06-10-2013, 10:11 PM
The thing was, none of those days were easy on any of them. Jim showed Leah how to meditate. Serafine sang for her. Shoshannah talked to her about strength of spirit and survival, and about ordinary teenage things that didn't really matter in the grand scope but that somehow managed to bring out a more human side of Leah than the others usually saw. And all of these things - they helped. They worked like a tether on her mind, holding her to the here-and-now. And over those weeks, they got to know flashes of the girl she might have been, had her life and her luck been different. They found out that she loved to read; that she'd had a dog growing up, a lab-mix named Lucy that had died last year. They found out that she had two older brothers named Mason and Brent who she liked even though they gave her a lot of shit, and that she had a bad relationship with her father and step-mother - though the exact details were never really made clear. She didn't talk about her biological mother at all.
But those were the good moments. The lucid moments. The moments when she wasn't drowning in guilt or bristling with anger, or, worst of all, gazing at the world in a kind of bleak, frozen silence. She tried to meditate, the way that Jim showed her. Some days it almost seemed like she was getting it, but other days she would twitch compulsively or tear up plants with her hands or snarl in frustration. And sometimes she lost her temper. And sometimes things died. And it was never easy, with her. Nothing was ever easy.
But the day Jim showed her the dead tree - and the life that bloomed underneath it - something unexpected happened. She asked to be alone, and then she sat down in the leaves and closed her eyes and didn't move for an hour. And when she came back, she was calmer and grounded in a way they'd never seen before. And nothing else died that day. Or the day after.
It didn't last, of course. But it was something. And when a person is grasping for any sign of hope, moments like that could seem like miracles.
Once or twice, Annie came around to check on them. The tension between Leah and the Verbena Disciple was palpable, but less immediate than it had been when they'd met for the first time in the hotel room. Sometimes when Annie looked at Leah, you could see a twist of grief and regret cross the older woman's face, but mostly she let the girl be.
It was nearing the end of their stay (the afternoon before Pan had come to find her at the chantry) when Annie sat down next to Leah at the edge of the river that flowed past the cabin. No one ever found out what they talked about - if they talked at all - but something changed between the two of them after that. Leah stopped being afraid of her, and it seemed as though the Verbena had come to some sort of tentative peace with the circumstances they'd all found themselves in.
---------------------------
Then things started to happen.
First the incident with Pan and Brogan, then the calls from Justin. And it became all too clear that however this was going to end - it was going to end soon.
Sid offered Justin a place to stay - told him that he shouldn't be alone. And she was right, but he refused anyway, his voice distant and detached. It probably didn't do much to ease her worry.
The next day, he pulled up to the cabin in his black Subaru and exited the car with a grimly determined cast etched into his features. He greeted everyone politely enough, but it was clear from his body language and the hard edge of his voice that he knew full well the danger they were about to walk into.
When Annie arrived, the two of them regarded each other silently for a long moment, like a couple of lone wolves sizing each other up. Whatever they saw in each other, they must have decided that it was acceptable, because Annie smirked and gave him a little nod of approval, and Justin almost smiled. Then he saw Leah's face in the cabin window and went rigid with tension.
There was a moment there - five seconds, maybe ten - when it seemed that Justin might prove a genuine risk to the girl. His nostrils flared with a sharp intake of breath, and his right hand hovered over the handle of the knife that hung from his belt. But he caught himself, and he stopped - and then he released the air in his lungs with a long, slow exhale. Perhaps they expected him to say something - to ask what the hell they were all thinking, maybe. But he didn't. He just looked at Leah, and she looked back at him, and some unspoken communication passed between them. And after that, things were ok.
---------------------------
As the evening stretched into the cover of night, the atmosphere around the cabin grew cold with anticipation. They'd spoken about what was to come. What they were about to do. And they were all well aware of the danger they were in.
The truth was, they might all die that night.
About an hour before they were set to leave, Justin and Annie disappeared into the woods together. They were gone for a long time, and when they returned, their bodies hummed with live resonance - wild and unbreakable, vital and enduring. And their skin was painted with runes made of blood and woad. Justin pulled a black shirt made of woven kevlar from his car and slid it over his head. Then he attached a gun harness to his torso. Finally he pulled a sheathed katana from the trunk and strapped it to his back.
There was something off about the sword. Something wrong about it. Whispers of the dark and twisted creature that had once wielded it: feral, sadistic and hunting - like some shadowy and inescapable predator. But there was a knowing purpose to the way the younger Verbena donned the blade - as though his holding it had some meaning. Poetic justice, maybe. (Or closure.)
"Let's go."
But those were the good moments. The lucid moments. The moments when she wasn't drowning in guilt or bristling with anger, or, worst of all, gazing at the world in a kind of bleak, frozen silence. She tried to meditate, the way that Jim showed her. Some days it almost seemed like she was getting it, but other days she would twitch compulsively or tear up plants with her hands or snarl in frustration. And sometimes she lost her temper. And sometimes things died. And it was never easy, with her. Nothing was ever easy.
But the day Jim showed her the dead tree - and the life that bloomed underneath it - something unexpected happened. She asked to be alone, and then she sat down in the leaves and closed her eyes and didn't move for an hour. And when she came back, she was calmer and grounded in a way they'd never seen before. And nothing else died that day. Or the day after.
It didn't last, of course. But it was something. And when a person is grasping for any sign of hope, moments like that could seem like miracles.
Once or twice, Annie came around to check on them. The tension between Leah and the Verbena Disciple was palpable, but less immediate than it had been when they'd met for the first time in the hotel room. Sometimes when Annie looked at Leah, you could see a twist of grief and regret cross the older woman's face, but mostly she let the girl be.
It was nearing the end of their stay (the afternoon before Pan had come to find her at the chantry) when Annie sat down next to Leah at the edge of the river that flowed past the cabin. No one ever found out what they talked about - if they talked at all - but something changed between the two of them after that. Leah stopped being afraid of her, and it seemed as though the Verbena had come to some sort of tentative peace with the circumstances they'd all found themselves in.
---------------------------
Then things started to happen.
First the incident with Pan and Brogan, then the calls from Justin. And it became all too clear that however this was going to end - it was going to end soon.
Sid offered Justin a place to stay - told him that he shouldn't be alone. And she was right, but he refused anyway, his voice distant and detached. It probably didn't do much to ease her worry.
The next day, he pulled up to the cabin in his black Subaru and exited the car with a grimly determined cast etched into his features. He greeted everyone politely enough, but it was clear from his body language and the hard edge of his voice that he knew full well the danger they were about to walk into.
When Annie arrived, the two of them regarded each other silently for a long moment, like a couple of lone wolves sizing each other up. Whatever they saw in each other, they must have decided that it was acceptable, because Annie smirked and gave him a little nod of approval, and Justin almost smiled. Then he saw Leah's face in the cabin window and went rigid with tension.
There was a moment there - five seconds, maybe ten - when it seemed that Justin might prove a genuine risk to the girl. His nostrils flared with a sharp intake of breath, and his right hand hovered over the handle of the knife that hung from his belt. But he caught himself, and he stopped - and then he released the air in his lungs with a long, slow exhale. Perhaps they expected him to say something - to ask what the hell they were all thinking, maybe. But he didn't. He just looked at Leah, and she looked back at him, and some unspoken communication passed between them. And after that, things were ok.
---------------------------
As the evening stretched into the cover of night, the atmosphere around the cabin grew cold with anticipation. They'd spoken about what was to come. What they were about to do. And they were all well aware of the danger they were in.
The truth was, they might all die that night.
About an hour before they were set to leave, Justin and Annie disappeared into the woods together. They were gone for a long time, and when they returned, their bodies hummed with live resonance - wild and unbreakable, vital and enduring. And their skin was painted with runes made of blood and woad. Justin pulled a black shirt made of woven kevlar from his car and slid it over his head. Then he attached a gun harness to his torso. Finally he pulled a sheathed katana from the trunk and strapped it to his back.
There was something off about the sword. Something wrong about it. Whispers of the dark and twisted creature that had once wielded it: feral, sadistic and hunting - like some shadowy and inescapable predator. But there was a knowing purpose to the way the younger Verbena donned the blade - as though his holding it had some meaning. Poetic justice, maybe. (Or closure.)
"Let's go."