Hey! Hope you all had a great week! It's the first day of spring break for me! Be prepared for another chapter by Friday, but I will soon be going to Ottawa to attend a youth politics program, and might meet Prime Minister Trudeau! I'm so excited! Anyway, here is chapter 21! Enjoy!
Laurien frowned when she heard the loud creak of the floorboard beneath her feet as she delved deeper into the basement, hoping that the ancient wood wouldn't snap and send her plummeting into the unknown territory beneath the house. She thought better of taking any more steps forward and summoned the remaining boxes that were tucked away in the corner, dragging them along the ridged rollercoaster of the warped floor. She then sent them gently up the stairs before they were set down gingerly in the middle of the overly-spacious living room.
Laurien settled herself down on her makeshift throne of mismatched cushions that she'd piled up on the ground, and tightly wrapped herself with a blanket before attempting to open up the first of the boxes. The floor was especially cold that day, verging on the sensation of traipsing barefoot over thin ice in Antarctica. Laurien didn't really mind, as she had found her old cozy sheepskin slippers, though seeing her own breath in the air before her was a little disconcerting, considering that she was inside. Despite this, she still refused to light the fireplace.
"You're going to freeze to death." Adela had chastised when she had come over to check in on her the day before. While continuing to give Laurien a stern talking to, Adela also didn't reach for the pack of matches where they laid, untouched, on the top of the mantelpiece.
It had been a week since Laurien had arrived in Ypres, and she was still getting used to being back in the house. Eventually things started coming back to her, such as always smacking the wall before turning on the light to the kitchen, or skipping the fifth step on the staircase. The latter of which she had begrudgingly remembered after earning multiple colorful bruises on her forearms where she had caught herself after tripping over the faultily measured step. In the past, it had always been a challenge bringing new people over to the house, as it was so automatic for Laurien and the others to jump the step, that they always forgot to mention it to their guests, resulting in many trip ups and near catastrophes.
The house had earned the nickname 'The Death Trap' by Roosje and Bastijn during their first year of calling it their home. The building itself wasn't even all that old, considering almost the entire town of Ypres had been destroyed in the First World War, making it all relatively new. Instead the nickname derived from the poor construction and all the accidents that had arisen from the eccentricities of the house, prompting Laurien to want to personally hunt down the builders and give them a talking to.
The miscalculations of the kitchen and living room ratio were just barely forgivable, but when she counted the fifth step, the faulty electricity, the slanted floor of the bathroom and the dead raccoon that had made their chimney its tomb in '57, to name a few, she was absolutely furious. Though she supposed that the raccoon had nothing to do with the builders, she blamed them for it anyway in her head. The whole thing had soon developed into a sort of running joke with the twins, as whenever something went wrong. Even if it was just a broken pencil, they would curse, "Damn builders!" at the top of their lungs, much to the dismay of their aunt, who would sometimes have guests over when a loud cry would erupt from one of their bedrooms.
Though throughout all of their problems with the house, whenever Laurien would ask her aunt Mathilde why she had bought it, she would simply state that it was unique and cheap, and Laurien couldn't deny the fact that the house was just that. 'The Death Trap' had always been a rather affectionate name for their home, but over the past few years, Laurien couldn't help but grimace, as the name had taken on a whole new meaning for her.
She still hadn't gotten up the courage to see Bastijn and Roosje. She kept putting it off to the next day, and then when tomorrow finally came, she delayed it again. It wasn't like they were expecting her though, they didn't know that she was there, and she honestly didn't really think they would care, considering the circumstances, but Laurien couldn't put off the nagging feeling that tugged at her every morning when she awoke on the living room couch.
She also hadn't even attempted to step foot down the hallway leading to the bedrooms. She avoided it at every turn, averting her eyes until she eventually put up a makeshift wall of tape to cover the doorway of the hallway so that she wouldn't have to look at it and be reminded. Though as a result of her avoiding the hallway, she hadn't been able to enter her own bedroom to sleep, which left her on the couch for most nights.
It was comfortable enough, though she severely doubted that the dark blue love seat was meant to be slept on. Laurien had found some moth eaten blankets and cushions in one of the closets and made a pleasant nest out of it, which worked wonderfully until the temperature suddenly dropped far below zero as they moved steadily deeper into December. This prompted her to build herself a makeshift cocoon out of the many layers of blankets that almost enveloped her whole, leading to the unfortunate fright that Laurien had accidentally given Adela when she'd tried to sit on her just that morning.
"Oh, good Lord." She exclaimed, clutching at her heart as she stared down at where Laurien's head had popped out from her cocoon. "I thought that you were just a pile of blankets."
"Nope." Laurien said once she'd lifted her toque up from over her eyes. "Just a caterpillar waiting to become a beautiful butterfly."
"Oh well, probably going to need to wait a lot longer, Madame Caterpillar." Adela giggled as she tossed a blanket over Laurien's head.
Laurien pulled the blanket off of her with a smile on her tired face, but it disappeared when she noticed Adela looking at the wall of tape. "What's that all about?"
"It's nothing to worry about." Laurien stated, trying to detach herself from the cocoon with great difficulty as her stomach growled, giving her reason to change the subject. "Have you eaten?"
"Yeah, thanks." Adela said; her brown eyes glued to the wall as she followed Laurien into the cramped kitchen. "Franz brought home a small tub of Sirop de Liège from the store yesterday, there's a sale on at the market if you want any."
"I think I have some in the cupboard, but I can't be sure how old it is." Laurien responded as she searched for the small container, until she finally found it and attempted to grab it, but ripped her hand away from it the moment her skin made contact with a sudden stickiness. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's gone bad." She said, grimacing as she tried to hurriedly rinse the substance off her hand.
"Laur?" Adela's voice asked softly, though she heard the subtle strains of something painful behind her gentle tone.
"Yeah?" She said as lightly and innocently as she could, though ultimately knowing that after all these years, Adela could see right through her.
"What's with the royal blockade of tape?"
Laurien heart sank before taking a deep breath that agitated her side a little, seeing as her ribs were still in their last stages of healing. "I already told you that it's nothing."
"That doesn't look like nothing." Adela challenged, placing a firm hand on her arm, as if she were afraid that she would run away which seemed quite impossible, seeing as in the cramped kitchen, Adela blocked her only possible exit with her enormous belly. "Looks like you're trying to hide from something."
Laurien closed her eyes tight, shaking her head as she pushed down the mix of ice and fire that surged through her veins, before turning around to face her friend. "I'm just not ready." She whispered, her words almost incoherent as she tried to force a small smile of reassurance.
"I know, honey, I'm sorry." Adela said, gently rubbing Laurien's arm. "I shouldn't have brought it up, today of all days."
Laurien frowned in confusion. "What's today?"
Adela practically snorted loudly, seemingly forgetting about the serious subject of their previous conversation. "It's your birthday, Laur."
Laurien glanced over at the calendar by the telephone in habit, only to remember that it still said that it was 1959 and looked away. "Oh, right. I guess it is the tenth."
"Yup, and I've already got Franz baking something special over at the house. We tried to send you a card last year, but we didn't know where you were."
"Oh, no, that's fine. You didn't have to." Laurien said, racking her brain for where she was last year, and a slight twinge in her shoulder brought the memory rushing back. "I think I was in Berlin."
Not even a beat passed before Adela was on her. "What the hell were you doing in Berlin?" She asked sharply, her big brown eyes growing wider than usual, causing Laurien to wince as she realized the consequences of what she'd confessed. "Do you know how dangerous it is to be around there? I've read the stories in the newspaper, and I–"
"Adela, I was completely safe." She interrupted, thinking it best to stop her before she went on an unstoppable spiel.
"Really? Then what's this from?" Adela asked; reaching up and poking the white scar that Azazel had given Laurien on her cheek.
"That was from something else– a minor car crash, that you shouldn't worry about." Laurien said as she batted Adela's hand away and returned to make her breakfast. "Besides, I had a friend looking out for me the whole time in Berlin."
"What friend?" The brunette demanded, crossing her arms over her big stomach. "I thought that I was your only friend."
"Okay, that's a bit narcissistic." She said slowly, seeing if she could try to diffuse the situation by adding some playful humor, but Adela wasn't having any of it. "And I've had plenty of friends over the years. You remember Meryl and Bram from Alkmaar and then there–"
"Never mind," Adela waved her diversion off. "Who was this friend that was possessed by such idiocy to allow you to go to Berlin just after the wall was built?"
"Adela–"
"No, tell me. I feel responsible for your ass, therefore you must tell me this motherfucker's name so that when I meet them, I can kick their ass."
"You're not going to meet him, especially after saying that." Laurien stated, her voice rising higher in alarm as she raised a finger to warn her friend. "He's already been through enough without you breaking his nose like you did with Thom."
Adela laughed bitterly. "Oh, don't tell me that idiot didn't have it coming."
Laurien opened her mouth, but quickly closed it when she realized that she was absolutely right about Thom, and then felt her lips curl into a wry smile. "Well, at least we know that you're going to be a great mom."
"I'm counting on it." She said, raising an eyebrow as she grabbed a jar of pickled herring from the icebox and a fork before twisting off the lid. "So come on, tell me."
Laurien sighed, knowing from experience that Adela wasn't one for letting things go. "Bellamy Awnan."
"That's a weird name." Adela commented, scrunching up her nose like a chipmunk. "What is that? French? Scottish?"
"Yes, and no, he told me that his heritage was French and Irish, but he was born in Canada."
Adela face fell comically into a frown as she accidentally let a piece of herring slip off the fork. "Aw, I can't beat up a Canadian."
"Why not?"
"They were so damn nice when I met some of them at the liberation of Alkmaar." She said, sighing loudly before smacking the counter with her hand. "Damn it!"
She was about to stick the fork into the jar of pickled herring when Laurien swiped it out of her grasp. Adela glanced up and opened her mouth to protest, but Laurien only waved a finger in front of her. "No raw fish, remember? Besides, I don't know how long this has been in here."
Adela gave her a dirty look and muttered something unintelligible under her breath, before leaving the kitchen to look at the old knick-knacks that Laurien had already sorted through as Laurien ate her breakfast on her cocoon. Adela left after Franz had called to ask her if she had been especially attached to a small china figure that she'd kept above the stove, which Adela said was 'Franz speak' for that he'd broken it and didn't want to be yelled at.
"I'll see you in an hour or two, that is if the house hasn't burned down by then." She'd called from the front door before leaving Laurien to continue her purge as she retrieved the final boxes from the basement.
When she'd settled down with a blanket across her shoulders, she rifled through what seemed to be a box full of broken rubbish until she came upon what looked to be a wooden circle. Laurien smiled as she realized that it was a half of Bastijn's old yo-yo that he'd broken when he was playing with his friends down by the De Boer farm. He'd told her that they'd been playing a scene from The Martian Chronicles and that they were fighting off Martians with their yo-yos, and his had accidentally hit the big apple tree and broken in half.
Laurien pressed her lips together thoughtfully as she rolled the broken pieces around in her hands, savoring the feel its feel before reluctantly putting it in the trash bag. She knew that Bastijn would've scrunched up his nose, just as Adela had, if he knew that she'd felt so sentimental over a snapped piece of cylindrical wood, but to her, it was a reminder of a cherished memory.
At the bottom of the box, she was surprised to find a photo book underneath all of the old junk. She pulled the thick book out and set it on her lap before opening its thick cover, revealing a large photo of her Oma and an older man with horn-rimmed glasses, who she assumed to be her Opa. They stood in front of their house in Arnhem, that Laurien's family would travel over an hour and a half to get to before her Oma decided to live with them in Alkmaar after the war. She remembered overhearing her Oma talking to Laurien's mother and saying that she couldn't bear being alone in that house without her husband. Laurien now understood what she meant as she looked around at the cold empty house that surrounded her.
She turned the page to see a picture of her mother as a child of around seven, accompanied by another girl who would almost look identical to her if it hadn't been for her smaller size, and different colored eyes. Laurien frowned, as she hadn't any clue as to who this girl was. Her mother had never mentioned having any siblings or cousins, but from the way that her mother had her arms wrapped tightly around the girl, they must have been close. She noticed that at the bottom of the photo it was written in small loopy handwriting that it had been taken in 1923 and whoever it was in the photo, if she were even still alive, would be in her mid-to-late forties by now.
She turned the page again and saw her parents' wedding photo, though she almost didn't recognize them. As Laurien had grown up, she'd never noticed how haunted their faces had looked in real life, but compared to how they looked in the picture, she suddenly noticed the major difference. In the photo, her rosy cheeked mother was wearing a gorgeous long-sleeved dress whose silk skirt fell just above her ankles, accompanied by a thin veil that just peaked into view from behind her. Laurien's neurotic-looking father stood next to her, wearing a neat black suit with a spiffy looking top hat to hide his mane of unkempt hair.
Laurien suppressed a small giggle at the word 'spiffy' before noticing how happy they'd looked. They surely could not have foreseen the troubles that were to come with the war, as many of the people in the wedding photos were now long dead and buried. Laurien couldn't remember who was gone and who was still around after all these years.
She spotted Aunt Mathilde next to her brother, Laurien's father, and saw the grand smile that she had so seldom seen when she'd lived with her. On her other side was her husband, who Laurien had never met, though his smile was so bright and cheerful that she wished she'd known him. Everyone in the photo smiled in such a way that suggested someone had told a joke before the flash of the camera had gone off. From the way that all of their eyes looked so alive, Laurien sorely wished to know what the joke was.
She flipped through the next few pages, seeing the day that her parents had moved into their old house in Alkmaar, which was coincidentally also the time her dad's friend had gotten so drunk that he'd thought it would be a good idea to jump from the roof and into a pile of snow. Unfortunately it had not been as soft as he'd expected and he ended up with a broken arm during the Christmas of '39. Laurien continued flipping through the scrapbook until something suddenly made her stop abruptly. She went back to a picture of her mother, who, by the size of her stomach, was pregnant with Laurien at the time. Laurien's eyes moved to who was next to her and widened in shock.
Laurien held a hand to her mouth to quell the gasp that had been building in her throat as she recognized the woman as the one that she'd seen in Charles' study in her dream. Despite a few changes in hairstyle and clothing, there was no doubt about it. She had the same perfect teeth of her sad smile, the same shade of hair and most damning of all, the same difference in pigmentation of her eyes, one light and the other dark. She hurriedly flipped back to the photo of her mother when she was a girl, and kicked herself for not noticing earlier that the younger girl was a shoe-in for the mysterious woman.
Laurien went back to the photo of her pregnant mother and the woman and tried to carefully slide it out from its clear slip, but her shaking hands made it difficult to grasp it without tearing her piece of evidence. She finally managed to get it out and flipped it around to the back, heart hammering hard against her chest as her eyes fixated on the names written on the lower right corner.
Griet and Sera, Alkmaar, September 1940
She jumped to her feet and dashed to the kitchen, photo in hand. She'd put off asking Charles who the woman was for too long, but now was her chance. She quickly dialed the phone number that Charles had given her into the light blue rotary phone and waited for someone to pick up, her patience wasting away with each passing second as it rang over and over again. Finally, someone picked up.
"Hello?" A familiar voice answered slowly.
"Sean? Oh, thank God, can you please get Charles?"
There was a long pause before Sean answered again. "Wait, what?"
Laurien almost threw the phone out the window as her agitation reached new heights, but she took a deep breath and repeated what she'd said. "Can you please get Charles?"
"Who is this?"
"Sean!" Laurien exclaimed, throwing up her free hand in exasperation.
"No way, that's my name too!"
Laurien resisted smacking her forehead with her hand, willing for herself not to explode. "Sean, it's Laurien, could you please get Charles? I need to talk to him urgently."
"Oh, yeah. I'll get him." Sean's voice finally said.
"Thank you so much, I owe you one."
She waited for only a few moments before her ears mercifully heard the sound of Charles' lilting voice on the other side of the line. "Laurien?"
"Charles! I've got something really important to ask you." She blurted out quickly, her words almost getting caught around one another.
"What happened? You were supposed to call us the moment you got to Belgium to tell us that you made it all right. We've been worried sick!"
The strictness of Charles' tone made her face burn in shame as she mentally cursed herself for forgetting. "I'm so sorry, Charles. I just got so caught up in everything here that it slipped my mind."
"Oh, it's all right, I'm just glad that you're safe." He said reassuringly. "Now, what was it that you wanted to ask me?"
Adrenaline shot through her entire body as she remembered that reason why she had called. She opened her mouth to tell him all about the woman, when she was interrupted by a sudden loud thud from the living room. Laurien frowned, wondering if she'd just imagined it, but when she heard a small grunt, she froze with the telephone against her cheek, just barely breathing as she quickly noticed the faint scent of smoke drifting gently into the kitchen.
She heard Charles calling her name from the receiver, but she didn't say a word as she gently placed it down on the counter and slowly crept toward the doorway of the kitchen, summoning one of the larger knives from the cutlery drawer into her hand. Laurien held her breath as she pressed her back against the cupboard and tightened her grip on the sleek handle of the knife. She gritted her teeth, a jolt of ice spreading through her veins as she carefully peeked her head around the corner.
Laurien's stomach plummeted as her scared blue eyes met the source of the noise and the smoke, immediately wondering if she should sprint for the door or fight the intruders, but either way, there was one thing that she knew that she must do beforehand. She crept back over to the telephone and lifted it to her ear again, her breath rattling nervously against the receiver.
"You didn't tell Erik where I was, did you?"
Gah, cliffhanger! Sorry about still being kind of vague, but I promise you that it will all be revealed soon. By the way, I meant for Sean to be a little stoned when he picked up the phone, I can't remember where I read that he was kind of into drugs. In other news, I got to see Macbeth. Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard are just amazing in it. In response to a question from the awesome jazu10501, I see Laurien as being played by Carey Mulligan, most of all when she was in Doctor Who, in the episode Blink. That may be my favorite episode of Doctor Who. I remember hearing from another lovely reader that they saw her as Antonia Thomas from Misfits and many other BBC shows, and I'd agree with her being Laurien as well. Thank you all, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please review.