren steadied craning his head that he might hear better. . . And there it was. Shouts of help rising over the steam of the wall of train at the depot.
"Dr. Mike! Dr. Mike!"
Figures, moving in mass in the darkness, carried the limp body of a toe-headed man. Loren stepped forward, his hand unconsciously meeting with his upper lip, and rubbing under his nose.
"What in the worlds goin' on!" Loren shouted utterly forgetting his current predicament.
As the mass moved like a centipede towards the turn for the clinic, the tallest of the men turned his awkward face in Loren's direction.
"It's Mr. McCoy!" Horace shouted stumbling slightly as they carried the unconscious Randall up onto the gray walk. "Ms. Marrow attacked 'im!"
Ms. Marrow attacked 'im! Those words reverberated like a clanging bell in Loren's mind. In all the commotion, dim lamps began to glow as embers in the windows around town. Curtains nudged off to the side as bonneted heads nodded sleepily about, attempting to spy the situation. The town was lightly beaming at the sudden outburst of action…All except the barbershop, which remained dark as the black velvet sky. Loren noted the eerie cone of silence emanating from the structure. Recalling the exhausted demeanor on Jake's face earlier that night, he knew he couldn't possibly have slept through that. Surely, someone would stir…One of the girls at least…
"What she means to you!" it was Celina's voice breaking like a shot down the stairs, permeating the glass of the doors, and smashing about in Loren's ears. Loren shuddered as his curled fingers trembled under his nerves. He fumbled to place the key in the nest of its keyhole, and all the while, he heard Horace's words on the freezing night air.
Ms. Marrow attacked 'im!