December 24, 1915
The following year seemed to pass by in a whirlwind of colours and indistinguishable white noise. Theodore felt like he had been dragging himself throughout the days like he was made of molasses malaise; with time passing by in a hazy blur of days and meaningless months. The worst part of the whole ordeal was that whenever he spared the effort to try and recall anything distinguishable about the events that had happened throughout the year, he found nothing but haze; save for his abrupt arrival.
There was nothing but a blur of tears, grey days and white noise; a noise which had once brought him comfort, now brought him pain. Days rolled into weeks, that ambled into months and eventually trudged into a year. Every day seemed like a repeat of the previous and sometimes even the littlest tasks seemed like they took far too much effort to complete them. Theodore didn't talk much in those days, save for a few grunted responses here and there; in fact, when he thought about how little he had talked before and how he never seemed to talk now, he almost would've considered the former version of himself to be a bit a chatterbox, it had gotten that bad.
It's not that he didn't want to talk or that he didn't have anything to say, it was just that whenever he opened his mouth to speak, he felt like his words kept getting stuck in the back of his throat. Like they had become clogged in his airways, just like the lump that formed there whenever he was made to interact with anyone or even venture outside to pick up the mail from the mailbox or collect firewood from the pile of logs behind the house.
Those first few days had been spent asleep in his bed, in the room that he had supposedly fought Lila, tooth and nail for, not that he could remember. Occasionally he would skittishly emerge from the safety of the blankets to search the kitchen for food like a rabid raccoon going through the garbage, or he would skirt the edges of the apartment in order to partake in bathroom breaks that never lasted as long as they probably should have of. Some days Lila—headstrong as she was—would drag him from bed to do stuff or air out the room, but he could barely remember those days any better than the last.
But as much as Theodore would've preferred to silently wallow in his own misery, whittling away the days in a monotony of grey, it wasn't always possible. Or, put another way, Lila wouldn't let it be possible. As he'd quickly come to learn, she'd beat a dead horse if she thought it would produce a different outcome than the one presented. As such, there were days where he was forced to interact with the outside world (with the other occupants of the Stellar Suites or the few garden ladies who dared to step inside their little bubble based on nothing more than a few juicy rumours) instead of wallowing in the somewhat coziness of his gloomy brain.
It was there, safe—trapped—inside his own mind that he spent many moments very much in fear of himself and the righteous anxiety that warred with the overwhelming rage. Rage, at what had happened to him—what would happen to him—and fear from so much else. It filled him with stress-inducing paranoia whenever he thought of being abandoned by Lila and Mr Pennycrumb if (when) they got tired of him. And although Theodore would rather die than outwardly admit it, he had become rather attached to the occupants of the Stellar Suites over the brief time that he had spent with them.
To the point where he often found himself falling back into old habits, despite himself. Habits, that at the tender age of nine—"Nine and a half, Vera!"—which had made it oh so painstakingly hard to watch his vera walk out of the door each time that she had to go to work. Even though, logically, Theodore knew that she would come back; she always did, until that one day that she didn't. Although, Mr Pennycrumb's constant—persistent—presence did alleviate that soul-sucking pain in the way that only animals seemed to be able to do. It was just nice to know that he had someone in there who understood him, even if that someone was a pug-faced chimaera or a relative with head harder than a concrete wall.
That's not to say the other occupants of the house bore him any cold shoulders (that he knew of), it was just at timesTheodore thought that Mr McFarland from upstairs seemed a little estranged from him. Not because he did not care for the boy, but simply because he had no idea how to help him grieve, save for letting him watching his "circus" train. Instead, the elder man resigned himself to small and quiet gestures that seemed to be enough to comfort, at the very least.
Mrs Olga (or "Granny Olga" as she insisted on being called) on the other hand, seemed to have some sort of creepy sixth sense that allowed her to understand his every (unspoken) whim, however strange it may have been to her. The only way that Theodore could have of explained it was that it was because of some super secret womanly intuition-slash-matronly instinct that persuaded her to do so. That or Mr Pennycrumb was just outright telling her what was going on. Either way, when she forced him to eat, he ate because doing so otherwise meant disappointed & downtrodden expressions. Expressions that pierced him deep and almost hurt worse than his own sorrow; so, he obeyed.
And all of that hurt didn't even take into account just how much this old (new) world had shifted around him, continuously moving on whilst he wallowed in his misery. Only a couple of months previous the world had fallen into disrepair as they broke out into worldwide war; something so simple that had instigated something so devastating. The papers (and his previously modern World History lessons) told them that the First World War had burst into action on July 28, 1914 thanks to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. And all at the hands of a nineteen year old by the name of Gavrilo Princip. It was an act of premeditated murder completed in utter desperation which ultimately led to the World Powers declaring war on each other and all because one person didn't like the other.
And hadn't that been a huge kick in the teeth? To escape one world ending only to end up in another; at least Theodore hadn't initiated this one. He was well aware of what was to come (or so he liked to think), but even then at that point in time it seemed like a far off thing; something that was happening across the pond surely wouldn't impact them on American soil, right? At least, that was the opinion of many of those not currently involved in the newly-minted war; in the States, things were tense because people feared the resurgence of the Slavic Empire.
Although there were a few select groups who wanted to go to war, if only to break from the monotony of day-to-day life, dull as it was, or the lingering effects of the influenza epidemic that many had fallen victim to or suffered from. It was a sad fact: war created jobs, money and opportunities that one might not find in peace time. That's just the way things were, chaotic as people tended to be.
But then again, that was a far off thing since the war had yet to land itself on the American backdoor step where people had more or less brushed it aside. The general feeling was that it was happening over there, meaning that it was none of their business (strange, considering the trigger-happy country that they were). The only thing that had affected them was the tightening of our metaphorical belts as those few products imported from Europe were now unable to transported across the Atlantic.
Not that the sense of "…your monkeys, you problem…" would last forever because deep in the back of his mind, Theodore knew that if he thought his future looked bleak now, then it was nothing in comparison to what was to come. He was just glad that he was severely under the age of enlistment and that they currently resided in America because if they had not, he was sure terrible things would have of awaited them in Europe.
Now fourteen years old, the young teen knew that he would still likely find himself adorned in the battle fatigues sometime in the near future as many boys (an alarmingly severe amount whom were underage) went off to war, to fight for God & Country. But in the meantime, he was content to swaddle himself in the childishness of warms hugs, of the mundane life of a vintage child and to have a proper life here in the past.
Even if the near constant threat of the ever-approaching Mogadorian witch hunts and the wide-spreading World Wars—plural—hung over his head, Theodore found himself almost enjoying his time in the mid 10s. Even with the near constant devil's advocate on his shoulder who he tried his best to ignore, that voice with its whiny little tone that sounded in the back of his head. It whispered of Theodore's ever-present fear of losing himself like he had done the last time he had lost his vera.
What would happen if he lost someone again? If he lost Lila? Or Granny Olga? Grandaddy Edwin? What would happen if his new friend, Franklin Cooper, found out what he had done? What had REALLY happened to them? What about Elliot Gussman, the dentist's son, who followed him around like a lost puppy? What would happen to the seven year old if he lost control again? What would happen if he REALLY let go? What good would it do to endanger MORE people? Hadn't he hurt them enough? Hadn't he lost enough? Who would love a monster like me?
It was hard to ignore those kinds of thoughts. But it was also easy enough to shove those words down and this place that wrought them. Because whilst the 1910s wasn't much in comparison to what he was used to, for now, it was home. And for the most part, Theodore thought he might be able to see the end of this dark & grey tunnel that he had called his all-encompassing, depressing mourning. At least that was until another fear, one much closer to home, struck him deep. One day, when he had felt particularly cheerful he had tried to picture his family's faces in his mind and a heart aching terror had plucked at his heartstrings when he found that he couldn't.
At first, Theodore had held out some sort of hope that maybe one of his family members might be here, in this era with him. But that hope soon died as the days wore on and he saw no familiar face aside from Lila's. Deep down—deep, deep down—he knew that there wasn't ever going to be one and that, logically, he may never live long enough to. It was rather depressing either way. In any case, it was only when he had begun to forget the faces of his (extended) family—when he could no longer picture their faces in his mind's eye, couldn't remember their voices or their personalities beyond a vague sense of who they were—that he decided to record as much as he could remember.
Funnily enough, it was one such a project (one explained under a bogus reason) that seemed to bring both Theodore & his friends closer together, despite its rather morbid content. Names went to crudely drawn faces, labels were pinned to those faces and chicken-scratched descriptions were stamped beneath each member. All of which were pinned to a noticeboard that Franklin had so kindly donated. Elliot, on the other hand, had been put in charge of the pushpins; something that he'd pinched from his father's study when he was (apparently) too busy screwing his secretary.
Together, the farmer's boy, the dentist's boy and the Garde boy would spend hours out in the Cooper's barn where they wrote down everything that Theodore could rightly remember and tried to track down the "…aliens…" From descriptions to powers, crop circles to UFO sightings, all were pinned to the board and when the corkboard was fully drowned, they moved to the surrounding barn walls. Every surface was filled with clippings from newspapers, cut out from magazines and a whole lot of papers bore hand drawn sketches of all kinds of alien accoutrement. But no such luck could be found.
Even a year later, it still hurt too much to put actual names to faces and Theodore likely reasoned that it probably still would in the years to come. So, instead simply labelled each of his family members (excluding Vera) with their own respective title: Luther-Ent [Firstborn Luther of his name], Diego-Zvee [Secondborn Diego of his name], Allison-Drey [Thirdborn Allison of her name], Klaus-Vie [Fourthborn Klaus of his name], Fën [Five], Ben-Sich [Sixthborn Ben of his name], Theodore-Ent [Firstborn Theodore of his name] and Vera [Mother]. Over time, Theodore knew that he would eventually forget those familial titles of theirs and in his mind's eye, they would simply remain as those faceless people.
As Christmas wreaths adorned doors and a white dusting of snow coated the grounds, Theodore finally called his first full mind-bending year in the past, to an end. Faced with what was now his reality, Theodore could only wait & see—could only hope—that the next year would be much better than the last. Afterall, you couldn't really outdo the end of the world and time travelling to the past.
And as the mouth-watering scent of roasted ham and crisp fortune cookies drifted on the air, twisting through the woods that bordered the Stellar Suites until it pulled him out of the cool confines of the cendrillon flower ring in the woods. Silently hesitant footsteps led him back towards the house as Theodore followed after the scent like a kid in cartoon, floating after the scent to the proverbial pie on the windowsil. Wiping his feet at the door, the Garde boy slipped inside and shuffled over towards the dining table in the common area where a simple spread had been laid out for the occupants of the house. Theodore couldn't help it as his lips twitched upwards into a small smile at the sight of it; Lila & Granny Olga had spent practically the whole day cooking this feast for them.
A smile that was reciprocated by the somewhat tipsy Lila who had spent most of her cooking time "sampling" the wines. She cheered his entrance with a raised glass that sloshed sticky champagne onto her hand and the bustling Granny Olga, who had pulled out a collection of paper crowns made from colourful papers, for them all to wear. Yeah, Theodore thought as a stiff paper crown that was tucked atop his messy curls and he pulled out a chair to sit down & eat with the joyous occupants of the house. Next year will be better than the last.