Chapter 24

Spotlight

"So, where is she?"

"The more appropriate question would be, how is she?"

"Fair enough. Wipe the pathetic grin off your face and spill it. All of it. I want to know everything that happened in England."

"In due time."

"The clock started the moment I decided to bite, Wesker."

"Spoken like a gung-ho Redfield. Incorrect. My 'clock' starts when I choose. You are batting out of order, Claire. The question rotation begins with you."

"I said I'd talk. I never said how much I'd say."

His grin widened. "Neither did I."

"I know damn well she's alive, but…"

"But?"

"I want to know what-what you've done to keep her on the living side of death's doorstep?"

"You do realize if I had done nothing the Jill Valentine conundrum would not exist. I reacted to an opportunity and my reaction saved her life."

"Before I applaud you for your noble, and entirely unselfish good deed, perhaps you can enlighten me on the long term benefits gained in being your medical hostage. Why did you even bother?"

"Would you rather I left her to die on a beach, while I settled accounts with your brother? Jill Valentine is the reason your sibling overlord remains bipedal. Her unexpected excision from his life ensures Dear Brother will think twice before he slaps big boots on his feet and goes tromping around in someone else's garden."

"Ya know, Wesker, for someone who professes to loathe him, you sure do like to talk about him. I never give a second thought to the people I can't stand. They're the furthest thing from my mind."

"Merely natural references, I assure you. I would gladly trade every viral specimen in my laboratories to blank your brother from my mind. I have never encountered a more...inept individual. And yet, there he is, every time I turn around. Lagging one step behind. Popping out of the shadows like a Boogeyman."

"Funny, I believe he's said the same thing about you."

"The fact that he stumbles upon a shared analogy and concept is no more surprising than his walking into a grocery store to purchase food. Shall we begin?"

Claire tugged at her bottom lip with her teeth. His persistence rivaled the intensity of her defiance, and in the absence of a time machine, or a molecule dissolving Star Trek beam, she was stuck. Like a pig. Hemorrhaging morals and pride, and promising answers to questions that it wasn't Wesker's right to know.

Stupid Jill. Valentine now occupied the front and center pedestal in the ever-growing Claire Redfield stupid person hall of fame.

"Go ahead, Wesker. Ask your question, but you're relying on a five year old's memories to fill in the blanks."

"Questions. Plural. Meaning more than one."

"I know what 'plural' means. Get on with it so we can be done with it. I'll answer. Don't be surprised, or find some reason to blame me, when the answer is 'I dunno know'."

"You were five when your parents were murdered."

Claire nodded.

"Tell me about the night they died."

"Is that a question? Doesn't sound like one. Sounds like a command."

"I shall rephrase. It is Halloween, a pointless parade of rehashed superhero costumes and fairy tale princesses masquerading door to door with their fake weapons, ringlets, and glitter tiaras. Bags of prepackaged diabetes dumped into bowls. The chimes of doorbells. The clatter of footsteps on porches. Shouts of 'Trick or Trea'" pierce the chill of an Autumn eve... "

The flat calm of his voice drew her into the world he described, a time, a place, a memory suppressed. A night that had happened so long ago it almost seemed, now, not to have happened at all.

The interior of the limo, the contours of the seats and the windows, softened into a hazy blur. She stared at the seats, without seeing them, looking straight through them.

When Claire spoke her voice was tranquil, almost trance-like, devoid of the emotional inflections that usually accompanied her words when her mother and father were mentioned in conversation.

"Our mother made our costumes every year. And I remember...I remember wanting to be a princess, like the other girls in my kindergarten class. I wanted the poofy dress, the Shirley Temple curls, and yes, even the fake crown. Asked for a magic wand too, but...but I didn't get it."

"Surely your mother knew your desire, and I believe it is common knowledge there are an exorbitant amount of mothers who would contort their limbs into a pretzel if it meant fulfilling a child's dream, even if the child's ridiculous fantasies cater to the observance of a pagan holiday."

"She knew. I begged for every princess costume we saw in the stores when we went shopping."

"To no avail."

"She just wouldn't budge, no matter how hard I cried, or stomped my feet. I guess she felt the best costumes were original, one-of-a-kind. The type of outfit a mother will abandon eight solid hours of shut eye over, to make sure it's pieced together by the morning of a school's costume parade.

"Don't get me wrong, Wesker, her ideas were pretty damn creative, but they were...Oh, I don't know...Looking back, her actions remind me of a husband who buys his wife a bowling ball, with finger holes drilled to fit the size of his fingers, because he knows wifey isn't going to take it to a bowling alley. I mean, once it's in her hands, it's also in his hands, and all he's done in giving an unwanted gift to his spouse is make himself happy. I think...hmmm...I think my mother must have been pleased with her own craftiness, so much so, she didn't stop to consider me."

"Would you care to elaborate on these October obominations?" Wesker prompted.

Maybe it was lack of sleep, maybe her defenses were as lethargic as her droopy eyelids, but in some odd way the usual sting of sadness that always seemed to bubble to the surface when she spoke about her mother had failed to emerge from its reservoir of pain.

Claire shut her eyes and sank lower into the seat. Something had changed, something had failed to kickstart the sadness into a tempest of anger. It can't be Wesker. Or could it? He was a surprisingly attentive listener, almost too attentive, as though he were gathering intel he planned to use against her at a future point in time. He had even let her speak without interrupting her or forcing her to change the subject, which often happened with Chris when their parents were the centerpiece of their conversation.

"You don't want to know. Believe me. It's-It's, well let's just say what she thought was nifty was downright silly."

"I would be more surprised if your forthcoming revelation was not as ludicrous as I have already presumed it will be. "Silly' and Redfield belong together, like a crooked nose on a wicked witch."

It seemed wrong to make light of her mother's efforts, with Wesker of all people, but she couldn't fault him for the comparison.

"Two words," Claire said. "Popcorn. Box."

She thought she heard him stifle a small chuckle.

"And who was the lucky, or should I say unlucky, recipient?"

Claire raised her arm. "This chick right here. God, I can still feel my knees bumping the insides of that stupid box. Poor Chris got so sick and tired of helping me climb porch steps he finally took my plastic pumpkin and had me wait at the end of the driveways while he went up to the doors."

"How chivalrous," Wesker replied.

"Not in the least," Claire said. "I think he really just wanted the whole event done and over with so he could go hang out with his friends.

"Then there was the jack-in-the-box, the Lego shaped box, the milk carton-"

"Let me guess," Wesker interrupted. "Milk carton shaped box. Did your mother have a box fetish, Claire? She seems to have had an unhealthy need to drape you in corrugated paper products."

Claire felt the corners of her lips gravitate toward a smile. "No romance with cardboard, Wesker. Honestly, she made my costumes out of boxes because she couldn't sew. Well, that's not exactly true. She could sew, but when patterns wouldn't line up she'd have a meltdown and go with a nuclear option."

"Some abominations cannot be saved," Wesker replied. "Uneven seams. Misaligned zippers. Fodder for scissors."

"Hours of work heaped straight into the trash," Claire said with a sigh. She paused. Should I? Why not. He thinks he knows everything anyway. "I could never understand why she did it. Why she'd wait until the last second to start a project, devote all the time and energy into trying to complete it, only to give up and throw it all away when it didn't work out. Why, Wesker?"

"I am afraid I lack the proper insight into your mother's psyche to provide a suitable response, Claire. Perhaps her capabilities were not on par with the intentions. Her desire to distinguish you as unique through a simple choice of costume is, however, interesting."

"She could've just bought a damn costume," Claire muttered. "Saved herself the aggravation of putting one together piece mill."

"But it would not have distinguished you as different," Wesker replied. "In the whole of your life have you yet to see a popcorn box like the one your mother made? Could you duplicate it yourself?"

"No," Claire replied. "I don't think I have. Maybe I could, maybe I couldn't. I don't know. It was so long ago. I only wore it for a few hours and had barely taken it off when...when..."

"When,"Wesker prompted.

She could still hear her mother. "Chris, take Claire upstairs. Wash her face. Enough sampling tonight. I'll be up in a bit to tuck her in."

Claire yawned. "When it all went to shit," she said softly.

Suddenly she was exhausted, more tired than she had ever been, as though rummaging around in old memories had sapped every last ounce of her available strength. Jill wasn't going anywhere. Claire's shoulders sagged. Leon hadn't drowned. Her eyelids drifted shut, fluttered open, then slowly closed. Chris was on his way to the States. Her hands slid off her lap and her head lolled to the side. Halloween. Pumpkins. Chris rubbing her face with a wet washcloth. Unicorn pajamas. Pink nighlight. Shouting. A shrill scream.

Wesker watched her flinch, small jolts shot through her extremities but did not rouse her from her sleep. He removed his jacket and draped it over her.

"And in thy slumber gloaming tendrils devour God's light," he whispered.