The drive back to the Rouge was going to be a fairly calm one, at least compared to his earlier drive to and through the North End. It would be a short drive as well, and while Duke wanted to take Holly's advice and get some rest, he also knew that he'd learned too much in the last twenty-four hours to sleep just yet. He decided, instead, to drive around the North End again, at least for a little while, just to give himself a chance to categorize everything that he'd learned.
Whether or not he ended up outside a certain bookshop that was housing a certain pretty brunette would be purely coincidental.
At least, that's what he told himself.
He was still moderately surprised that Holly had forgiven him so quickly for not telling her that Jennifer had died. If he had been in her position, he doubted he would have done the same. But what could he have done? If he had told Holly, she would've wanted to go to Haven to identify Jennifer and if she'd done that, she would've been in the heart of what had gotten Jennifer killed in the first place, putting her in danger. Jennifer would never have forgiven him if something had happened to Holly.
Besides, at the time, he didn't even have time to give Jennifer a proper burial…or really even have a body to bury; after he'd identified her, there had been so much Trouble-related red tape to get through, that he never actually saw her again.
Which brought him to the very simple yet groundbreaking discovery that Jennifer, his Jennifer, was alive and in Boston. Even if she didn't remember him, her being alive and not remembering him was still a marked improvement from her being dead and not even having a grave he could visit. Memory he could work with.
"Long distance relationships are pretty hard."
Granted, he hadn't meant "from the side of the living to the side of the dead" kind of long distance at the time, but he felt that his point still stood as he parked the truck about a block away from the darkened bookstore just as a light rain started to fall.
Okay, so the temptation to be close to her however he could had won out, but he tried to comfort himself with the fact that he planned on staying in the truck and was just…checking on the place as a concerned citizen.
The store was tucked between an independent art gallery and an antique store, and had wide display windows, showing some of the more recent additions to the store. The bookshelves, or what he could see of them thanks to the streetlights illuminating the darkened store, went from floor to ceiling, making it almost claustrophobic, even from this vantage point.
Whoever it was that had brought Jennifer back, even if they had hidden her from him, seemed to know her well enough to know that she'd be happiest at a bookstore.
This thought, however, brought up a point he had been trying to put off considering. But as he was looking at the bookstore, it was the only thing he could think about; was he being irredeemably selfish for wanting her back?
The obvious, albeit clearly rooted in self-loathing, answer was that yes, he was being selfish in wanting her back. He was being selfish for wanting her in his arms, on his boat, and in his bed. He was being selfish for wanting to hear her sleep heavy voice tell him "good morning" and for wanting to see her drowsy smile. He was being selfish for wanting to be the one who held her after a nightmare and for wanting to be the one who got her to go back to sleep next to him. But mostly, he was being selfish for wanting to take her away from a place where she was clearly happy and where she didn't have any memory of hearing voices or of thinking and being told she was crazy or of being attacked or of dying, and he was selfish for wanting to show her that all of that wasn't true so that she'd be with him.
Jesus, why didn't he just leave her alone? So what if her memories weren't real? She was safe and she was happy. Even if it wasn't with him, isn't that what he'd wanted? He sighed, leaning back into the driver's seat and staring at the ceiling, unsure of what to do or even think next, when he remembered something that the Buddha had once said.
"Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth."
The truth.
If nothing else, Jennifer was owed the truth. And he wanted to give it to her, even if she hated him afterwards, and even if she didn't want to ever see him again; she deserved to make her own choice.
Okay. So that'd been decided, but now it was figuring out who had taken Jennifer, where'd they'd been keeping her, and why it was only now that people were seeing any signs of her being alive. Was it to keep her safe from Mara? But then why leave her with her memories altered like they were, now that Mara—and related parties—was dealt with? And why not let her go back to Haven now that everything was over? And just who the hell was this Adelaide woman and how did she fit into it all?
He sighed again, rubbing his face with his hands before putting them back on the steering wheel, and looked back towards the store. As he registered what he was seeing, he froze.
Jennifer was standing by the door, looking out at the street, and holding a mug of something. She was wearing her dark gray sweatpants and her purple Emerson t-shirt. Her hair was rumpled from sleeping, and her eyes looked puffy, as if she had been crying, but it was hard to tell in the harsh yellow light of the streetlight.
She must've had a nightmare.
And there wasn't someone to wake up with her, to calm her down, to listen to her talk about her nightmare as she made hot chocolate.
It took everything in him not to get out of his truck, cross the street, maybe break through the door, and just…God just hold her. She looked tired and sad and confused and it was maddening that he couldn't do anything for her.
"What're you doin' up, Short Stack?" he asked her figure, leaning lightly against the steering wheel. She looked so much smaller than he remembered her, but perspective and time would do that.
She was looking up and down the street, and her mouth was moving slightly. Maybe she was singing to herself like she did sometimes when she was trying to comfort herself, probably Not in Nottingham, if he remembered right. Or maybe she was just talking to herself like she did more often than "sometimes."
Something caught her attention to her left, and she turned to look at it, shifting her mug to her right hand, and giving him the slightest better look at it. It was strange, but even in the harsh light of the streetlight, it almost looked like her bright yellow, horribly '80s mug, which couldn't be possible because it was still on the Rouge.
Just like the pajamas she was wearing.
"Wait a minute." Duke said as the realization hit him. Everything Jennifer had with her right now were things that he'd locked away on the Rouge. She shouldn't have them.
Unless…
Duke started the truck and headed back to the dock and the Rouge. He was speeding to the point of reckless driving, but luckily for him, it seemed like any cop that could've done anything about it was preoccupied elsewhere. He'd barely parked and turned off the truck before he was out of it, rushing onto the Rouge. He ran to her door, testing the handle. It was still locked, just as he'd left it, only deepening his confusion and agitation. He used his keys to unlock the door and let it swing open.
"Son of a bitch." He growled as he looked around the now empty room. It was devoid of any evidence that Jennifer had ever been there. He ran his hands through his hair as he surveyed the room.
It was all gone. Her quilt on the bed, the box of random things from her birth parents' house, the articles of clothing she'd left on the bed, the small stack of books she'd had next to her mattress, hell, even her scent; it was just all gone. In a sudden fit of paranoia, he pulled out his cellphone and pulled up the pictures he had. He let out a sigh of relief; whatever they were capable of, they hadn't taken his pictures of him and Jennifer from him.
It was pictures from the birthday they spent together; the photo he had up was from after he placed the cake on the table in front of her and she was grinning broadly at him over the glow of the candles on the cake.
She was so happy.
He closed out of the pictures, pocketing his phone, and closed the door to what had been her room, relocking it out of habit and stubbornness. He stalked around the Rouge, checking everywhere he could think of that someone would plant something to monitor his movements or even his conversations. When his search came up empty (he didn't even find a suspicious looking barnacle on the side of the boat), he went back to his room, locking the door behind him.
He sat on the edge of his bed before falling back on it, being careful not to disturb the side of the bed to his right; where she used to sleep. He pulled out his phone again, and pulled his pictures back up, trying to quell the rage that was bubbling up in him.
After the first picture of her glowing in the light of her birthday candles, there was a series of pictures of her blowing out the candles, and then cutting the cake, until he came to his favorite picture from that day. It was of the two of them, with cake smeared across their faces, both beaming like fools at the camera. It had started because he had made some joke about how he had slaved over that cake so she had better save him some. This caused her to think that, well if it was so good, it'd be a shame if it was wasted, and before he could even blink she'd smashed some of it all over his face. A mild food fight had broken out between them, and by the end of it they were both wearing most of the cake, but she was smiling so big and had laughed so hard, it didn't really matter.
"Happy Birthday, Short Stack." He'd said, kissing her and smearing more of the cake on their faces.
She had laughed at him, "Easily the best birthday I've had in a long time."
There'd been a pause, as he'd wiped off some of the cake from his face, when she'd look at him, still grinning and said, "I don't think I can remember the last time I was this happy."
And they had come and taken her, any trace of her, away from that.
Away from him.
Whoever, whatever they were, and whatever they were capable of, Duke thought as he closed out of his pictures, they just made themselves one hell of an enemy.
Once Jennifer got back to the shop, she had been elated to see her possessions from the storage unit on the counter, albeit a bit confused by the box and it's contents. Little John had come right up to her, tail wagging at top speed as she smiled at him and gave him a good pet session, even as she continued to glance at the items on the counter. Once Little John seemed appropriately loved on, he went back to lie on the couch while she looked through the box. She didn't recognize any of the items within it, but she chalked it up to just another bout of incompetence on the part of the storage company. Honestly, were they even trying at this point? She did think, however, that Brielle would love the purple haired Troll doll. She pulled it out and put it on the shelf behind the counter to give to her tomorrow.
She glanced, momentarily, at the book on the counter; some sort of trashy vampire-romance that she vaguely remembered being a big deal a few years ago. She left it where it was, thinking that maybe Adelaide had been reading it and unthinkingly left it on the counter, and hoped to catch Adelaide trying to hide it from her the next day.
She locked the store front doors behind her before she started rummaging through the bag. Her quilt was there, folded neatly, and so were a few articles of clothing that she had missed. She found her dad's gaudy, yellow, Will Someone Please Shoot The Computer?! coffee mug wrapped in his sweater, and took it into the kitchenette, stashing it in a cabinet for later. She went back out to the main floor of the shop and hitched her bag over her shoulder. She decided to leave the box out for her and Adelaide to look through tomorrow, positive that there were probably a few "treasures" in it that Adelaide would want to salvage. She let the sweater fold over her hands as she clicked her tongue for Little John to follow her back to her room. He ambled off the couch once again, stretching at first, before trotting along behind her. She held the door to her room open for him as he leapt onto the bed. As he made himself comfortable on the right hand side of the bed, Jennifer kicked the door closed, placed the bag on the floor by the trunk at the foot of her bed before sitting on the edge of it, kicking off her shoes, and finally looked at the sweater.
Even though it still looked like a strange combination of other sweaters, with its blue body, green sleeves, and tan elbow patches, it was still the most comforting thing she owned. She held the sweater up to her nose and smelled it, as she usually did when she'd been away from it for a while. Her father's scent had long since disappeared from the fabric, but sometimes she liked to think that she could still, just barely, smell him there.
That was not the case this time. She smelled the sweater and was hit with the scent of the sea, of salt water and metal, and of a cologne that made the throb come back.
Jennifer took a deep breath away from the sweater, studying it carefully. Where the hell had they been keeping her stuff? Another throb, like a wave, pushed against the back of her eyes, pulling her attention back to it.
After she had told Holly about the throbs, Holly told her to keep pushing.
"The next time you get one of those throbs, Jen, I want you to push on it until it becomes clear." Holly had said, her tone severe.
Jennifer had chewed her lip, "But it…"
"I know. I know it hurts, but you gotta push on them so you can remember."
"But what am I remembering? Just because a door can be opened, Holly, doesn't mean it should be." She'd surprised herself there; as a journalist, all she did was open locked or closed doors, it was part of the job description. Even outside of her former career, however, she'd loved finding what no one else could; it was just in her nature.
What has opening doors like this ever done for me? She'd refused to follow that thought, though.
Holly had sized her up for a moment before saying, "Do you really want to spend the rest of your life telling yourself that the memories that are constantly just barely out of your reach aren't important?"
Jennifer sighed as she looked down at the sweater in her lap, "No. I don't."
Little John crawled carefully over to her, sniffing at the sweater, tail wagging contentedly. He looked up at her, expectantly.
She patted his head, "Just give me a minute, Buddy. I know what I promised you, but this…this is important."
Little John shifted closer to her, placing his head on her shoulder. She brushed her head against his, an old habit from when he'd first reached this size and would often rest his head on her shoulder when they sat like this, and closed her eyes for a moment, just focusing on the feeling of his fur on her forehead. Eventually, she looked back at the sweater and took a calming breath before she held the sweater up to her nose to take a deep breath.
The pain in her head was excruciating, suddenly going from a subtle unpleasant throb to making it feel as if it was going to split open, but Jennifer pushed back against it. The small part of her from earlier seemed to be shouting now, trying to be heard over the throb and the roar in her ears, and telling her that the cologne belonged to someone incredibly important to her, someone that made her happy, someone that she loved. It tried to show her the image from earlier, but it was still too shrouded in confusion to be clear.
It was like she was remembering parts of a dream: all scattershot and unclear. She saw and remembered a boat but not the name of it, a computer with the feeling of Holly coming from it, something about waffles, and there was a whisper of a thought about Amsterdam; but she didn't see the whole that all these pieces made, just the battered individual parts that didn't make sense. What was clear was that she felt warmth and safety and trust and a promise that filled her up to the point that she thought her heart would break.
"I'm not gonna let anything happen to you."
It was the same voice from when she'd been playing with Brielle, but it was clearer, if only slightly, and she was struck with a recent familiarity to it; it was if she had heard the voice even more recently and somewhere else other than her head. It was still muddled, though, as if it were the recording of an echo of an echo.
But who? Who was this "someone" that was so damn important and whose voice she was hearing? The pain in her head was making her nauseous and was enough to threaten to cause her to lose consciousness, but she wanted to keep pushing.
The pain was roaring over the sound of the small part of her that was trying to talk to her and she wanted to push until she couldn't anymore, telling herself over and over again, "This is important."
Little John's cry next to her pulled her out of her mind before the part of her that seemed to know what was going on could answer her questions.
Gray. That was all she got. Gray and…seagulls?
She opened her eyes, suddenly aware of how desperate Little John's cries had gotten, as well as a pounding that was coming from somewhere other than her head.
"Jennifer?" A panicked voice was yelling from the other side of her door in between loud thumps against it, "Jennifer talk to me, Little John's cries are freaking me out. Jennifer!"
Jennifer stood up carefully, her knees feeling like Jell-O, and walked to the door.
"I'm coming!" She called to the door, her voice weak and shaking, as Little John bounded off the bed after her, sniffing at her and still whimpering. She placed what she wanted to be a placating hand on his head and ended up leaning into him as she reached for the door handle. She opened the door to see Adelaide in long-sleeved gray shirt that she vaguely registered as one of Desmond's old shirts and a pair of blue pajama pants but it was either too dark or her head was still trying to reassemble itself for her to register anything else about them other than their color.
She tried to smile at her cousin, "Hi."
Adelaide gave her an incredulous look, "'Hi'? I come down here because it sounds like Little John's being gutted, I've been pounding on your door for, like, five minutes, you're as pale as a sheet, and all you have to say for yourself is 'hi'?"
Jennifer shifted nervously, trying to stand on her own though Little John only moved closer to her, and still tried to smile reassuringly at Adelaide, "You're really pretty?"
Adelaide made a disbelieving noise in the back of her throat before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. Very slowly, she opened her eyes again and said, "Care to actually explain what's going on down here?"
"Um. Funny story—true story—uh, you know how I…I promised Little John a walk before I left? Well, I guess I was taking too long to get ready to go so he started throwing a fit, but, uh, I'm fine." Jennifer lied quickly; trying to put off explaining to her cousin her memory throbs just yet.
Little John looked up at her and if a dog's face could portray betrayal, that's the look he was giving her. Adelaide, on the other hand, was looking at her in blatant disbelief as she said, "Jennifer Mason, you have got to be the worst liar I have ever met."
Jennifer smiled nervously, "I'll have to tell Holly you said that; she claims she was the one who 'finally taught me how to lie.'"
"If you paid for that service, I'd demand your money back." Adelaide smirked as she crossed her arms and shifted her weight to her right leg, "C'mon, Short Stack, what's going on."
Jennifer shifted, still smiling nervously, "You know you're actually the second person to call me that today?"
Adelaide arched an eyebrow at her, but stayed quiet as she waited for Jennifer to tell her what was going on.
Jennifer sighed, rubbing her forehead. She scratched Little John between his shoulders, as she stood up straighter, no longer needing to lean on him, and tried to explain herself to her cousin, "I was…I was trying to remember something and it was making my head hurt pretty badly and I think Little John knew that I was in pain so he started freaking out. I'm really sorry he woke you up, but it was just—,"
"It was important." Adelaide finished for her, nodding her head.
Jennifer gave her a shocked look, "Yeah."
Adelaide nodded again, keeping her silence as she let herself get lost in her thoughts for a moment, before shrugging at Jennifer and saying, "If you do decide to take Little John for a walk, make sure to ask Joshua to go with you; just for my own sanity."
Jennifer stared at her in disbelief, "Aren't you going to ask what—?"
"We'll talk about it tomorrow." Adelaide said over her shoulder, "Be safe. Sleep well."
"Uh," Jennifer stammered, "you too."
As Adelaide disappeared around a bookshelf, waving back at her, Jennifer looked down at Little John who was looking up at her excitedly, "You got anything to add to what just happened here?"
Little John hopped up slightly and licked her face earning a mockingly disgusted groan from Jennifer as he went back to standing on all fours next to her. She changed into the dark gray sweatpants that were in the bag brought by the storage unit people and threw on her dad's sweater over her old purple Emerson t-shirt. She grabbed a pair of tennis shoes from her tiny closet, and pocketed her cellphone and keys as she grabbed Little John's leash from a hook by her door. Little John's tail was wagging ecstatically as she turned to look at him. She snapped her fingers and pointed to the floor, signaling Little John to sit. Once he did, she clicked leash to his collar and walked with him to the storefront.
Gray seagulls. What did that have to do with the figure? What did that have to do with anything for that matter?
As she turned to lock the store behind her, a voice down the street called out, "Want some company?"
She sighed as Joshua approached her, though she was moderately grateful for the distraction, "I take it Adelaide called you?"
Joshua smiled as Little John tugged on his leash to greet him. Joshua scratched Little John's head, "Were you going to?"
Jennifer just sighed again as she tugged lightly on Little John's leash, leading him up the street as Joshua fell into step to her right, "I don't know why she thinks I need an escort; I used to walk Little John by myself all the time, no matter the time of day."
Joshua smirked at her, burying his hands into his pea coat, "I'll make sure that that doesn't make it into my report back to her."
Jennifer rolled her eyes, "I don't know if you're aware of this, Joshua, but I happen to walk a very large, menacing looking dog—not too many people are willing to risk their own safety to talk to me so long as I have this behemoth with me."
She patted Little John's side as she finished her point, earning an appreciative head turn and light grunt from the "behemoth" in question.
Joshua chuckled, "Look at my presence as a guarantee that no one will talk to you—I mean, honestly, who wants to talk to the little lady with a Great Dane and a big hulking black guy walking with her?"
Jennifer arched her eyebrow at him speculatively and made a point of eyeing his rather lanky frame, earning a shrug from him as he conceded, "Okay, so maybe not 'hulking'."
She giggled briefly before she sighed at him, "Honestly, Joshua, you don't have to do this, I'm sure there are more interesting things for a 27 year old to be doing on a Friday night."
"You must be thinking of a 27 year old who wasn't already home on a Friday night when his neighbor called him asking to walk with her cousin who insisted on walking her dog in the middle of the night." Joshua retorted, grinning broadly at her.
She made a face at him, "It is not the middle of the night."
Joshua just laughed.
He was always quieter around Brielle than he was around her or even Adelaide, and Jennifer was pretty sure that it had something to do with the fact that he was sure everything he did and said near Brielle was going to influence her for the rest of her life, so he was always on his best behavior around her. Granted, the fact that Adelaide had also told him as much probably did not help his slight paranoia at being on his best behavior around the six year old.
Still, to Jennifer he was always going to be Holly's little brother and that would always make him the nervous ten year old who would sometimes annoy them when they were hanging out.
"Oh!" She gasped as a new thought occurred to her, "I completely forgot to lecture Holly about not getting in touch with you today!"
Joshua laughed, "Don't worry about it, I texted her shortly after I left Adelaide's earlier today; we're figuring out if she's going to stay with me for part of her month long sabbatical in our great city or if she'll just stay at the Fairmont on Battery Wharf."
Jennifer grinned as Little John stopped to sniff a pole, "Nothing says 'fun' like having your big sister sharing your swingin' bachelor's pad."
Joshua just chuckled, rolling his eyes at her, and let a silence fall over them briefly. Jennifer looked around at the lights still on in some of the buildings, wondering what was going on in those rooms. When she had first moved from the suburbs to the dorms at Emerson, she was nearly overwhelmed by the sheer number of people around her, and one of the ways she took to coping with that baffling number, was to give the people she saw on the street and through her window at the dorm stories. It'd been a long time since she'd been on a walk or had the opportunity to tell herself stories about the people around her.
Some birds suddenly took flight down the street from where they were walking, startling Jennifer and making her jump slightly. Joshua chuckled at her, while Jennifer blushed slightly at her own skittishness and mumbled, "Stupid gulls."
The Gray Gull.
It flashed before her eyes so quickly and so suddenly, she staggered back slightly; a bar on the waterfront, a loft she'd been using, a damn fine margarita, orange juice, a cut on her finger. Voices, her own among them; all overlapping, all saying different things, but all seeming to belong to the same handful of people: "Isn't it cool that your brother owns a bar?" "You're the one who keeps saying I'm not crazy, that I'm—," "You know you didn't have to toss those. You could've given them to me; for recreational purposes." "You look fantastic." "Stay. I don't care that the—is gone," "It's my bar; narc." "You kissed me." "You kissed me back." "You should have a will too, especially in—,"
"Jen? You okay? How're you feeling?" Joshua asked as he turned to her and crouched slightly, trying to catch her eye, as Little John tugged on the leash to continue down the block, apparently unaware of his mistress's shift.
At the sound of Joshua's voice, Jennifer came back to herself; everything that had flashed in her mind disappearing, as if she'd been woken from a dream. The images that had flashed in front of her disappeared from her mind, leaving only the after-image of them, like the shadows of people left after a nuclear explosion. The voices were what made her pause. She recognized her own, and the voice that had been popping up more (this time clearer than it had ever been; it almost sounded like that friend of Holly's she'd met earlier that day—the transporter), but it was as if someone had gone through and cut out things from what had been said.
She shook herself; trying to piece all of that together now wasn't going to help anyone, especially if Joshua was going to make some sort of report back to Adelaide. She finally looked at him. Tomorrow. That's what Adelaide had said. Just keep the details to yourself until tomorrow, Jennifer thought, as she sighed at him, "Is there anyone I'm going to see today that's not going to ask me that?"
They turned the corner to the block as Joshua chuckled, glancing at her like he didn't quite believe that that was the problem but letting it go for now, "What can I say? You've got a community of concerned citizens on your side."
She smirked, "Worrywart wardens, more like."
Joshua gave her a confused look but she waved him away. After a moment, Jennifer sighed, rubbing her forehead with the hand that wasn't keeping a tight hold on the part of the leash that was near Little John's collar. The Gray Gull, she repeated in her mind. Even if everything else that came with the name went away, at least that stayed. She was surprised that a throb didn't accompany the flashes. In fact, she didn't feel any pain at all as she recalled the flashes. She felt…good.
"In answer to your question, though, I'm…" she started, trying to find the right words to tell him what, exactly, she was.
She paused, and then let out a heartbroken laugh as she realized: "I don't know what I am."
Joshua placed a nervous hand on her shoulder, "Jen?"
She looked at him and took a deep breath, trying to calm herself, "Josh."
They turned left again, walking parallel to the street that the bookstore was on, as Jennifer tried to gather how she wanted to explain herself. Joshua pulled his hand back, depositing it back into his coat pocket. She fidgeted briefly, feeling agitated at herself that she was making Joshua feel as if she didn't trust him. It wasn't that she didn't, of course, but it was so similar to the situation she'd found herself in with Holly at the restaurant: How was she even going to begin to explain herself to Joshua when she didn't even really understand it herself? What the hell was happening to her?
She decided to tell him something.
"I…I told Holly about this tonight, but…I've…I've been getting these, um, throbs right behind my eyes," Jennifer said, keeping her eyes on Little John, "They come up when I…when I start to, um…"
She sighed, pausing briefly as Little John sniffed another pole, and tried again, "I'm starting to get these, like, memory flashes."
Joshua gave her a confused look, "Memory flashes?"
She shrugged, "Or at least, that's what I'm calling them; I'm not really sure. Either what they mean or what they are. There are just these times when they pop up and they make my head hurt, but…"
She let a silence fall as they turned back towards the bookstore, unsure of what else to tell him and also feeling as if she'd said too much already. Joshua kept glancing at her, trying to gauge what to say or do next.
"You said Holly knows?" Joshua asked carefully.
Jennifer nodded. Little John glanced at her, panting happily.
"What did Holly say? To do about the flashes, I mean?" Joshua asked, watching her.
Jennifer smirked, "Exactly what you'd expect; to push on them until I know."
Joshua chuckled as they got near the store, "Yeah. That's pretty much exactly what I'd expect."
Jennifer smiled back as she unlocked the store door and as he continued, "But, you know, I don't know if I agree."
She gave Joshua a confused look, holding the door open and letting Little John into the store. Joshua's expression was serious as he said, "It's just that…well, a door once opened can go both ways."
Jennifer studied Joshua as his expression lightened again and he smiled back at her, nodding towards her in a slight bow as he said, "Anyway. Always a pleasure, Ms. Mason. Rest well."
With that, Joshua turned around and headed back to the art gallery next door, where his apartment was. She ducked back into the bookstore, locking the door again behind her, incredibly confused by what Joshua had said. Little John looked at her, tail wagging and head cocked.
"Got anything to say to that?" She asked him as he trotted back up to her and sniffed at her hand so she'd pet him and take his leash off of him. What is up with doors today? She wondered briefly, before shaking her head; it'd been too long of a day to follow that thought down its rabbit hole. She smiled at Little John, scratching behind his ears and getting them to flap against his head, before taking his leash off of him and sending him in the direction of her room, a command he obediently followed. Jennifer took in the store for a moment; the bookcases, the glow from the lamp in the corner by her room, the threadbare formerly floral print couch next to her, the small kitchenette behind the counter, the scent of old binding glue and equally old paper; all these things that had become home to her over the passed year.
She felt safe there, tucked away between other people's stories, but a thought occurred to her that surprised her, I don't want to be here.
And it scared her how true it was. She didn't want to be there, but she didn't know where else she wanted to, or even could, be. Well, that wasn't exactly true. Something in her wanted to be on the boat she'd caught glimpses of when she'd pushed against the throb in her head earlier. But she didn't even know where it was or if it was even real.
The Gray Gull, though.
That seemed real enough, and as she considered the after-image flashes in her mind, and even the almost-Duke-like voice that had come with them, she found herself longing for it. Maybe she should call Holly tomorrow, just to see if she knew anything about a bar by that name, and if it had any connection to her friend who seemed so convinced he knew her. And if the after-images were to be believed, she apparently knew him too.
She shook her head at herself (speaking of thoughts that weren't worth following down their rabbit hole tonight) before she headed back to her room, calling a quiet "goodnight" up the stairs to Adelaide and Brielle as she walked passed. There was a faint light coming from somewhere behind the beaded curtain; probably Adelaide getting her "report" from Joshua. She could hear the white noise machine in Brielle's room, letting her know that she was already asleep.
There was nothing to be done now about a potentially real restaurant tonight, and she felt foolish and near treasonous for thinking that she didn't want to be there, at the bookshop. This was her home, she tried to tell herself, but even as she tried to believe it, she knew it wasn't completely true; "home" was far and away, and it had been that way for a long time.
She kicked her door closed with her heel as she pulled off the sweater, tossing it next to the bed. She pulled her cellphone and keys out of her pockets and set them back into her purse next to the bed. She undid her bra and slid it out from under her shirt, tossing it towards her closet, and climbed into bed next to Little John who only lifted his head at her before settling back in, sighing heavily. Something about the ritual felt incomplete, as if something—someone?—was missing, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it; a feeling she was starting to become very familiar with. She sighed to herself; she would call Holly tomorrow, she decided, curling up on her left side towards Little John, and closing her eyes.
Sleep came quickly, though it was not kind.
She had a nightmare, one that she felt she'd had before, about a forest green room like the one she was staying in, and about just knowing there was an evil with her that she had to keep in that room with her. She tried to tell someone who was acting like a therapist—a blonde woman with a nose ring—about it but the therapist didn't really believe her. She remembered thinking that she was supposed to be her friend; why was she doing this?
She tried to tell the blonde woman not to open the door, to not let the evil out, but she didn't listen and opened the door to leave Jennifer in that room. The evil got to her, making her lock Jennifer in that forest green room, and saying things over some sort of intercom system. She didn't know what was being said to her, but she knew what came next; the doors. Suddenly all four walls of the green room had doors, some right next to each other, some not; doors that wouldn't open, some that would with others behind them that were locked—like adjoining hotel rooms. And no matter how hard she pounded, no matter how loudly she yelled—and she yelled to the point of near voicelessness—the same thoughts kept repeating in her head over and over again:
No one hears me.
No one cares.
I'm never getting out of this room.
Another voice, underneath the broken record of her panic, said that she should wake up now.
The dream should be over now, why wasn't she waking up? She needed to wake up, he was going to be so worried if she didn't wake up, why wasn't she waking up?
She kept pounding against the doors, going from screaming, "Let me out!" to "Let me wake up!"
"Let me wake up! Please! Let me wake up, he needs me! Let me wake up!"
Another voice was coming through now.
No.
Not "another" voice.
The voice.
It was saying her name, and it sounded desperate and lost and scared.
Jennifer? Jennifer! She's not breathing. Jennifer! Wake up! Jennifer, wake up! Jennifer! Jen-!
She shot up in her bed, Little John starting up with her and jumping off the bed. He looked at her, tail wagging and whimpering at her. She took a few breaths, trying to get herself to stop shaking, and pressed her hands to her neck, entwining her fingers behind her neck. She pulled her knees up to her chest, trying to make herself smaller to try to control the panic that was filling up her stomach and chest, thinking that if she were smaller that would make the panic smaller, right? Her heart was hammering in her chest, and her stomach felt like she'd spent the better part of the day at an amusement park. She felt scared and trapped, like she was still trapped in that room. Sobs were fighting for space in her throat, making it feel raw, though no sound came out. She rocked back and forth on the bed for a moment and tried to breathe around the constriction of her throat, whimpering gently as it was the only sound that could fight its way out of her mouth.
She got the feeling there should be someone next to her, in Little John's spot; that someone should be there to touch her neck and to comfort her.
There it was again.
Should be.
Little John leaned against the bed, whimpering again, pulling her out of her thoughts. She sniffed, trying to straighten herself out and to breathe normally, as she reached a shaking hand to him and touched his head, "I'm…" she coughed, clearing her throat and tried again, "I'm okay, buddy. I'm gonna be okay."
She climbed out of her bed, hands still shaking and knees weaker than she would've preferred, and opened her door. She scrubbed at her face as she headed for the kitchenette and her mug.
Hot chocolate.
Hot chocolate would help.
Just like it always did.
Little John followed after her, sticking close enough so that she felt his nose press against her arm. Once in the kitchenette and once the mug was in her hands, she realized she was shaking too hard to make hot chocolate the way that her dad had usually done it; warming the milk in a saucepan and then carefully pouring it into the mug. Little John sat near the fridge, staying close without crowding her out and watching her work. As she poured the milk into the mug, she quietly apologized to her dad and set the mug in the microwave. She spoke quietly to herself as she worked; trying to tell herself she was talking to Little John, and recounted the dream to make it seem less real.
Doors again. Not too surprising, given that that was kind of the theme of the day, a weird theme, but a theme nonetheless. But why did the room she had been trapped in seem so similar to her room here? She had been feeling a bit trapped lately, she was willing to admit that, but why the therapist? The only time she remembered ever seeing a therapist was shortly after her father died, but that had been more of a grief counselor, and it certainly hadn't been anyone who looked like that. Yet, somehow, the woman acting as the therapist was definitely familiar to her—even her voice had seemed incredibly familiar to her. In fact, the dream itself seemed familiar, as if she'd had it before. She certainly didn't remember having the dream before tonight, but if the events of the day had proven anything to her, it was that she apparently couldn't trust her own memory. She shook her head at herself, stopping that train of thought before it could inspire all it's worrisome thought seeds to sprout in her mind and before she was going to need something much stronger than hot chocolate to deal with it; it was just a dream, and moreover, it was a done dream.
"The nightmare only gets power if I give it," She said to herself as she finished recounting the dream; repeating what her father had often told her when she was done talking about nightmares.
She found a box of hot chocolate mix near the coffee maker; probably something Adelaide had grabbed for her the last time she went grocery shopping. As she pulled out a spoon from the drawer, Jennifer remembered, vaguely, how once, when she was little, Adelaide had been staying at their house when Jennifer had had a nightmare.
She had tried not to wake her up as she went to her parents' room, but there was very little that Adelaide didn't notice or know. As she and her father had gone down to the kitchen, Adelaide had followed after, keeping quiet as she climbed into the chair next to her, and had let Jennifer talk about her nightmare. When Jennifer started getting panicky recounting the dream, Adelaide had held her hand, not saying anything but still trying to help. When they had gotten back to her room, Adelaide had climbed into bed next to her, saying, "They won't get you if I'm with you. I know how to fight them."
It became something she started to rely on and believe. Adelaide spent so much time fighting everyone else in the real world, why wouldn't she know how to fight the monsters in Jennifer's head? She smiled weakly as she poured the mix into the mug, stirring it, "Adelaide always knows."
Once she was satisfied with the mixture, she walked out to look out the storefront windows at the street. It had started to rain lightly, making the light of the streetlamps seem somehow contained in the droplets that were falling from the sky. There were a few cars parked up and down the street; probably people who didn't know about the parking limits.
There was a pale colored truck about a block down that looked vaguely familiar, but she didn't have the energy to push on it.
She took a drink from her mug, still studying the rainy street, and started humming Not in Nottingham to herself; a habit she had gotten into because it had been something her mom would sing to her when she was starting to feel like the world was getting too heavy.
"Every town has its ups and downs. Sometimes the ups outnumber the downs. But not in Nottingham." She sang quietly.
She took another drink as Little John came to sit next to her and as she reached the end of the song, "Can't you see the tears we're cryin'? Can't there be some happiness for me? Not in Nottingham."
Little John was calm for a moment; seeming to survey the street with Jennifer, when something caught his eye and he immediately went back to standing on all fours, tail wagging erratically. He glanced from Jennifer to the street, and scratched at the door, whimpering quietly. He was acting as if he saw someone he knew outside and wanted to go greet them before they even made it to the shop.
"Sh, Little John," Jennifer whispered at him, shifting the mug to her right hand and placing her left on his head. She glanced towards the spiral stairs, hoping that Little John's whimpering wouldn't wake Adelaide again, before she looked back down the street, trying to find what had gotten Little John all worked up.
The only difference she could discern was that the pale truck was now gone. She shifted nervously from foot to foot and scratched his head, "No one's there, buddy."
He whined again, tail stopping it's wagging, and looked up at her in disappointment. She took another, final drink from her mug and patted his shoulder, "I'm sorry, bud. C'mon, let's go back to bed. Tomorrow will be here before we know it."
She turned from the door and headed back towards her room. After another heartbroken whine at the door, Little John followed her.
Joshua's phone buzzed in his pocket seconds after he made it back up to his apartment. "Swingin' bachelor's pad" Jennifer had called it, but she couldn't be more wrong. The apartment was simple in design, and fairly neat. The walls were a tan color—the same color they had been when he had first moved in—with a few pictures of him, Holly, and their parents hanging sparsely on the walls. He pulled off his pea coat, and tossed it over the arm of the couch. He didn't look at who was calling him as he answered his phone, "Yes, Adelaide?"
"And what did you learn?" the voice on the other end asked as he sank into his couch.
"Your suspicions were correct," he sighed in response, leaning back into the cushions, "she's starting to remember things."
"Anything specific?" Adelaide asked simply.
Joshua shook his head, "She didn't say. Just that she was getting these 'memory flashes' and that Holly had told her to push on them so she could remember more."
Adelaide tsked her tongue on the other end, "She'll hurt herself if she keeps doing that."
Joshua rubbed his eyes with his left hand, "Right. Are we still sure that it's a good idea for her to be pushing at all? A door once opened—,"
"Can go both ways." Adelaide finished on the other end, "I was the one who taught you that, remember?"
Joshua sighed, his agitation threatening to get the better of him but he quelled it—if there was one thing he knew about Adelaide, it was that she did not respond well to snappishness, "And yet my point still stands."
Adelaide sighed back, "Josh, this isn't about what we think or what we want. It's always been about her. It's about letting her make her own choices."
Joshua leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees, "I know that; believe me, I really do. But the other side's getting…nervous, especially since that Crocker guy showed up."
She laughed, "Nervous? They had someone go onto his boat and remove every trace of her from it. That doesn't say 'nervous' to me, that—that says that they're poking the bear."
"You think they're that self-assured?" Joshua asked in disbelief.
"I think that they think that since Haven's no longer a Trouble spot, that the threat that Duke Crocker poses has somehow been lessened." Adelaide replied.
"You seem to think otherwise." Joshua noted, rubbing his neck.
"I think that Duke Crocker was dangerous long before he realized his family's legacy and that there is nothing on God's green earth that will keep him and Jennifer Mason apart." Adelaide replied matter-of-factly, "It's been, what, a year since she died? And at the slightest hint that that could be different, he just abandons his plans to finally leave everything that that town has ever done to him behind just to…just to what, check? And then she meets him for a second—a second, Joshua—not knowing who he is or what he is to her, and that's enough for her to want to push for answers? Are you trying to tell me that that doesn't sound like some goddamn determination on both their parts?"
"How did he even find her anyway? I mean, aside from basically altering part of reality—which I'm still struggling to really wrap my mind around by the way—they changed her phone, they stashed her car, they altered Internet records, they changed her credit cards; wait, weren't the cards they gave her technically listed under your name?" Joshua asked, standing from the couch and heading for his small kitchen, tucked next to the front door. There wasn't much in it, aside from some probably-questionable, probably-less-questionable, and decidedly-no-longer-safe-for-human-consumption takeout leftovers as well as what was left of a six pack of beer in his fridge. He was really going to need to go grocery shopping before Holly set foot in this place, otherwise he'd never hear the end of it.
He pulled a beer out of his fridge as Adelaide explained simply, "I gave her back her actual cards."
Joshua froze, letting the fridge door slam closed, "You did what."
"Don't you take that tone with me, Joshua." Adelaide warned, taking on what she called her "Mom" voice, "It was the right thing to do."
"Adelaide," Joshua said, still in blatant disbelief, "You didn't have the right—,"
"'The right'?" Adelaide interrupted, "Joshua, for her it's been a year since she did anything on her own and I don't know if you're aware but a year is a long fucking time to be dependent on another person; family or not."
"Jesus, Adelaide, why don't you just go down stairs and tell her everything right now." Joshua laughed humorlessly as he walked back towards the couch, "That determination that they have that you were talking about before? The other side could do something about that."
Adelaide scoffed at him over the phone as Joshua sat back down on his couch, "Like what? Fake her death again, hide her way again, scrub her memory again, and then send her back into the world again? That's too much; they'd destroy her. And we both know the lengths they'll go to keep her from dying."
"Or they could just kill him, since he seems to be such a big trigger for her." Joshua posed, gesturing emphatically with his beer bottle though he knew she couldn't see him.
"No. He's too important to just kill off because he's getting a little too close to something—even if that something is Jennifer—besides, if they had wanted him dead, he never would've made it to Boston." Adelaide commented, sighing slightly.
Joshua rolled his eyes, his agitation bubbling back up, "Right, sure, okay, so if they're both alive, like they apparently need to be, they'll apparently find each other no matter what anyone does or says, so that leaves us…where, exactly?"
Adelaide sighed, "Where it's always left us, Joshua. It leaves us with letting them, letting Jennifer make her own choices."
There was a pause. Joshua took a swig of his beer as Adelaide carefully said, "Joshua, if you're this worried about the other side—,"
"You're damn right I'm worried about the other side!" Joshua snapped, cutting her off, "Twice in one day you've managed to piss them off, both times revealing some of your best defenses and greatest weakness. I mean, Jesus, Adelaide, talk about poking the bear! Do you realize what could happen if they try something—,"
"Joshua." She said calmly, forcing him to stop.
He let out an agitated breath but kept quiet and took another drink of beer.
"They don't scare me. None of them ever have and none of them ever will. And if they are foolish enough to try something, they will fail." She said coolly.
Joshua let out an incredulous chuckle, "Jesus, Adelaide. What are you?"
"I'm just a used bookstore owner." Came the simple reply. Something in her tone told him that she was smiling and it made Joshua shake his head as he set his beer bottle on the floor between his feet. That was always the answer to that question and any of it's variants; "Just a bookstore owner." Joshua had been helping her for two years now and he'd lost count of how many times he'd heard her say it to him and her "charges". He wondered if she knew that at this point it was more of a joke to him than it was a valid explanation or if that was the point; that it was always a joke no matter who was asking or when.
He ran a hand over his head, "A bookstore owner. That's right. And I'm…?"
"My plucky young assistant." She said simply, earning a chuckle out of Joshua. There was the briefest of pauses before she said carefully, "If…if you still want to be, that is. Having the right to choose doesn't stop with Jennifer, you know."
Joshua sighed. He appreciated the out that she was offering him—that she was always offering him, and he'd be lying if he said he never thought of taking her up on it, but he knew he wouldn't do it. Not yet anyway: "In it to win it, Ma. Besides, someone's gotta keep you in line, right?"
Adelaide laughed, "You sassin' me, Josh?"
"I would never." Joshua replied, smiling at the phone.
"You better not be. Can't have my plucky young assistant smart mouthing me; I get enough of that from my family." Adelaide said, her tone still sounding like she was smiling.
"I'll try to remember that." He smirked, shaking his head again.
There was another brief pause before Joshua said, "Goodnight, Ms. Adelaide."
"Goodnight, Mr. Joshua."
Joshua ended the call, tossing the phone onto the couch cushion next to him and rubbed his face with his hands. He leaned back into the cushions, placing his hands behind his neck as he considered what the next few days were likely to look like. He didn't like lying to Holly or to Jennifer, but it was for the best.
Right?
And besides, everything would eventually come out into the light whether or not he wanted it to or whether or not he decided to force it now. He sighed as he leaned forward, rubbed his neck, and glanced at the ceiling. Adelaide was right, like always: It wasn't about what he wanted or what he decided to do; everything would come out in its own time. And time, for once, was on their side. And besides, like Adelaide said, it wasn't about him; it was about Jennifer.
He ran his hands back over his head as he stood to head for bed. This was going to be a long month.