Chapter Text
“I think you should take Batty for a swim, Skye,” Aunt Claire says the morning after Alec leaves his house – and his instruments – to Jeffrey.
“Aunt Claire, I want to make sure Jeffrey’s alright,” the ever stubborn Skye responds, watching through the window as the boy treks from one house to the other.
Claire, to her credit, does not raise her voice even though her nerves are beyond frazzled. “Skye, I think Jeffrey wants to be alone. And your sister needs some time away from the piano.”
“I can do your chores,” Jane offers her older sister. Skye looks at her with venom in her blue eyes, but she relents.
“Fine. Batty, come on, let’s go.”
Claire waits for an irate Skye to drag an even more irate, life preserver clad Batty out the back door to the beach before turning to her remaining niece. “That was very kind of you Jane.”
Jane stands and piles the dishes into the sink. “Thank you Aunt Claire. I figured we could use this time for me to ask you more for my love survey. Or perhaps I could bathe your forehead?”
Thankfully, Jane’s back is turned, so she does not have to see the look of exasperation cross her beloved Aunt’s face. “You know what Jane, dear, I’m starting to think that Jeffrey could use some company. People shouldn’t be alone during times of crisis. Maybe you and Hound could walk over and see if he wants something?”
“Sure,” says the always pleasant Jane. She gathers her notebook and dog and skips down the path to Alec’s house. Before she can reach the door to the living room/music room, she hears a haunting piano melody.
“Jeffrey?” she calls, stepping hesitantly towards the door. She doesn’t want to startle him. Skye once told Jane about how he dropped the piano lid on his hands when she burst in on him. Jane figures Jeffrey’s suffered enough as it is.
The boy in question flinches as if being pulled out of a dream world and turns to the glass door. He’s wearing the same striped t-shirt as yesterday, and his brown hair is sticking up in a hundred different directions. He looked somewhat put together when he left Birches not even fifteen minutes ago, so he must have racked his hands through his hair on the walk over.
“Hello,” Jane says brightly.
Jeffery’s face darkens. “Leave me alone.”
“Aunt Claire said you shouldn’t be. Alone, that is,” Jane adds as an afterthought.
Jeffrey stares at her, trying to find something cruel to say. He can’t seem to manage it though, not to Jane, who’s standing earnestly with her hand pressed against the glass, a pen stuck in her curls. Jane doesn’t deserve cruelty. Instead he slumps against the piano. “Do whatever you want Jane, I don't care.”
“If you say so.”
Jane pushes open the doors and slips through, allowing Hound to crawl under the piano. She looks around the room and is glad to find it’s still littered with sheet music, pictures, and instruments. However, there isn’t much in the way of seating, and she guesses – correctly – that Jeffrey wouldn’t appreciate having her on the other end of the piano bench. Instead, she drags a stool from the kitchen into the middle of the music room and situates herself on top with her blue notebook.
Jeffrey looks at her dubiously over the piano, but she doesn’t seem to notice him. She’s engrossed in her writing, mumbling, scribbling, and mumbling again.
“I’m not going to forgive him,” Jeffrey says after a few minutes of silence, punctuated only by disjointed piano chords and Jane's mumbling.
“Okay,” Jane says, scribbling out the paragraph she just wrote.
“I’m really not,” Jeffrey insists, startled at the lack of reaction.
“That’s fine, feel however you want to feel.”
Jane looks up in shock when she hears sniffles. “Oh goodness Jeffrey. Shall I bathe your forehead?”
Jeffrey swipes angrily at his eyes. “Please, no.”
Jane laughs and closes her notebook. “Then… what’s the matter?”
“You’re not going to tell me I’m being a bad… son?” He says the word with venom, like it’s a new and unwelcome phenomenon, to be a son. As if he hasn’t been one his whole life.
“No. Why should I?”
Jeffrey is startled into silence for a moment. He once heard Mr. Penderwick tell Inantha that Jane could see into people’s souls and feel their hearts as if they were her own. “It’s what makes her a good writer,” Iantha had responded with a smile in her voice. Iantha had been wrong though.
It is what makes her a good person.
“I don’t know. I thought maybe Aunt Claire sent you over to make me see reason.”
Jane smiles fondly at him. “Aunt Claire sent me over to be a friend. I can’t tell you how to feel about something. Those are your own emotions. I’ve known Daddy all my life, I can’t even emphasize. All I can do is stick around while you figure it out.” Jane hops off the stool and Jeffery stares at her in shock. Never before had he simply been… allowed to feel his feelings. “Now, do you still have the music for that song you wrote me in the fall? When Skye visited you in Boston?”
“No silly,” Jeffrey says, brightening at the memory of the jam-packed weekend. Jeffrey used to think that was the kind of life he wanted to lead: the wild, rambunctious one Skye introduced him to. But he’s starting to see the charm in the leisurely world Jane has let him into today. He feels just as home as he does with Skye, even if she and he haven’t spoken half as much as he and Skye do. “I gave it to you.”
“Oh. Right.” Jane approaches the bench, and waits until he slides over, signaling that it’s alright for her to sit. “Well, what was the song you were just playing?”
“Something that I was practicing with –” Jeffrey stops suddenly, unwilling to say the name.
“Alec?” Jane offers.
“Yeah.”
“Well, what about Mary Had a Little Lamb?”
Jeffrey looks over at her, aghast. “Give me something a little harder than that, Jane!”
Jane matches his affronted expression with her own. “I’ll have you know that Mary Had a Little Lamb is the reason I dropped out of my elementary school orchestra.”
Jeffrey snorts out a laugh. “Seriously?”
Jane crosses her arms. “Seriously. I played on the wrong string apparently.”
Jeffrey laughs his first real laugh in nearly a day. “I’d pay to see that.”
“Well, find me a cello and you won’t have to.”
Jeffrey laughs even harder, nearly falling off the bench. “Then I’ll teach you how to play it on the piano.”
“You’re going to regret that,” Jane warns.
“Hey, I taught Batty. Maybe you have a secret musical talent too.”
“I sincerely doubt that.”
Three hours later, when Skye calls them for lunch, she finds Jeffrey on the floor of the music room, clutching at his ears as Jane plays a truly awful rendition of… something. She’s not sure what it is. Hound bolts out of the door the moment Skye opens it.
“Holy bananas Jane, what are you doing?” She has to raise her voice to be heard over the noise.
Jane tears herself away from the piano, and Jeffrey pushes himself into a sitting position. “I’m playing piano,” Jane says as if it were obvious.
“Yeah, well, don’t.” Skye, whose OAP-dom was pushed to the limits by Batty’s desire to simultaneously avoid and never leave the water, is not in the mood to deal with bad piano playing.
“Okay, I have an idea for Sabrina Starr anyway.” Jane bounces off the piano and makes a beeline for her blue notebook, which had been previously discarded on the floor. She opens it and instantly starts muttering and scribbling. She wanders towards the door, and an exasperated Skye puts her hands on her younger sister’s shoulders to lead her home, lest she get into another squashed-nose-related mishap.
“Jeffrey,” Skye says in her most authoritative tone. Jeffrey instantly turns to her, an innocent look on his face. He knows all too well that Skye will pounce on anyone when she’s angry. “Lunch. Let’s go.”
“Ma’am, yes ma’am.”
He takes after the girls, but he stops on the way out the door to glance into Alec’s music room. Somehow – since she’s still engrossed in her writing – Jane notices he’s stopped and turns, forcing Skye to turn too. “Forget something?” Jane asks, looking down at her notebook. Jeffrey isn’t sure if she’s talking to him or narrating her writing out loud.
“No. I just wanted to thank you for the distraction. I know that’s why you were sent over here.”
Jane looks up, her eyes shining with mischief, making Jeffrey wonder if she and Skye really are different at all. “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”
With that, she’s gone again, lost in her writing as her sister marches her back to Birches, but Jeffrey knows she’s joking. And he’s thankful for her nonetheless.