"I got a ham and cheese," the other teen stated in a blunt manner, setting down a tray on the low coffee table next to the couch. "Why are you on the floor?"
"I'm not hungry." Marcie mumbled, ignoring the girl's other question and despite the angry growl that came from her stomach.
Melanie huffed, turning around to her parents. Eric had returned to the desk, engrossed in finding the map once again inside the green, leather-bound book. "See? I told you she wasn't hungry, and you still made me go all the way to the kitchen!"
"Eat half," the former crazy woman, Ariel, left open the textbook on the desk and came forward, pressing a hand against Eric's shoulder. Her face had paled, but she seemed to be taking everything with a purposeful stride. "The last thing we want is you fainting, again."
In a fluid motion, she stepped towards the tray, lifting something off and exposing a neat sandwich. There was a glass of water to the right, and silverware placed on a cloth napkin to the left. At the sight of the food, Marcie felt her resolve start to waver.
"I only have to eat one?" She clarified hesitantly, eyes never leaving the plate.
"Just one," Ariel confirmed, her kind smile rather unsettled on her features.
Although all this — the book, the non-comprehension of Nebraska, Crazy Lady — bothered Marcie, she pushed it aside in favor of the food. "Fine. But only half though, okay?"
"Only half," Ariel parroted back, nodding in agreement.
She watched with rapt attention as the girl shuffled over to the table on her knees, before sitting down cross legged before it, picking up one of the halves of the sandwich, taking a small, cursory bite.
When she swallowed, and deemed herself still alive, Marcie grabbed the half she was holding and stuffed the rest of it into her mouth. She chewed quickly, her mouth hanging open in the process. It took a minute, and most of the water, but she managed to swallow. Out of habit, she reached out for the other untouched part, before remembering the deal and drawing her fingers back to her lap.
"Just eat the other half," the Melanie girl sighed impatiently, "I already went through all the trouble of getting the sandwich, you might as well finish it off."
Ordinarily, Marcie would have objected. But eating a little had just made her even hungrier, and she wasn't sure if there'd be dinner tonight. She pushed aside her hesitation and made a grab at it.
"Mel," through the sounds of her chewing, Marcie could hear 'Eric' speaking, "Why don't you get started on your homework?"
"I don't have a lot of homework, Dad." Melody answered, her eyes trailing from her father to the other teenager in the room. She was curious to know why her parents had taken an interest in this odd girl. "I've only got to do two more things, and then I'll be done."
"Why don't you go for a swim then?" Eric replied, tearing his eyes away from the other teen to focus on his daughter.
Marcie looked up to see Melanie's face light up. "Can I? Does this mean I'm not grounded anymore?"
Crazy Lady (her name started with an A, right?), said, after a beat, "I guess it does."
"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Melanie squealed with excitement, wasting no time in racing out of the room.
"Be back by dinner!" Crazy Lady called out after the retreating girl.
"I will!" Melanie's voice echoed from halfway out the hall, clearly running away from here as fast as her two feet could carry her. She closed the door loudly behind her, unexpectedly making Marcie jump.
"She's not going to make it to dinner, is she?" Crazy Lady asked aloud.
"Not by a long shot," Eric answered, wearily. His head was buzzing, and his eyes kept darting back and forth between the two books before him. "But Carlotta will give her an earful when she decides to reappear."
Marcie put her glass of water back on the tray, creating a soft clinking sound as she did. Both the people shot their heads in her direction once more. They seemed surprised at her presence.
"For someone who wasn't hungry, you certainly ate a lot," Ariel recovered first, acknowledging the girl's appetite with satisfaction.
"Yeah, well," Marcie mumbled, unable to come back with something smart. "Thanks. For the food, I mean. It totally hit the spot."
"Your welcome," Ariel murmured, eyeing the girl in a different way now. It was like she was studying her, like she knew something Marcie didn't.
It made the teenager shift awkwardly. "So, um…can I go home now?"
That seemed to startle them both. She looked at him. He looked at her. Marcie felt an urge to ask them why they kept insisting on sharing these looks, as though they were having a conversation that she wasn't allowed to listen too.
"Let's back up for a minute," Crazy Lady sighed, tucking a strand of red hair behind her ear with her wrapped-up wrist. The teenager felt a slight pang of guilt that she'd caused that. "You were walking home from school, right?"
Marcie sighed, nodding her head anyway, even though this had to be the third time she explained it. "Yeah, I got caught in the hallway traffic because my locker was jammed, and then I missed the bus, so I started walking home."
"You're walking home, and then what?" Eric pressed, ignoring the words in the girl's story that he didn't recognize. Some things had more of a priority at the moment.
"I…dunno?" The girl replied, frowning at herself. "Like, I was just walking, and then there was like, really bad wind, like a twister. 'Cept, it's not tornado season, and it seemed like…like if the wind was just hitting me, you know?"
"Then what happened?" Eric kept on, making a mental note that despite the amount of times the girl said it, her story had not changed. That had to mean something, right?
"I think the wind knocked me over in the woods, which doesn't make any sense, 'cause like I said, where I live, there's just farms, not woods," Marcie answered honestly, bringing a fingernail to her mouth to chew on. "I saw this place from faraway and thought I should walk to it, to get help."
Eric made another mental note: she was from the countryside. "How did you get inside of…our home?"
"I followed the guy in front of me," Marcie answered, blinking. "No one said I couldn't come in, so I thought it'd be okay to walk around, try to find help."
"You didn't ask anyone for help on your way to our home?" Eric pressed, finding the logic lacking in her story. "And once you had made it to our home, you didn't ask the first person you saw to help you?"
He sounded accusatory, and Marcie's shifted, uncomfortable with the tone. "There was a lady in town who I asked for help, outside a store. She kinda yelled at me to bug off. I didn't have time to ask anyone here for help, I got in, turned, and then she," the girl jutted her chin in the direction of Ariel, " hit me out of nowhere."
Multiple witnesses could place her in the village, and one could say the girl approached her. Eric filed that information away. That would be important to corroborating the girl's story.
"That's when you attacked my wife?" His voice had a hard edge to it now, and Marcie shrank under the sharp glare given to her.
She took in a breath, ready to speak, but it was Crazy Lady who piped up first. "She didn't attack, Eric. I grabbed at her, and she defended herself."
"It's true," Marcie added quickly. "She slammed into me, and my backpack exploded, so she was helping me get all my stuff back. When I looked up she grabbed me and wouldn't let go."
"So you decided instead of calling for help you would hurt her, instead?"
"I..." Marcie swallowed hard; how could she explain that in the moment, scared, lost, sure that the woman would hurt her, self-defense was the only option? "All I wanna do is go home. I'm sorry I hurt her, I really am, please don't make me go to jail."
"No one is going to jail," Ariel answered, her voice and features settled on the matter. She threw Eric an exasperated look. "Anything else?"
He quirked an eyebrow, arms crossed over him. He was not entirely convinced of her story. Add to it the layer of where she was claiming to be from and…"I'm trying to understand what happened."
"Can I go home now?" Marcie asked again, growing anxious once more. "I told you what happened twice, I'm being totally honest. I feel like it's you guys who know something you're not telling me."
"You're right," Ariel said matter-of-factly, nodding in agreement to the girl.
"I am?"
"She is?"
"Yes," Ariel stated, despite the disbelief of the two people in the room, "You deserve the truth."
"Ariel, we're getting very ahead of ourselves…" Eric groaned, rubbing at his forehead because he could feel an oncoming headache.
"What's the truth?" Marcie asked, wary and almost fearful to know the answer.
"That's…complicated." Ariel frowned, before furrowing her brows to comprehend the idea that was starting to unfold in her mind. "But maybe…maybe it doesn't have to be!"
Without warning, she sprung up, eyes shining at whatever she'd figured out, and wincing slightly at the ache in her ribs. Marcie flinched in surprise, the sudden movement having startled her back into a wary, on-her-guard position. Even Eric seemed unsure, opening his mouth to ask something, but being cut off by his wife.
"I'll be right back!" Crazy Lady said, her hand almost at the doorknob before she swiveled around to look straight at the teen. "Stay here!"
As if I have a choice, Marcie thought glumly, watching as the woman practically ran out the door, and left it swinging in her wake. Well, at least no DNA test needed to be done; she was definitely Melanie's mother. And Eric, without a doubt, was her father; he'd gotten just as excited over whatever he'd found in that book.
Speaking of books…"Can I have my history book back? And my school ID?"
Eric's gaze flickered over to the teen, who was back to staring down at her shoes. He was noticing that she did that a lot. He quirked a brow. "Why?"
"I don't wanna forget them," Marcie said, shrugging, before hesitantly posing, "I know your wife said you wouldn't but…you're not really gonna send me to jail, are you?"
Eric paused, considering the girl. She looked so small sitting on the floor, unable to look at him. She did look remarkably like Melody. "No, I'm not. But you should have called for help first before resorting to violence."
"Even if I'd called for help, no one would have come," Marcie mumbled, wrapping her arms around her knees.
"How do you know that?"
Marcie looked up at him, an identical set of ice blue eyes to his own becoming serious, older than her years. "Trust me. No one ever comes."
Eric had to look away. It was like watching a younger version of himself with red hair. Even down to the thick eyebrows, which were a pale orange. He heard her sniffle, and looked back over, seeing that her gaze had dropped as well. He realized, with a guilty wince, that she'd never gotten to blow her nose earlier. What had she been crying about anyway, before he mentioned imprisoning her? It felt like eons ago. Something about going home and a rough day…?
He cleared his throat, figuring that it was his turn to clear the silence. Had he looked closer, he would have realized her fingers slipped slightly on the zipper. "Bad day at school?"
"Yeah," Marcie answered, sounding dejected.
When no other information was presented, Eric found himself curious to know more. "What happened?"
The teenager's shoulders dropped. "Left my money at home, so I didn't eat during lunch period."
"That's all?"
"I got a bad grade on my science project too." Marcie didn't feel like explaining how she'd also ended up being late to math, falling asleep in history, getting kneed in the back, missing the bus, and landing here. "I think I'm just too stupid for science, you know? That, or Ms. Goden hates me; either one works."
"What was your project on?" Science had never been one of Eric's strong suits in school. He'd spent his formative years escaping his lessons, like his wife; Melody had taken after them both in that regard. He wondered if the girl ever did the same.
"I got stuck with the ocean topic," Marcie pulled a face at the thought of it, "Like, organisms under the sea."
Eric's brows raised slightly. "That doesn't sound too bad."
"There's nothing to do for that topic though," the girl sighed, her voice almost whining. Eric stifled a grin at the sound of it; it was the first time throughout all of this that she sounded like a teenager. "Like, my friend Matt got volcanoes and he made one explode in class with mints and soda. And my other friend, Em? She got space, and put these glow in the dark stars on the ceiling and turned off the lights. That's cool."
"So what did you do?"
"I had a blue shoebox, so I just drew a bunch of different fish and stuck them on the inside. There was info all along the sides too; like, it looked pass worthy. At least, the first version did."
She frowned, as though reliving the day, fingers drumming against the floor. Eric was tempted to ask her why she didn't just sit on the couch, but found this story to be more interesting. "There was more than one version?"
"Well, yeah, 'cause the first one I made, it um, kinda got crushed." There was a fleeting wince that lifted across the girl's features, and she fiddled her fingers nervously.
"Crushed?"
"Yeah, I had it on the dining table, and I hit the table. So it fell and then I fell on it. How stupid could I be, huh? Anyway, I was up till like, four or five making a new one." Marcie gave a long sigh, pushing her glasses up her nose.
"But if you were up late working on a new one, why did you get a low grade?" Eric wondered, slightly bewildered. Now that he looked, he could see the light circles under her eye, mostly off-set by her specacles.
"'Cause Ms. Goden hates me. Like, we literally live in the middle of nowhere, why do I need to make a project on the ocean? It's not like it matters." She crossed her arms over her chest in a frustrated manner.
Eric, unsure of how to proceed from there, said, "Maybe if you explain this to your parents, they could, ah, talk to your teacher and things could be worked out."
"That wouldn't work," she immediately dismissed.
"How do you know if you don't try?"
"Because—" She cut herself off before the words were out of her mouth, knowing that 'because it won't matter' was not an excuse a grownup would accept. "It's not so easy, you know?"
Subconsciously, she rubbed her right shoulder, clearly uncomfortable in the subject. Eric noticed she was still wearing her long sleeved garment, although it was warm inside the study. And she was still sitting on the floor, the furniture being utilized as a backrest instead of an actual seat. Deciding to cut his losses with the conversation, he went on a new path.
"If you're hot you could take off your…outerwear, or you could sit on the couch," he said awkwardly, wishing desperately that his wife would just walk in and dispel the uneasy atmosphere.
Marcie's head snapped up, blue eyes looking like a fish-in-a-net. Her left hand dropped from her shoulder immediately, and she pulled the too-big jacket tighter around her. "I'm fine."
"No, really, it's alright if you—"
"I'm okay, don't worry," she answered too quickly, finally glancing back up at him, before shifting her eyes away. "Can I ask you something?"
His brows pulled together in confusion, but he nodded. "Of course?"
She pursed her lips, before sitting up slightly, her eyes trained to the desk, then wandering back to him. "How come your globe and the map inside of the green book don't match?"
Eric blanched. Of course, he had a theory, but there was no certainty in such a thing. He opened his mouth to respond with something wildly generic, when he heard what sounded like a stampede outside. Recognizing the footsteps, he was prepared when the door slammed open.
The girl, however, was not.
Marcie recoiled instinctively, falling sideways onto the rug with a cry of surprise. She swore softly to herself not a moment later, shaking her short red locks and adjusting her glasses as she sat back up. It was not a difficult endeavor, but her pulse was still erratic.
Ariel didn't seem to notice, using her foot to close the door behind her. Her gaze was flickering between the teen and her husband, gleaming with pride, most likely due to the two books she was holding. "I think these are going to answer a lot of questions."
Eric, suspicious, raised a brow. "What are those?"
"The baby books. While you're standing, get me some ink and paper," Ariel answered over her shoulder, having already started to march over to where Marcie was sitting.
"Oh, and the green leather bound book too." She frowned slightly at the idea that the girl was still on the floor, before shrugging it off and taking a seat next to her.
Marcie immediately scooted farther away.
"What do baby books have to do with me not at home and not gettin' any cell signal in here?" She asked cautiously, curious, but nervous just the same at the woman's happy attitude.
"If what I think is right, it has more than you'd have thought possible," the woman nearly promised, fervent in her belief. She looked up at her husband expectantly, patting the couch just above her. "Eric?"
"I still don't understand what you're trying to get at," he replied, but still meandering over to the comfortable spot with a pen, some empty sheets of paper, the thick book, and ink. He set aside the objects, and focused where he had a clear view over Ariel's shoulder.
Brushing off his skepticism, Ariel opened the first book in her lap, smoothing out the page's wrinkles. It was clear the book had been utilized like a scrapbook, things sticking out, pages out of place. "This is our daughter Melody's baby book. I made sure all her important milestones were recorded."
Marcie leaned over slightly to get a better view, trying to see if the book held anything obvious. It didn't. "Um…that's cool?"
Ariel flipped a few pages, light fingers dancing over a curled lock of dark baby hair, before she turned attention to the page immediately to the right of it. "This was my brilliant attempt at wanting to keep her tiny handprints in the book. Unfortunately, someone only gave me enough ink to wet her fingers, so I had to settle for just her fingerprints."
"In my defense, when you asked me for ink, I assumed you meant for writing." Eric answered indirectly, bemused when an elbow was thrown backwards his way.
"This," Ariel continued on, flipping to the next page, seeming to ignore his comment, "Was Melody's first real piece of jewelry, a charm bracelet. It was for her naming ceremony."
Attached to the book was a gold bracelet, tiny chains linked together for what Marcie assumed was a tiny wrist. A charm danged from the end of it. The teenager looked at it closely, something about it catching her eye.
"Hey! That's just like my charm!" Marcie declared, pulling out the charm from her jacket pocket. She heard Eric take a sharp intake of breath as she held hers out, near the book. "It's the same design, I knew someone else must've bought a similar one at the store!"
"May I see that?" Ariel asked, and reluctantly, Marcie handed hers over, determining that she could always snatch it back. "See, Melody's wasn't bought, We had it made, and engraved with her name and birthday on the back."
"Just like mine!" Marcie said, watching as Crazy Lady flipped her charm, and the one in the book to their backsides. Side by side, it appeared to be the same unmistakable the same workmanship. "But yours is better. Mine's all scratched up, you can only really read the M and my birthday."
She didn't seem to be understanding the significance, but Eric certainly did. He leaned forward on his knees, suddenly feeling like the air had been punched out of him. All he could do was stare at the girls proffered bracelet charm, and the one in the book.
"We actually had two made," Ariel said, pointedly, her eyes focused intently on the girl.
"Wait…." Marcie drew back, something clicking in her mind. She wished she hadn't handed over the charm now, and resisted the urge to ask for it back. There were more pressing matters. "You don't think I stole it from your kid, do you? I told you, I've had mine for—"
"As long as you can remember," Eric cut in, his throat suddenly feeling dry. He felt dizzy. Seeing the charm at first had been shocking, the implication alone had been enough that he felt like he couldn't move. Now, seeing both charms together, he felt like he couldn't breathe. "You said you've had your charm for as long as you can remember."
"And that's the truth," Marcie stressed, growing concerned again. "Maybe mine is fake, like a copy of that one? Maybe there weren't just two made."
"It's a possibility," Ariel acknowledged, deciding they would have to ask the village jeweler to confirm whether he had made more than two and if this was his work. "But the birthdays are the same on both."
"So?" Marcie asked, frowning. A lot of trouble had been caused over the little thing. "Tons of people have the same birthday. And this may not even be my real birthday. When I got adopted it might've been easier to say the date on my charm is my birthday than figuring out a new day."
"That's…I hadn't considered that," Ariel replied, biting her lip. She had been so sure…but this was far from over. She set Melody's baby book aside, and pulled the second one out, blowing off a layer of dust in the process.
Immediately, Marcie heard Eric make a sort of strangled noise. Thinking it was an odd reaction for a book, she studied the cover for a few seconds. It looked newer than the other book, the fanciful cursive on the cover not at all faded like the first one had been. And when Crazy Lady opened it, it cracked, slightly, like the spine was practically new.
"Ariel," came the sharp warning of Crazy Lady's name, one that carried with it the sound of an impending argument. Marcie recognized it immediately, puzzled at the sudden change of atmosphere, but suddenly much more intrigued about what this thing had to offer.
"Honey, just trust me," Ariel said by way of excuse, her tone pleading. She turned her attention back to the item on her lap, starting to explain, in a softer voice, "This is our other daughter, Harmony's baby book."
"Looks like you took a lot better care of this one," Marcie noted, nodding at how the pages were all crisp. She frowned, asking, "Is that who has the second bracelet, your other daughter?"
"Yes, but we weren't able to save hers," Ariel sounded forlorn now, mournful and choked up. Marcie looked up at the woman, and saw that her gaze was steady upon the neat writing that filled the first two pages.
"Why not?"
"Our daughter, Harmony, disappeared almost fourteen years ago. There wasn't…we couldn't continue her baby book if there was no baby." Her voice was barely a strangled whisper, and Marcie felt, despite herself, a wave of sympathy.
Maybe that's why she's crazy, the girl considered, she lost her kid.
She looked over at the woman, chewing on her bottom lip. She was gripping the book tightly, seeming like she was in real, heartbreaking pain. Marcie's eyes trailed upwards to Eric, noting that he was looking down at the book with such agony…
Marcie studied them, asking slowly, "So you've never found your kid? Ever?"
"No," Eric answered shortly, his voice rough.
Marcie made a face, awkwardly messing with her sleeves. "Okay, okay, sorry, my dumb mistake for asking. Don't have to be mean about it."
"It's…it's just a very hard subject," Ariel explained thinly, trying to make up for her husband's behavior. She turned the page in the book, one that piqued at Marcie's interest.
"You got some of her hair, at least that's something, right?" She pointed out, backtracking now, trying to not upset these people any more.
"It's a piece," Ariel agreed distantly, her fingers feather light against the peach colored curl. Her attention shifted to the small ink blots on the next page, steadying herself against the oncoming tide of tears. There was a reason she hadn't opened this book in years. "She didn't fuss as much as Melody, so I did her first, because I wanted to keep her little handprints forever. I thought maybe, when she was all grown up..."
Crazy Lady gave a hollow laugh. The teenager beside her had never heard such an ironic, grieving sound in all her years of life, until that moment. She noticed that, even after so many years of their kid being gone, the woman still had glassy eyes, like if she was struggling not to cry.
There was a heavy silence now, one that made Marcie uneasy, so she swallowed the lump in her throat and spoke. "I'm really sorry 'bout your kid…but, um, what's this gotta do with me again?"
That seemed to snap Crazy Lady out of her thoughts. Her head whipped to the teen, blue eyes boring into her. "Marcie, would you do something for me?"
"I, um, I'm n-not so good at—" there was panic in every word the girl uttered, her own eyes flickering to the door, in case a quick escape needed to be made.
"Would you show me—us, would you show us your handprints?" Ariel leaned forward closer to the teenager, face serious as her eyes dropped to the girl's fidgeting hands.
"Why do you need to see my handprint?" Anxiety crept into her words, and but she still lifted up her hands to the woman. "See? Nothing there. I swear, I didn't take my bracelet charm from your kid!"
"It's not because you've taken anything," Eric said, his voice having lost its earlier edge now. He understood what had been Ariel's plan all along. "It's because your handprints may match up to the ones in this book."
"…now I'm really confused." Marcie frowned, biting her bottom lip as she dropped her extremities to her lap. "You guys want me to show you my hands because you think it might match your lost kid's?"
"More like coat with ink and put on the paper, in order to compare," Ariel explained, feeling the heavy weight of her husband's hand rest comfortably on her shoulder. She didn't have to look at him to know that he too was staring down the girl, pensive.
"That doesn't make sense, why would my hands match your kid's?" She paused, her eyes searching the both of them.
Ariel tried to explain again, being patient and gentle. "No two sets of handprints are alike. If you have the same one as Harmony, then that would mean…"
"You think I'm your kid?" Marcie spluttered, disbelief marking her tone as she finally caught on. She shook her head quickly. "No, ma'am, we've already had this conversation before. You guys aren't my parents."
"Please, just—" Desperation marked Ariel's tone, but she was cut off by the teenager.
"Look, I only wanna go home," the girl responded, warily, wide eyed and leaning away from the couple. "I'm not your kid. I'm just…Marcie."
"Maybe nothing comes of this," Eric said, carefully balancing his response, his voice heavy. "But we've waited fourteen years, and we've never gotten this close. After hoping, against all the odds, that our daughter is still out there, we just need to know."
The girl's eyes dropped to her hands, flexing out her fingers, before shaking her head, insisting, "But I'm not your kid."
"You have parents—loved ones," Eric corrected himself quickly, "If they were in need of help, wouldn't you give it to them? Our daughter has been out there, somewhere, for fourteen years. We just…we need to know, and if not, we can move on."
Marcie's eyes flickered, an unsure feeling settling in her chest. Fourteen years was a long time to have lost someone; it was the span of her short lifetime. It was crazy, she was crazy for even considering that these people could be…
"If I go ahead and do this, will you guys finally get me back home?" The words tumbled out of her lips before she could stop them, and there was a scared, uncertain ring to them.
Ariel took in a deep breath, nodding quickly in agreement, while her husband spoke for both of them. "We promise, if you do this for us, we'll get you back to your home in…Nebraska."
"Do you swear?" Promises were easily made, and easily broken. Marcie only dealt in the foolproof method that had been perfected on the playground.
"We swear it."
Still not convinced, the teen narrowed her eyes slightly, "Cross your heart and hope to die?"
Eric blinked, unfamiliar with the terminology. "What does that mean, exactly?"
"You gotta cross your heart, like this," the teen demonstrated by swishing an "X" in the air over her heart, "and say 'I cross my heart and hope to die', so that in case you break the swear, you die."
"That's morbid," he countered, his face reacting against the wording. "Can't you just take our word and—"
"I cross my heart and hope to die," Ariel breathed, cutting her husband off and following he instructions given to her by the girl. She nudged his knee with her elbow, saying, "Do it, Eric."
Marcie watched him, waiting for those eight words before she did anything. He seemed reluctant, but with a sigh, he made an "X" above his heart as well, mumbling, "I cross my heart and hope to die."
"Okay. Okay." The girl nodded to herself, swallowing down the fear that made her hear her heart in her ears. "What do I gotta do?"
"Eric? Did you get the—"
"It's right here," he answered, as his wife turned slightly around to look at the materials he'd gotten at her request. Silently, he handed them to her, one by one, fingers shaking with dreaded anticipation.
"How am I s'posed to do this?" Marcie repeated, warily watching as the woman set out two sheets of the paper and small, dark, container. A black liquid swirled in it.
Who has regular ink just lying around, Marcie wondered.
Perplexed by the small inkwell and the large sheets, the girl was consumed by these thoughts, out of focus, even though her eyes followed the woman's actions. The ink poured out onto one of the papers, not all of it, but enough that the dark liquid consumed the blank page in a huge puddle quickly.
"Put the ink on your hands—not too much, so that the lines are still visible—and then put your hands on this paper," Ariel said, her voice soft now, a tinge of worry flaring inside her as she motioned to the second empty sheet. Her fingers nervously twitched; she clenched her hands together in her lap to hide it.
"That's easy," Marcie responded, scooting just a bit closer so that she could reach the paper. She raised her jacket's sleeves to her forearms, pushed her glasses back up her nose, and forced all the thoughts swirling in her mind away.
She took a deep breath, and slapped her hands into the ink.
A shiver went through her. Feeling the heat of two stares, she looked up, forcing a weak grin. "'S colder than I thought it'd be."
If her joke was heard, it was apparently ignored. Crazy Lady Ariel and Eric, were just staring at her intensely, as though waiting for something important to occur. Sighing, as a way to mask the nerves that threatened to overtake her, she lifted her hands, letting the darkness drip from her hands for a minute, before gently placing her hands on the other paper.
She laid them there for another minute, unsure of what to do now. Finally, she gave up and lifted her darkened hands away, careful not to let them drip onto her clothes. The stillness of the room was her only greeting.
"Can I get somethin' to wipe off my hands with?" She asked, her palms facing upwards and starting to feel the liquid dry in between her fingers.
Her words seemed to startle both adults back into reality. Mutely, Ariel handed the girl an empty sheet of paper, the only thing around that could help. Marcie took it, using it to wipe off the excess ink with a grimace.
"Hand me…hand me the paper, please?" Her voice was shaking, as were her hands now, and Ariel was not capable of calming herself.
She had assumed this was her child, the bracelet charm having confirmed that, but now she doubted everything from the last hour. What if she was looking too far into it? What if she was grasping on straws, making mountains out of mole-hills? She looked over at Eric; his expression mirrored hers.
With a practiced, careless shrug, Marcie handed the paper over, letting Crazy Lady Ariel take it from her. She took in deep breaths, telling herself that this was all for nothing, that she was just doing this for these people. Why was she so nervous?
"Um, how're you gonna look at them? The baby one's, I mean. They're like, really small."
Ariel's eyes flashed upwards at the girl's voice, her features unintentionally tense. Suddenly a sheepish smile broke her features. From underneath the first baby book, she slid out a magnifying glass, careful that it not bump against her bandaged hand.
She'd planned this all along, Marcie realized, sourly coming to the conclusion that Crazy Lady Ariel was just as clever as her kid, and just as easily underestimated.
"What do we look for?" Eric asked, his voice and features jittery.
Ariel had placed the book side by side to the paper with the girl's handprints, pushing away the other paper filled with ink for more room, so that there was an easier time seeing the comparison. She spoke with an apprehensive tone. "I-I think, that is, I believe, w-we…"
"My hand's got like, a giant C, and then it looks like lightning, with those three lines shooting out from it," Marcie started, leaning over the paper with a studious sense and taking charge because these people obviously weren't. "And then, look at my pointer finger on this hand, it's got like a sideways L in the middle, and none of my other fingers got that."
Ariel, with Eric peering over her shoulder, looked closely at the two handprints of the girl, nodding in agreement when she found that those things were true. "You're right. I suppose now we check our daughter's, to see if…"
"Yeah. Let's do that." Marcie responded, sounding brave, but inwardly terror filled at the idea.
Ariel lifted the magnifying glass, pulling it over the baby handprints. She wanted to say something, anything, but found her voice lost to a mix of dread and excitement. Everybody held their breath and squinted to get a better view of what she was doing.
She started with the left hand first, it's ink stain growing huge when magnified. She first looked for what the girl had described, the large C on the palm, with three lines twisting out from it, like lightning. It took less than a second to find it, as it was the main feature of the hand. She only had to glance over at the other set of prints to confirm.
Ariel's confidence grew at having confirmed one, but her stomach now twised in painful knots.
This was it, this was the make or break now. Her hand shaking visibly, she moved the magnifying glass to the right hand. The two other people followed her actions with their eyes, unsure of what she'd discovered, but troubled none the less.
"You said the pointer finger, right?" Ariel's hushed voice asked, making sure she was not mistaken. Eric and Marice flinched; not trusting her voice, the girl nodded carefully.
Breathing deeply, Ariel focused now on the pointer finger, searching for the odd "L" the girl had said was there. This was trickier, as there were more lines on the small finger, and the ink stain was darker than the rest. She bit her lip hard, gripping the magnifying glass tightly, using sudden tunnel vision to find what she was searching for.
"The sideways L," she gasped suddenly, blinking in the shock of seeing it right before her. "It's the same, both the handprints are the same."
"Let me check," Eric said quickly, knowing full well that his wife could overlook details when she was excited. With a widening smile, she handed him the paper and book, although it only took him a minute to come to a determination and hand them back in awe. "You're right. She's…she's Harmony."
"I told you so, I knew it all along! I saw her in the hall and I just, I knew it!" Ariel was much more eager now, speaking so fast that it was hard to keep up. She had set aside the book and paper, not noticing that Marcie had quickly swooped them up. "I was a little worried at the end, but I had this feeling all along, and I'm so glad you can finally see what I was telling you!"
"I'm sorry I ever doubted you, Eric said in response, still blinking back his surprise. Seeing a bracelet charm and thinking that there was a chance was one thing, but undeniable proof? "It's just so unimaginable."
"Fourteen years, I can't believe that it's all coming to an end." Ariel laughed, relieved and rolling her shoulders as though a huge weight had been lifted from her. "Finally, finally, we have our family again. That reminds me, I should schedule the court painter to get a nice family portrait of all of us, you know, before the holidays."
"We also have to announce it to the kingdom," Eric mused, shock having set once again in and making everything seem as though it was a daily occurrence. "And tell your family, we should do that first."
"You're right, my sisters would kill me if I forgot to tell them," Ariel made a face at the thought. "I wonder when I can go visit, to tell them. Oh, and tell Daddy, he'll be so happy!"
"It's going to have to get it looked at officially though, just to quell any ideas that it may not be real. We should set it aside, to make sure neither of them get damaged." Eric said, thinking out loud now. "I handed it to you, right?"
"I have it right…" Ariel frowned, looking around her immediate area and not finding either piece of evidence. "Where did it go?"
"Where did you last put it?" Eric wondered, looking over her shoulder but also not finding anything.
"If I knew that, I wouldn't be looking for it," Ariel replied, picking up Melody's baby book, before setting it down as there was nothing underneath. "I know its here somewhere, it's not like it just walked away."
"Okay, let's try thinking about this. I handed them to you, and then you…?"
"Then I put them aside," She responded automatically, memory starting to clear now. "I put them right over…"
Her vision trailed to the spot where she'd placed the items. The girl had her head bent so low over the magnifying glass that she was nearly touching her forehead to it. Both adults exchanged a brooding glance.
In their relief, they'd forgotten that all this was about the girl. At the end of the day, everything revolved around her. In the midst of their conversation, it seemed the girl had taken it upon herself to see if there was any proof. While the real relief, happiness, and so much more had not set in yet (at least, not in it's entirety for Eric; Ariel had already experienced much of it through her hysterics), none of it truly mattered if the teen was not well.
"Uh…are you…alright?" It was Eric who asked the question, and Ariel reached out to the girl, placing a hand on her arm.
The girl jerked slightly at the touch, pulling back. She was unfocused. The past minute had been spent searching for every indent in her fingers and lines in her palm, only to find them in the other set as well. She slowly looked up, saying nothing, and made no other movement than to push her glasses up her nose again. Her hands drew into tight fists on either side of her, and her shoulders were hunched.
When her eyes were finally up, though, both adults were met with a horrified stare, and two quiet words.
"Oh, no."
Disclaimer: Ariel, Eric, Melody and the setting for this story are from The Little Mermaid, which is property of Disney. I own nothing; everything represented from the film(s), tv series, etc. is/are the property of Disney. Other characters are from my own imagination and are not associated with Disney.