You know, it may be hard to believe, but I actually had plans to finish this chapter early. Seriously. Seeing Lunar Wave's review, after so long in the darkness, spurred me to action, and if everything had gone according to plan, I would have released this chapter on March 11th, a mere week after the last one, which may actually be a record for this slow moving story. Not only that, but I loved the way it had been turning out. But...life is not so simple. The document I was working on got corrupted. Joy. So. Now I have to start it over again. I will say that I try to reward loyalty. So I'm not shirking trying to give a decent update date. I won't relent. I will not!
This chapter has a surprise. You see, these past chapters I have put little characterization into the "listening" character in the present, the narrator who takes over once the snippet of the day is over with. Originally, when I started this story, I remember thinking to make this character purposely ambiguous, so that they could act as a suit for the reader themselves to step into, but as the story progressed I started to add little details. By the time the third installment was added, I had a general idea that I wanted this character to be an actual O.C instead of just a suit, and had already developed them. I still kept it more or less "suit" like to try and preserve continuity, slowly placing pieces on the "narrator" for the present time line.
Last chapter however, I dropped a rather large detail about this person, and at this point I feel that if a reader looks back, there are enough subtle little hints to flesh out this person's general appearance. I have passed the threshold. This person can not continue to be a suit. So, here, we will focus on them, and you'll get to see who has been talking to you alongside Recette.
Another thing I am aware of is that this story has continuity issues due to the way it was written. At one point the amount of money Louie is being paid quadruples, and at another, Charme jumps over a counter she has already passed by. I am aware of these issues, as well as others that hide here and there. Like Recette clearly picking up three Tuna Shankers, but throwing four. Don't point these out to me. I know they are there, and eventually I will go back and fix them.
I do not own Recettear or any of it's affiliates, and I doubt I ever will. I am the only one continuing to forge forwards on this front, but that does not mean I own the franchise! I own nothing! (And I don't even own that. =S)
A warning. This chapter is rather darker than the others. I did warn from the outset that I am a rather dark author. I am a firm believer in the "earn your happy ending" philosophy. Recettear is a happy go lucky game...mostly. It does have many dark hints in it, but it skates over them with humor. I might have some humor here and there too...but I won't hide the stains on the cloth, and I do plan on pulling out every skeleton in that rather large closet.
I do admit that I won't try and make it darker than it has to be however.
+RT~
+~Lemongrass Stains: Recette's Annual.
Chapter Eight: Faces
OvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvO
The morning dawned with a deep iron gray in the clouds and biting frigid air that tasted of snow. I spent the morning dressing particularly carefully, which in itself was odd. These past few days I had been simply tossing on whatever was handy. I had hardly paid my own reflection a glance, if that. If I had to be honest...I was ashamed of myself, and I really did not want to see that written all over my face every morning...but I decided I had to try. I took a look.
I saw the same face I always see, but for some reason that startled me. I had spent of much time looking into the face of another, I almost half expected to see her when I stared at my reflection. It was an odd feeling, that. Like walking into a house after having been on vacation for a year. The house is familiar, and you know it's yours...but you still see the ghost images of your other home, the one you spent the last year in, and it takes a while to get re-used to what you see. I raised my hand to poke my nose. Yep, still mine. I allowed my eyes to scour myself a little.
Recette and I were of the same height, perhaps she was the taller of use two, if only slightly. Or perhaps it was simply those boots of hers? I could see her mahogany eyes in mine, though my own are nearly black...it was, again, a ghost image. My own hair seemed abnormally bright after watching the chocolate brown for so long... as if it had caught on fire with it's burning red, instead of the dull embers I remember. I brushed back an errant lock from my shoulder, almost feeling a shadow of a different hand do so, slightly calloused from work handling all manner of things... I shook my head violently. Keep this up and I'd end up liking the girl. I had to stay focused...I had a job to do...
Even as I thought it, my face twisted into a frown. I sighed, and a hand came up to massage my forehead, moving down to rub my eye.
Damn it. Terme Finance did NOT prepare me for this. They told me...they told me it was just...
…
"The town of Pensee is broken up into two sections. The second part is an empty waste-land. It was ravaged by a natural disaster. It is an abandoned area. There may be a few old men and beggars meandering about...you are to deal with that. This land has been bought by Tiger Deals. They wish to have it inspected and any individuals on it evicted. Most have already been cleared out. You just have to inspect the houses and see if they are empty, then place an eviction notice around the building. Each plot of land has a different call number. I expect you to handle this efficiently..."
…
"...and effectively"
I finished the last bit under my breath in a mutter. He had gone on to explain that Pensee's lower half had suffered massive damage and was crumbling land worth nothing to no one. Most individuals had left it, even many of the crusty old men she was expected to meet. It was land going no where, begging to be re-constructed...
...or so I had been told.
It started with a small pile of bodies in one house, having the look of long suffering damage from neglect and starvation. Only one of those bodies was alive. Barely, the child looked dead to her originally, and she had exited the room as quickly as she could...but not quickly enough to miss the what she had hoped was the imagined, weak call for help. By the time she turned back in a rush of guilt to look into the pile...she swore it was warm...but they were all dead.
….An empty wasteland...
In another area, a place just as badly damaged as any other, but with the looks of people trying to rebuild. Trying and apparently having been chased off...a single, beautifully cared for patch of land bearing ripe tomatoes...all of them having been recently smashed in the dirt, the stalks trampled on...but one plant was still valiantly standing, bent sideways and with one, final red ripe tomato being held inches from the ground. She did not have the heart to leave it there. She picked it and took it with her.
...Abandoned by all, begging to be re-constructed...
In the final house she had visited...a young woman with bright, pain-filled mahogany eyes, who upon sight hardened them into cages to contain her fire and defiance, and mellowed into cool yet heartbreaking acceptance. A young woman who invited her into the supposedly condemned home to share the hearth and a story...a story that still gripped her now.
...Land worth nothing to no one...
I pat the hair down on my head so that it would lay flat after the mess it had stirred itself into in my sleep. I bit down a laugh at this action. I had always been so prim, so puffed up and proper. I used to spend long blocks of time on my appearance...until this job. Until I had to see that pile of skeletons and rotting walls of stone and brick. Pensee had brought me to earth like a meteor that was violently pulled from orbit. I had not crashed yet, but the entry into the atmosphere was stripping away my delusions faster than anything else. What would be left when I finally hit the ground?
...Was this what had happened to Recette? Had she gone so high and so far she thought she could escape into the heavens, only to come back crashing down? Just as she had been about to grow wings and touch the sky?
I shook my head and hurriedly put on my black boots and coat of soft leather. It's brown reminded me of the perfectly turned soil in that garden, and I involuntarily shivered. I tossed on a dark blue knitted scarf and a forest green wool hat. Out in the air, I shivered again, this time from the sheer cold. The wind blasted my face. It really did have a bite of snow in it. I hunkered myself down into my leathers and wool and walked down the street, passing richly built buildings, people who were dressed to impress the impressive. Each person was a bundle of pix, their outfits fit into the hundreds of thousands. Their homes; the millions.
Then came the bridge. The bridge that rigidly divided rich from poor. I walked along it thoughtfully. It was a wide bridge, passing a mighty channel that cut Pensee in half...and apparently this water and distance had spared the richer part of town from suffering the same fate the other had.
Pensee sat north of a desert land. It's lower half was about three miles from it's official edge. The desert itself is a harsh, unforgiving place, rife with fierce winds and burning sands. It's even possible for those burning sands to pick up dry underbrush in the wind and combine, stirring in a soup of hot air, dry brush and flint like sand like some demonic cooking pot until the whole thing caught ablaze, a "Flame Tempest" of the desert, some of them hot enough to melt the sand around into glass. It was one reason why people still forged into the desert. To collect these glass particles, pure and beautiful.
Money made the world go around...
However, something in my mind stopped me. The damage was far too perfect. Despite the lower half of Pensee being on the far edge of a desert, and despite the fact that the sands could potentially catch fire in the heat and cause those legendary "flame-tempests" to rage this far to touch Pensee...fire tempests were wild things...they did not destroy with rigid precision. Not to mention that the tempests usually stirred where the heat was most fierce, in the middle of the desert lands. It was highly unlikely that one would form so close to the edge, even less so that it would travel past the edge into the cooler lands to reach Pensee.
I paused in the middle of the bridge. No. This was not a natural disaster. The tomatoes. The pile of skeletons and the still warm body of a child. The girl with the mahogany eyes of cold, sad acceptance. There was something else in the air. Something indecent and hidden. I realize this as suddenly as I realize another fact.
Recette knew. She knew everything that had happened...and knew I was the enemy.
I knew this a certainly as I had suddenly. Somehow, Terme Finance was behind this destruction, and therefore, I was the enemy. I was the cause of all that pain, and was about to bring more.
I shivered. That sadness and acceptance was also accusatory. I felt like punching myself for being so slow. Of course. I was the one who would push her out of house and home, the only home she ever knew. Not even the least for what she had to do to keep it...but what DID she have to do to keep it...?
I knew her home was an item store, but was that really her solution to paying her bills? Was it owned by her parents before her? How did she come to run an item shop so young? Questions...
What had happened to Pensee?
What part did she play?
How could so few years change a little happy girl into the sad woman I saw?
Where were her parents?
Where were her friends?
Why was Terme Finance so much of an enemy?
Well the last one was kind of stupid to ask. I knew from her story that it's president had done her wrong...or was he even still president? Did he die? Did she find out? Was this man who wanted to control the entire economy still my boss?
What knowledge was behind those large, expressive eyes?
Questions...and only one place to find answers.
I walked by a pile of crumbling bricks, what used to be someone's garden wall. Again, I shiver.
After some time of walking and thinking, I realize I have passed the shop. I backtrack hastily and realize why I did not realize earlier I had passed this building I have been calling a sort of home for the past few days. The sign. It seemed ironic to me that just yesterday I had been admiring it and wondering where Recette had gotten it...and now it's gone, as if I myself have taken it away from her...like that paper I have sitting in my pack will do to everything else she calls home.
I involuntarily swallow. Without that cheery if discolored and aged sign, the place is far more foreboding, what with it's dark, lifeless windows showing dusty and empty counters and the baleful, eye-piercing glare of reflected sunlight from the gray sky above, what little there was that is. It seemed to focus all that was there to blast it in my eyes, and made the shop inside seem all the darker, all the colder.
Almost as if the building itself was angry at me for what I had in store for it. Almost as if it KNEW I was here to have it knocked down...
Perhaps it did...
I half hoped, as I reached out with a hand that had three quarters it's own mind, that the door would be locked. Yet...the building was open, and the door swung behind me loosely before I closed it behind me. There was a lonely candle lit on the tellers counter, but besides this sign of life, there was nothing. I was not surprised I had not spotted this lone, guttering candle from the outside. It hardly did anything to warm the atmosphere, in fact, it made it worse.
I walked up to the counter and paused. There, on one of the display tables was the sign. It had been lovingly cleaned and oiled, no longer looking so forlorn and discolored, but still...the words had been repainted, or perhaps it was a trick of the light and oil. The sign looked darker now, as if the letters and wood were fruits that were once ripe and now have dulled as they head towards the dismal look of the rotten and dry. It's half wrapped in a cloth.
The sound of a plate clattering against the counter made me jump a mile...if you did not take gravity into account. As it was I jumped about a foot before whirling around. I then almost crashed into a counter in my haste to move backwards.
Recette was uncomfortably close, her face drawn in quiet scrutiny, eyes narrowed. He hand darted out and snatched something from my hair. A dead leaf. I had tried to bite back a squeak as she did so. The leaf was slightly damp, but she crumpled it into dust in her hand nonetheless. Her eyes mellowed and expanded into their large selves again. Then they suddenly narrowed once more, and I involuntarily gulped. Her voice was crisp and sharp when she spoke.
"Why are you sitting on a display counter? I don't recall you being for sale."
The question threw me for a loop until I realized that, in my haste to back up from her, I had hopped unto a display counter. One of the ones Recette usually took as a seat herself as she told me her story. Her sentence sparked something in my head, and it pushed all my other questions aside.
"...and you are? You usually sit here."
Her eyes glinted, despite being narrow they still held a sliver of that quality. A humorless half smile was there too.
"Terme Finance has already put a price on my life, my home and all else mine. I'm already a bought item. I sit on my counter waiting for my purchaser to claim me, but it seems you want to humiliate me first by asking me what it is exactly you bought. So I sit here...telling you."
Her sentence felt like a hammer in my gut. She needed no effort to move me from her counter and unto the seat for the teller. She placed a hand on the counter and gracefully lifted herself up, placing herself with finality "up for sale". Now I knew why she always placed herself unto that counter instead of a more comfortable place, day after day, instead of getting a chair...and I did not much like the answer...my next question rose before I could stop it, and again, it wasnot one that I had before walking into here.
"...Why?"
It was the only word I could manage, my hand outstretched to indicate the sign between us. Her answer was in that same sharp, crisp tone. That had shot a hammer in my gut just a minute before...only this time, it cut at me like a thousand knives.
"Do I really need it anymore?"
I stayed silent. Recette moved herself more comfortably on the counter...or tried to. A bang interrupted her. She turned to see he door of her shop swinging free, some flakes of snow flying in with the gusts of frigid air. She pulled herself off the counter to close it.
I thought I had closed that door...
Recette frowned at the snow flurries swirling outside. She did not turn from the window, but spoke without preamble.
"Where is it?"
Her voice was at least no longer in that sharp, cutting form, but even without any prior prompting, I knew what she was after. The eviction notice. The piece of paper that rested in my pack. The piece of paper that I had hesitated to place on this one building. The piece of paper that I had slapped without a second thought on more other buildings...until I had started to listen to the story...and see the sights.
Before I had started to get my illusions of a bonus and a job well done and maybe a promotion stripped away as I fell from the sky...like that meteor...I wondered if what was left of me when I finally did crash would be as composed as the woman in front of me.
...Probably not. If I had fallen as far and as hard as this girl must have...to be a top merchant, struggling alone...doing who knows what...and then to fall to this...to lose her friends when as she saw at least one of them betrayed her somehow...I would have broken. If we had switched places, Recette would have found an empty house, maybe with another grinning skeleton on the floor...
I shivered at the thought. My lips formed a lie.
"I...I don't have it."
Recette sighed. She still had not turned around. Again, my questions came out. I decided to try a question my previous thought train had brought up. How...why...was Recette alone in running an item shop? But still...the only word that came out of my mouth was again:
"Why?"
My tone seemed to galvanize her to look back at me. She still did not turn around fully. Just a backwards glance with her head. She turned fully when my hand swept the expanse of the shop. Her voice was again hard, but not quite as curt. It was more hurt.
"I was abandoned."
"Huh?"
"My shop. I made it to keep back loneliness. I had been abandoned by my father. I was alone. Poor. Forced to learn...what plants were edible in the town plaza."
I made no comment. But internally I was aghast. He built it herself? All of this? She seemed to read my thoughts, and again I wondered at her ability to tell what someone wanted to know...but then again, I reminded myself, in a burst of brilliance...
It probably was not magic, or anything that was unnatural as I had first thought. Recette knew what I wanted...like any good merchant would. Simple as that.
"No..not by myself. I told you Tear was my partner. But...how...a fairy, and a girl...starting an item shop...for what purpose? Why?"
She she told me. The sun was high in the sky behind heavy snow drifts and dark gray clouds before she had finally reached the day she had started with, that final day and her sale to the demon Griff. I was again speechless. I look at her. She had not moved throughout the entire telling, besides to turn back towards the outside to watch the snow.
I take back what I said earlier. No. I would not have crashed and died after falling down from the high sky. I would have burned apart before the climb could even have been finished. I would have been crushed by the weight of it. I would have given up trying. Hell, I don't even think I would have tried. I would have done what Tear thought Recette had done on the first day. I would have run away, not cheerily went and made a shop sign.
….and here I was to take it away again. I was Tear again...only without the option of success. Only failure.
"I would have failed. I couldn't do that."
Recette hugged herself, and for the first time, I saw that the loose dress and apron she wore hid a thin figure underneath. Her belt was not the waist line, the belt held up the fabric, not clinched it to her. A hard and active life...her voice was bitter when she continued.
"You would have had no choice."
"Ehh?"
"Continuous Time Snap-back Loop. CTSL. You know about Avall and his plans to use the power of Fairies, magic, economy, time, money..."
I frowned...I had never studied magic before, but the term TSL sounded familiar. It was standard procedure for someone who needed to pay a large debt back and the debt had been deferred to another, but it was only possible when the person paying the debt was willing and if they had...
I looked up. I had never understood magic. My eyes traced Recette's form. The format of TSL was used usually once, and the reason for snapping back had to be "pure" I assumed continuous meant you did not have to complete a spell every time you failed but just...
My eyes nearly bugged out of my skull. I stared at Recette's back so hard, I think she felt it. She turned around to look at me, a small, sad smile on her face. I think I started to shake.
"You...agreed to that...?"
"No. I did not know. At least...not at first. At first I thought I was just having a bad dream, that after promising to work had and having a first day of stock, my mind would rush ahead, providing me with a dream where I would fail. The first time it happened, I was frantic. I hardly knew why I had this stock I did not have yesterday, but I assumed I was mixing my dreams with reality...I thought I had bought it yesterday and then dreamed I had acquired it elsewhere. When things began to repeat themselves, I was afraid...afraid my dreams were becoming reality...
..but then it happened again...
….and again...
….and again...
...and...again...
...again...
...over...
….and over...and over..."
I could not hear it anymore...she did not agree to it...but they put her in it anyway. I suddenly understood why they had sent a fairy to do this for her...she was an anchor. The fairy would be unaware, since the spell would affect her memory too, most likely...like I say I don't know much about magic...but her friend Tear would have been the tie in, the one to initiate the spell by serving Recette the papers.
So the girl would loop until she succeeded...and meanwhile, any profit she made and sent to Terme would be kept. The spell did not affect material belongings. Yes...I would not have survived this climb...I would have burned. It seems I had forgotten to speak,for when I found my mouth again, once more I would only say the word why.
Why had her father left her to this...? Why did he just up and leave? Did he die...?
She answered me without prompt, her bearing was like a statue, far too composed to be actually calm, but she was a damn sight better than me. I could not stop staring, or shivering. I felt like kicking myself. This woman was far stronger than me...this town was far more resilient. Where the greatest worry I used to have was what I would spend my extra money on, or what bow to wear in my hair...these people had to worry if they would have any to begin with.
I had to admit, I never knew poverty. I grew up well, lived well...I did not know what it was like to grovel on my hands and knees in some dirty plaza and pick weeds to see if they were edible or not...but the thought of it made my stomach turn in knots.
"He was not dead. He was alive. If you recall, I told you this..."
I did recall, now that she said it. A man with no shirts and his pants on his head with eye holes cut in, fighting a single tentacle monster in his undies...my face burned. Yes...he was not dead. Just insane. I did not say this out loud, but she seemed to understand all the same.
"You can't really blame the man. I don't. He was a single father for at least nine years. He was not ready for it."
"You're mother...?"
"No, she did not die. She left. Just like him. She...abandoned me. Him. Abandoned us."
I felt sick. I didn't want her to continue, but she seemed unable to stop. I had a feeling she did not even discuss this with her friend Tear. I wanted her to stop...please...stop...but she would not.
"My mother, as I have said before, was very much like my friend Charme...and I did say this once before too. One day she partied and just...did not come back home..."
Again, memory served me with frightening accuracy. Yes, she had explained this already. Her mother was like Charme, her father, like Louie.
"My father tried. I can guess they were heavy party—goers before they had me. I can't remember when I was one or two, but I can guess what happened. My father grew up. Faster than my mother did. He sobered down and tried to be a daddy...but my mother did not want to be a mommy. She continued to party...and I can guess he tried to satisfy her too...but when I was three...it just was not enticing enough. She wanted more, and my father could not longer provide..so she left.
"He loved her. I can guess that much, he loved her a lot...at three I can't remember much either, but I can see that he must have tried to find her. Tried to bring her back. By the time I was six however, he changed...and I remember bottles. I learned to keep away. Not that I needed to. He would come home late...and leave early. I learned to take care for myself...he stopped cooking when I was seven."
Just stop...I felt like screaming at her to stop. I could not bear it. I had asked her, but I don't want to know the answer anymore...but the blasted girl seemed unaware, for once, as to what I wanted.
"He avoided me. It also seemed like he had forgotten my mother. We had little money for ourselves, but he seemed determined to use it to find other women. I...learned to sleep deeply and early, and often. Tear often complained about my ability to sleep...she wanted to know how it was possible for me to sleep so much...or why only the loudest of her yells would get me up...I never told her why."
It was a mark of my good life that I did not understand what Recette meant by that sentence instantly, but when I did, my face burned red.
"It happened when I was eleven that I learned why he was avoiding me. He came home one night, earlier than usual, but very...inebriated...Tear would have been proud of me...to know that word..."
At the mention of Tear, the door burst open again on a gust of ferocious wind. I thanked nature for giving me this pause, but since Recette was right by the door, she hardly moved save to catch the door and snap it shut, and lock it for good measure. She frowned at it before continuing.
"I came out from putting food on the table. I did this out of habit, I knew it would be gone in the morning. I tried to hurry away to bed. I thought he had found someone early...but he was alone, and he caught sight of me. He came roaring after me, screaming..."
I looked at her...surely not...?
"In me, he saw the ghost of my mother, who had abandoned him all those years ago...and he was angry with her...oh he was angry with her...but I was fast. He raged against the house, he almost caught me a few times...but he didn't. When his rage was spent, the kitchen was destroyed, and I fell asleep hiding."
Not. I'm not certain this was better however.
"When he awoke in a ruined kitchen, I think he was scared. There was some soup and blood on the walls. He had got me a few times nearly, but he did not hurt me severely...he scared me more than anything...but I think in those first few hours as he frantically searched for me, that he was afraid he had...maybe for the first time in years he felt like a father again...and was terrified. When he found me, he was angry, and I think I saw his face change into fear again when I bolted. When he finally found me again, he was gentler...I went with him...but I was scared."
I was looking at the floor, so when I saw a drop of water hit it, I looked up, startled. Recette was still stock still, and her voice was firm as ever, but even from behind I could tell the water had come from her eyes.
"I was so very scared of him...he apologized...endlessly he apologized...but he was still my father, and without him, I had no one...for a few weeks, I was his little girl again...like I had not been since I was four...he made mistakes, he still dunk some and some days he still came home angry, but he was never so bad as that night...and he would always try to make up for it...
"Then, a year before he left, he started to talk about adventure. I think he was reliving his childhood. He still had friends come over, they were younger than him, so I think their still fresh taste for adventure infected him. But he soon would not stop talking about it...Walnut Bread Fishermen and other stuff that made no sense...but I believed him. He was my father and I had no other source of information...I clung to his stories. They were his proof of his love...his affection...and then he left. He abandoned me. Like Mother did. At first I thought it was just a long journey, but as days became weeks...and weeks months...I stopped setting a table for two. I still made for two, but it usually got eaten by me as leftovers...and then...Tear came. I bet you wonder why I was so happy to have Tear, even though I knew she had been my effective jail keeper...but this is why. I was alone. I had been abandoned. I was nothing...what she was offering was hard, but...
"To run an item shop...to save my house, to sell things to people, to have someone who was willing to stay with me in an empty house...It was...like being given a slice of heaven. I did not care much that I was being used. I just did not want to be left alone...but eventually...eventually I realized I could not continue to do this...I was making too much, being too successful,so continue to fail...I never failed on purpose...but I would admit I did not want to succeed...I was afraid...
"...afraid of being abandoned again..."
She turned to look at me still staring at the floor. Her movement made me look up. Her eyes were dry.
"But I knew I could not trap Tear, trap everyone...in this loop with me. Everyone had the right to live, everyone. I could not just keep rewinding time just because I did not want to face being alone again... keeping time in a loop forever just for my own happiness...would have been infinitely wrong. I couldn't do it. So I succeeded."
I did not say anything. She walked back to her counter and sat back down on it. That simple action did it for me. I could not take her sitting down on that counter, not when I knew what it meant.
"I did not buy you."
Recette fixes me with a look that makes me feel very small. Like an insect. It's not in the look itself, or in her bearing...or even in the tone when she opens her mouth to speak...but somehow that look made me feel like a bug.
"You already put the money up front. You only need to stop pretending and give me the paper we both know is in your bag."
So. She knew. It did not surprise me in the least that she knew. I made no comment, and she settled herself more comfortably on her counter space. This started what was definitely the quickest fire conversation we have had to date.
"I don't plan on buying you either."
"I'm already bought."
"Well then I return the money then."
"It's not yours to return."
"Then I forfeit the right to pick you up."
"Are you sure you know what that means?"
"..."
In truth, I had no answer to that question.
"What do you mean...?"
"Are you certain you understand what refusing to pick me up means? Are you certain you even know what is going on here? Do you have any idea what one building, one person's home with a failure to place eviction on means?"
"...They can't break it down?"
"No. They can. The land was already bought. The notice means absolutely nothing save for a nicety and to make sure when they come to demolish there is nobody inside, if there is; it's not their fault. You are saving no one anything by failing to do your job. Did you think they would break down every OTHER house and street and leave this one building standing and build around it?"
I had no answer for her again. She was making me feel stupid, and honestly, I could not blame that. It seemed absurd once I put thought into it. Which was exactly what I was not doing...putting thought into it.
"What happened here? Why is this place like this?"
"You know already. I'm pretty sure they-"
"No. They told me it was a natural disaster."
"Then it was."
"It wasn't"
"How are you so sure?"
"It's too precise. Too perfect. Pensee's poor was getting too rich, closing the gap between the rich and the dirt. That was your fault. You were bringing business in. It's too convenient that a disaster plows through and slaps the offending wrist of peasants that the rich think were becoming too bold."
"..."
"I'm right aren't I?"
Recette looked at me. Her face was closed. Her tone betrayed nothing.
"Do you want to know?"
I was aghast. Wasn't I just saying that?!
"Obviously!"
"I asked you this question already, but...are you sure? Are you sure you know what that means?"
"...How can I?"
She sighed. She looked away from me and out the window, looking at the deepening snow and the darkening sky. It was getting vicious out there...I'd never seen snow go so high, even though if I said that Recette would probably laugh at me. It was probably twice the height of my ankles if I were to walk barefoot...not that I ever did such a crazy thing, but the snow was coming down still, and visibility was near nil.
"I'm I'm honest with myself..."
I turned to look at her again, tearing my eyes from the window. She was still gazing out there.
"...I had planned to just tell you a lie when you came in today. End the story on a nice note, we go in have an adventure, come out and then I would tell you we went our separate ways slowly over the years. The story might have lasted more than one day still, but in the end it would be happy enough. I would have closed up shop of my own choice and now accepted the fate of destruction and eviction...you might have been able to tell it was fake...I don't know...but then I saw your face when you came in today, the way you looked at my sign...and I had some hope for the first time since I saw you. Maybe...just maybe I could still fight. It's up to you however...
She turned to look at me. Her hand was outstretched, and she did not need to tell me what she was.
"You could give me the notice and I'll go quietly. You can close up the shop for the last time...or you can sit there and listen to the story. The real one."
((Author's Note: This is the kind of time you frantically look for the save button on a game. Sure, at first glance the option seems obvious...but think about it and tell me, is it really? Not to me it isn't. If I did not know already where I wanted to go, this would be a tough one for me to choose...))
For the first time since I met her, her eyes were completely unguarded. They had the ghosts of tears in them, but she was not by a long shot crying. In her eyes I saw the dim reflected light of that barely guttering candle, now burnt so low it was practically gone, and the shop sign dully winking in the corner. I saw myself, still puffed up and prim, well nourished and, compared to Recette, then some. I was dulled and blurred somewhat by these past few days, but no one could call me poorly cared for.
Is this was she saw when she looked at me? A woman like this? It seemed that in Recette's eyes I saw more than my own mirror dared to show me. It was like I was seeing my soul alongside my body, not as I would see it when I looked upon a mirror, but as others saw me. By my own judgment, my soul in those eyes was a pitiful thing.
Perhaps Recette was more reserved in judgment, perhaps she was more gentle, but to myself, looking in this mirror, I was wretched. Spoiled. Untested and soft. My daddy's little sweet pumpkin girl and my mothers little pampered princess. I was older than Recette, but still...I was younger.
My hands reached back to my pack, and I pulled with ease the eviction notice from my pack. It glowed dully in the dimness. It seemed to suck up the entirety of that candle and hold it within. Recette's eyes hardened slightly, but her hand did not shake. It was still held outstretched and waiting for me to place it so gently there...my hand descended...
...and at once I could not do what I had planned to. In one swift movement my other hand shot out and grabbed the first, and two handed I swung the paper out to the candle it was so intently absorbing light from.
The paper caught aflame eagerly, as if the candles' flame was begging to do this one thing for Recette before it went out into the night. I watched the flame eat hungrily at the paper before realizing, rather foolishly that I was still holding the paper...and there was nowhere I could put it that would not also catch fire potentially...and it was getting rather close to my hand.
I frantically looked about for some place to put it and then squeaked when the flame touched my hand, I promptly dropped the paper and then watched in bug eyes horror as it descended to the floor, only to hear a sharp, barked word and see a shot of ice snap out and snuffed out the fire before the charred stub of remaining paper drifted to the floor. I looked up, surprised. Recette was looking at me.
"I-I...you...with...I...magic?"
I was a mess as I held my burned hand with the other, Recette held out hers in answer, and I let her see my hand. I winced as her hands grabbed mine. They were rough, not because of any harsh handling on her part; but because she had callouses on them. It wasn't burnt. It was a bit red from where the heat had licked it, but it had done no more than tease me before I had dropped it. Recette's hands were doing more damage than the flame had, I winced at the touch of rough skin on my vulnerable soft ones.
"Y-you can use magic."
Though if I'm honest, her hands were not really all that rough. It was more mine being soft. She seemed satisfied that I had come to no injury after about half a minute and let me go. She walked around the tellers counter, for she had jumped off hers to inspect my hand, and quietly took the candle that had started it off and used it to light another before blowing out the original. She set the old one to cool and allow it's remaining wax to re-harden. It was only when she took a seat, (and not on the display counter, but the tellers one, which made me wonder what that was supposed to symbolize...) That she answered me.
"Yes. I learned how."
I waited for her to say some more, but she was not forthcoming.
"I won't say anymore, because I'd be spoiling my story then, wouldn't I?"
She took another glance outside at the dark sky. The snow was still falling heavily, and she gestured to it. It was getting late. I shook my head however. I was uncomfortable with that much snow, and said so. She smiled with some humor in it and I knew she was laughing at me, not with me. I did not much care though. After what she had gone through, she deserved a few jokes at my expense. I asked her if she knew what that amount of snow would do to me. She actually grinned this time.
"Nothing, your boots are at least twice as high as that snow is."
"B-But...the leather would get wet."
"Oh dear, wet leather! That is terrible."
I knew I wanted her to have a few laughs, and I did not mind them being at my expense, but really...come on...it's wet leather! It would dry out. It would get stiff. It would leak through! Something! I grumbled into my hair as she laughed at me... Still, I could not help feeling slightly proud. This was the happiest I have seen her. She sobered quickly however.
"So. You chose to know. Don't blame me for what happens next. I'm going to tell you everything..."
She looked up as she heard a bang form her door. I looked up too. There was nothing I could see in the darkness outside, except the barest hint of swirling snow, though I knew it was still coming down hard. Recette looked curiously at the door before her hand moved in a kind of gesture, almost like she was not even aware she was doing it, some half remembered greeting. He shook herself a bit before muttering something I barely heard.
"That can't be...she's gone..."
She did not elaborate., but looked at me and took a breath. Then she hopped off the counter and whisked away the plate she had put food for me upon, and again I noticed I had eaten rather automatically. She busies herself a bit by the counters before going up the steps.
It takes her about ten minutes before she descends down the steps again and plops a bowl of some form of soup in front of me. It steams lightly. I look at it with interest before she herself hops up on the tellers counter with a bowl of her own and blows. Her feet swing back and forth like a child's in the air and she observes me and takes a sip before setting it down.
"So. I left you in my basement, didn't I?"
+~E~+
I hope you guys could tell, but for a few minutes as I wrote about Recette and our "present day narrator" with the eviction notice, I hesitated, wondering if I should be horrendously evil and make it a cliff hanger. Yet, when I thought about it, I could not go through with it. Long story short, I am very erratic in updating this...so the cliff hanger would be extremely cruel, and despite having only Lunar Wave review, I know for a fact more people read this...(You guys just lurk in the shadows, but I see you! I SEE YOU!) So it would be infinitely wrong to keep you all for so long form something you want after holding it back for so long already.
One thing I will say for this story is despite it's continuity issues, it seems remarkably sound quality wise. I have other stories where I have gone on hiatus (as obviously I was not simply abandoning this ONE story when I went on hiatus all that time..) and the quality of the chapters jumps like mad. I have characters yelling out in caps with poorly displayed grammar in one chapter, along with nearly no background setting and in the next chapter, crisply detailed (at least, by my writing standards crisp) background and strong grammar and emphasis on reactions. It's remarkable that this story has managed to remain mostly mellow in the quality shifts.
I played a while with the idea of putting more into this chapter, however when I looked at it I was surprised to find it about twice as long as this stories average chapter length, and much, much closer to the length I used to write for "Young Negi: An Applied Approach" which was my "Rite of Passage" story. I made most of the changes to my writing style during that 479,000+ word monster, and as a result, other stories benefited from the practice. The average length for one of those chapters was eight thousand to ten thousand words and this sidles in at just over eight point two thousand, at least by my count, Fan Fiction says different.
I'm aware I have massive authors notes to take into account on both ends, but hey, I wanted to talk to you all~. XD.
I guess this makes this chapter an apology? I did not mean for it to be...
Good day, hope you enjoy and maybe review?~C.F. Winchester: Finalage.