Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Janet is ten, her mother leaves. Packs a hard shell suitcase with her few dresses, bottles of perfume and pairs of shoes, and a hairbrush. And then she walks out, with a last mascara- and tear-stained glance back through the doorway.

The birthday cake is late, and scorched, hardened into carbon at the edges—her father can't cook. But he tries his best. Janet understands, and she loves him for the effort, even if the result is less-than-edible. They go out to a diner, instead, and leave the windows open to air the house of the lingering smell of smoke. She makes a wish over a candle placed precariously into the whipped cream of her strawberry milkshake, stuck right next to the cherry.
And Janet knows better. She does. But... eleven-years-old is a lonely place to linger for a girl. Even a smart one. Even one that knows better.
She looks up through the diner window and into the dark night sky and wishes.
And someone... something, hears. Someone, something, answers.

Later that same year, Janet's father finds a new wife. Someone, he promises the girl, who won't leave her. Someone who will love her more than her mother ever did, he promises himself. Love them both more.

At this point, Janet is eleven, and she knows better. She guards her heart. And if the child seems cold to the new wife when first they meet, she dismisses it. Nerves, or shyness. Perhaps they need time to get acquainted. To get comfortable.
Her father's wife. That's how Janet refers to her, in the solitude of her own thoughts. Never her mother. Her mother is gone, gone like she never even existed in the first place. Vanished, with no pictures to mark her previous place. No knick-knacks or stray belongings left behind to mark the passage. Seamless, almost. Cambric. Empty.
His new wife is lovely; warm. Sturdy and steady and real where the memory of her mother grows thin and threadbare in places, even after only a year. Her smile is worn in her eyes mostly, the corners crinkling up in a promise of future crows-feet. Her perfume smells of wisteria and rose. Janet knows this, because when she hugs her father after their trip to the courthouse, she can smell it on his collar. The scent is one she recognizes—it's been there before.

There is before, as it lingers in Janet's memory like the cobwebbed corners of some abandoned house... and there is after.

After is far more solitary.

The season is high summer, with butterflies flitting from bush to bush in the back garden by day and crickets singing in the grass at night.
Devoid for now of school or other obligation, Janet is free to wake and sleep when she will. Unbound to any strict schedule, she's allowed to do what she wishes. Allowed to let more than just her mind and memory wander.
To the park it is, then. She pushes out of bed. The skirt she puts on is calf-length and kelly-green, paired with a white, peter-pan collared blouse and saddle shoes. Her favourite. One of a treasured few pieces that her mother had made herself, for the daughter that she would never see grow to wear them. Her golden hair, another gift from her mother, she wears in a loose braid.
Her stepmother glances up as Janet flounces down the stairs, already dressed. “Can I go for a drive down to the park?” She raises an eyebrow at that.
“You'll have to ask your father, Janet,” she chides. “You know that.”
“Daddy, can I take the car out for a drive? It's a beautiful day.” He fishes the keys from his pocket and holds them out, not looking up from his daily newspaper.
The top is down, and her hair streams out behind her in the breeze, released from its careful style. The wind softens as she slows, turning into the gravel drive of the park, a canopy of tangled green above her blotting out the day's mild sunshine.

She leaves the Skylark at the edge of the grass, like always.

Selkirk Park. Its twisting iron archway a lone sentinel holding back the tangle of wilderness it contains. For all her wanderings far and near, she's never met another soul within.
The well-wandered path peters off into wilder forest, growing smaller, the soft grass of the track growing coarse and thick, higher and higher until it brushes mid-skirt, the ends tickling the outstretched tips of her fingers.
She's never found the boundary of it; it just keeps going, an endless wood. Only the entrance, with its shaded paths and curving trails. No landmarks to speak of. It's different every time she visits, different and yet the same.
But for all that, she's never gotten lost. Whatever lives in the park wills her safe on her travels within.

The words run together in a lazy stream. Spill out of her mouth like molasses. Stretch notes from bright, bubbly major into sinuous, meandering minor.
Skipping along river stones and tearing her skirt free of blackberry brambles, she forges a path deeper into the tangled copse of thorn-strangled hardwood trees. Wild rose grows here like grass; like a weed. Flowers, small and blushing, bunch up in twisting strands that climb the trunks of trees and form archways in the free space of the canopies. The smell of them, even light a perfume as it is, very nearly overwhelms the park, even in its clearings. Every hue and pastel shade anoints their petals, blanketing the ground where they fall in clumps of quick-withering splendour.

She reaches towards a single flower, intent on its swirl of peach and cream and ochre-edged petals. A prize.

“You shouldn't pick those, you know.” The words come out of nowhere, and Janet flinches, snagging her hand on the bush's many thorns. She pulls back, freeing herself with a yank and a wince. The rosebush shivers, falling still as she turns to find the source of the words.
“Why not?” Flowers, after all, are meant to be picked. The grinning voice answers, coming from the shadow of a nearby maple.
“Because it's rude—to take without first being offered.”
She looks at them, and in return, she knows that they're looking at her. The skirt, and the leaves and burrs that cling to it. Her face, which most likely has mud on it. And her hand, scratched and bleeding. Her stepmother always says that making positive first impressions are important. Oh, well.
“I'm Janet,” she gasps, fair face already colouring with red. “Sorry. I didn't know.”
The stranger's eyes gleam. They're laughing at her, she knows. “Call me Tam,” they request. “And you do now. Here.” They fish out a bandana from their back pocket and offer it. “You need it more than I do.”

Janet looks at them, really looks, past the dazzle of the sun through the leaves that make her eyes hurt. A dark leather jacket that mostly covers the undershirt beneath and torn jeans, well-worn and cuffed at the bottoms over heavy boots. A bad influence, she thinks, and it's like she can hear the voice of her father's disapproval inside her head. But they can't be all bad, if they're offering to help.

She takes the wrinkled, carefully folded bandana, and their fingers brush hers as she pulls away. Their hand is warm, and rough with strange callouses, and somehow the thought makes her blush once again, the heat in her face coming back in full force.

“Thanks.”

“You're most welcome... Janet.” There it is again, the expression that flickered on their face before, too fast to see. Almost a smirk, playing at the edges of the stranger's full lips. “Your voice is lovely. Will you sing for me again?” She blushes at the faint implication.
Her stomach growls, a faint wail that reminds Janet of what she forgot this morning; breakfast. Her new friend flinches at the sound.
“There's an apple tree in here somewhere, if I can find it.”
“I recall something being said about stealing.”
They offer a sly glance. “Not stealing if I've offered, is it?”
Well... “Okay.” Tam stretches out a hand to her. Janet takes it.

She stays all day and into the burgeoning night, talking of everything and nothing, only realizing that time has passed at all by the lengthening shadows of the underbrush creeping along the ground.
“Would you like to come to my house for dinner?” It's a stretch, Janet knows. But she doesn't want to say goodbye. “My stepmother is making baked spaghetti.”
“Perhaps another time,” they say, abruptly courteous and distant. Maybe they just aren't a fan of casseroles.
They walk her out of the wilds and to the Skylark, and wait as she pulls out of the gravel drive. Janet could almost swear that she could see their eyes shine in the growing dark, illuminated by the Skylark's headlights.

Almost.

Chapter Text

Janet almost manages to avoid returning the next day. The residual flush of excitement, her mysterious companion... all of it seems like a dream. Like a tale from a storybook. And perhaps it was a once-in-a-lifetime meeting, one of chance and fate and circumstance... but it isn't. Tam is there when she returns as if they'd never left, and they find her again with the sun burning high overhead.

“I have a gift for you.” The words curl into her burning ears from behind the curve of a sycamore, startling before she recognizes the voice of the not-quite stranger who steps out from the shade.
“Tam!” The delight shows on her face before she can banish it. Tam's answering smile is sharp, amused.
They hold out a rose, swirled petals of cream and peach a familiar, if rueful, sight. It's the one Janet had coveted the day before, hand stuck unwisely in a thicket, about to be surprised. “It's beautiful.” She brings it to her nose. “Thank you.”
“You're very welcome,” Tam replies, their voice suddenly thick. The words lilt and roll, thickening with what Janet assumes is Tam's embarrassment or bashfulness. But... she can't place the accent, if indeed there is one and she isn't just imagining it.

Janet says her goodbyes after day wanes to early evening, parting from her new friend only with the promise of meeting again soon. She leaves the rose on the edge of her dresser, intending to put it in a bud vase with some water, to only later remember it. Her fingers catch in the space between as the drawer slides closed. Hot pain lances through her hand and she swears, loud enough that her father calls her name up the stairs.
“Janet?” She jerks back, shaking out her abused hand. “Everything alright up there?”
“Fine, Daddy. Sorry.”
“If you say so.” She can almost picture the shrug that accompanies his words. He doesn't sound bothered in the least. “Come down to eat, will you?”

She does. Janet leaves the light in her bedroom on and goes to sit down with her parents for dinner.

Obligation keeps her away from Selkirk Park for some few days, long and sunlit, after that. She aches to go back, squirming and restless, like a fever that won't break. The boring, humid blur of a week melts into one of the last truly hot weekends of the year, before autumn swallows the dregs of dying summer.
It's only when Janet gathers her strewn clothes to be washed that she remembers her friend's gift. Lost, she thinks most likely, if not crushed into shards of dried pistil and petals and shrunken, mummified stem. Ground into dust and slivers of sharp thorns. Hidden beneath a loose sock and several wrinkled shirts, probably, never to be seen again. The loss she feels is inequivalent to the size of her present. Just a flower.

But still.

It's somewhat of a shock when she finds the rose beneath her dresser. For a moment she can do nothing but stare at where it lays, perfectly preserved, not having aged at all. No different from how it looked when Tam first gave it to her. Days ago. Days ago.
It isn't even wilted at the edges.

Janet returns to Selkirk the next day. Her first taste of freedom in a while. The picnic basket she carries with her is a surprise, banging against her denim-clad leg as she walks the longest, flattest path in the park. Just in case she meets with Tam here again.
With all the certainty of dawn after dark and petrichor after rain, she does.

“Who goes there?” Again, the words seem to drift out from between the trees. They hang there in the air, awaiting her explanation.
“It's only me.”
“Well, hello there, Only-Me.”
She scowls at the teasing tone. “Tam.” The word is a warning, its edges blunted by the slow smile creeping onto her face.
“Janet, what a surprise to see you here. Where did your friend go?” Tam slips into the small clearing, barely a space between two thickets of raspberry canes, already laughing at the look she's giving them.
“You're a pain.”
They only laugh at that. “Where shall we go, then?” It's not a question she has a good answer to. Tam's hand, warm through the light fabric of her blouse, tucks itself into the crook of her elbow. “And what,” they gesture to the laden picnic basket that swings between them, “is this?”
“Lunch. Sort of.” She looks at them, feeling shy. “I brought enough for two.”
“Thoughtful.” The tilt of Tam's head, the curl of their smile gives it away. They're teasing her. Again. “How can I ever repay this debt to you, lovely Janet?”
“Pick a spot where we can sit, first of all. And stop making fun of me. Were you raised by wolves?” Janet laughs, trying to tease back.

She doesn't see their smile falter at the words. It slips just a little before coming back, brighter and more forced than usual.

“How am I to amuse myself, then? What shall we do?” They raise an eyebrow at the hand she stuffs into the basket, saying nothing. Janet pulls out the book she's brought, a favourite of hers. Grimms' Children's And Household Tales. Tam's gaze lingers on the illustration gracing the front, eyes sliding over the title and the other words on the cover without recognition. They lead her to a clearing she's seen before, sunlight dappling the ground between the leaves of some ancient, knotted tree.
“Tell me of it,” they encourage. The stories are ones she's read before, ones she knows well enough to embellish a little.
But... “A story for a story.”

They grin. “So be it. Sit with me, if you would, and listen.” Tam lays their head in her lap, and surprising herself, she lets them. Their hair is thick, dark and almost glossy where the ends curl on their shoulders. Warm where it soaks up summer's heat and the rays of the sun. Tam's eyes slip closed as she runs her hands through it, something like pleasure gracing their expression. Janet tries not to stare as she works, and fails, gentle and careful fingers pulling apart the tangles. Picking out an errant leaf or twig here and there.
“I have ridden steeds so fair and fast they have never touched the ground. Have fought ogres, bested nixies in their own rivers, rescued dragons and slain princesses mad with power in their crooked, towering castles.” Janet's protest catches on a breathless laugh, all giddiness and glee.

They share stories until the light drains from the sky in a spray of crimson fire, bleeding out the day into new night. The food packed carefully into the picnic basket dwindles to a few scattered cherry pits and sandwich crusts, a lonely glass bottle of now-warm lemonade rolling around in the emptied space.
“It's getting late.” Tam pushes themself up from where they lay before, head still in Janet's lap, and offers a hand down to her. Janet can see the gleam of their eyes reflecting the street lamp at the edge of the path. “I'll walk you to your car.”

They aren't alone.

The entrance to the park, they see as they reach the iron archway, and Janet's mode of exit, specifically, is blocked. A man, older and with a somewhat less than savoury air, leans bonelessly against the Skylark's hood. Almost lays on top of it. Tam comes to a halt just close enough to nudge the man's dusty boot with the toe of their own. “Time to wake up, friend. You'd best be moving.”
The man stirs. “Wha-” He shakes his head, though it doesn't appear to clear anything up. Rubs his bloodshot eyes with a wince. “Huh?”
“I said,” they try again, “you'd do well to clear off, friend.” The words are as polite as can be, save for the way Tam's expression darkens. “Please.” They tack the word on like an afterthought.
The man dismisses their request with a wave. “This is a public park, and I can go in it wherever I damn well want,” he says. The alcohol he's sweating out is heavy on his breath, too, and it makes Janet cringe.
“The park is public,” Tam agrees with an edged voice, “but the car is not. Leave it,” and us, Janet can hear them breathe to themself, “be. I won't ask again.”

The man scoffs loudly, slapping a rough hand down onto the hood of the Skylark to correct his failing balance. The flesh-on-metal sound makes Janet wince.
Three times Tam has asked, offered, coaxed. Three times the drunk man has ignored their requests. They're not getting anywhere. She wants to go home; wants this man away from her and her car and her friend. From her park.
So Janet tries. “Sir-”
“Shut your mouth, little girl.” He pushes off the car and stumbles forward, finger pointed in her direction and weaving up and down with each step closer. “The adults are talking.” The words slur together, but the threat in them is clear even for that.

Tam takes a step, putting her behind them. They turn back to try to catch her gaze with their own, odd eyes, and in that moment of distraction, the drunk man punches Tam solidly in the face.

The force of the blow sends her friend reeling, head snapping back so hard she can hear Tam's teeth click together. Their eye is already blackening from the blow as they pick themself up from almost falling. They take a deep, quelling breath, the drunk man waiting for his fight in a sloppy stance.
And then Tam roars. The sound of it shakes the ground, a deeper bass. “GET OUT.”
The man stumbles as if he's been thrown backwards, reddened eyes bulging wide with sudden fear. The streetlight nearest to them, bathing Janet's car in a steady, haloed glow, flickers out. Janet watches him flee on unsteady legs, only turning back to Tam once he's out of sight. The fight's over, just as quickly as that.
Her hands are numb, shaking almost too hard to hold the Skylark's key. Let alone unlock it. Let alone drive. Janet's shaking fingers brush over the strip of folded fabric hanging out of her pocket.

Oh. Right. “Your bandana. I forgot to give it back.”
Tam sighs. They move to rub their eyes, hands freezing just before making contact with skin that's already starting to shine with the bruises rising underneath. “Keep it.” The request is soft. “I have others.”
She tries to laugh, and it sticks in her throat a little. “I don't know if I believe that.”
Tam's eyes tighten minutely, but their voice is light and lilting as always when they reply, “Would I lie to you?” It's a trick question. Never once has Tam played her false in their short friendship. Never once told an untruth.
Oh. “Thank you.” She shoves it back into her pocket, the ends still hanging out.

They nod, face clouded. “Be safe, Janet.” There's nothing she can say to that, no good response to give, so she only nods back before shutting the driver's side door. Tam cares for her. Tam protected her. They haven't lied, not outright-not in any way that she can catch and hold as proof. But there are other ways to deceive. And lies of omission are still lies.

There's so much she doesn't know.