Chapter Text
The sun was warm and bright on Nancy’s face when she awoke, melting onto her skin like smooth, rich, honey. It wasn’t unlike most mornings, with the birds chirping and the sweet smell of the winter air blowing in through her window, but it felt different. Nancy felt different. Like her whole life would begin as soon as she got out of bed.
But that was just foolish.
When she eventually did swing her legs out of bed and onto the cold hardwood floor, Max was already mulling around and picking up dishes, her hair still in the two lopsided braids from sleep. Most days were like this; Max up early (if she got sleep in general), then Nancy, before Chrissy rolled out of bed sometime in mid-morning. Each one would begin to cross off their laundry list of chores in an attempt to make the lives of the others easier, only to find more things to keep their minds occupied from the painful boredom of their cyclical lives.
The routine was the same as it was nearly every morning; get dressed, brush (and rebrush, just to attempt to tame any of its annoying frizziness) her hair before tying it out of her face, get dressed in one of her many dresses or skirts (most of them handmade, all in soft variations of pastels, puffy sleeves, and florals), and make breakfast for herself and the other two, before finally starting her other daily tasks. It was a bit tedious–performing the same tasks felt redundant and exhausting–but the routine helped Nancy and the other girls feel a touch of sanity while she was in the desolate space. With things to do each morning, she couldn’t very easily spend time being lonely.
It wasn’t as though Nancy was lonely, at least not in the traditional way. She didn’t know how to be lonely, because she physically couldn’t be lonely. She was always surrounded by Max and Chrissy, like three ever-orbiting planets around each other. She only knew of loneliness because of her books, and she got the sense that feeling, like darkness, wasn’t just being alone, it was the absence of community, like the absence of light. Without day, there could be no night, only the way of existence, and so without an abundance of company, she couldn’t really be lonely. Her earliest memories were in the tower with no one but Max, Chrissy, and her imagination to keep her company. She knew there had to be other people outside the tower, but they weren’t like the people she read about. The world wasn’t filled with heroes and dashing adventurers, it was only those who would seek to convince her of their purity only to draw back the curtain and reveal their sinister nature. So there wasn’t much to pine for in terms of company.
It didn’t mean she didn’t still do so on occasion.
In the dark of night, in her bed all alone, she wondered what her life had been like in a different timeline. During some of her late night fantasies, she was a small-town villager working for pennies a day in a bakery and trading leftover bread and other pastries for books, or a witch living in a cottage creating potions and casting spells all with a pet cat by her side, or simply herself, just with a family—a real one, like the ones in her books. But at the end of the day, they were just fantasies, and each morning she would wake up in the tower with no one but the girls she had always known, her stories, the characters in her ever-developing detective novel, and occasionally the watchful eye of her older brother to keep her company.
“Still working on that book?” Max quipped, leaning against the table before jumping to sit on the surface.
“Yes, I–I just don’t know about this anymore…” Nancy began as she wrapped her hair up into a bun at the base of her neck. “I thought having the protagonist be completely isolated prior to starting the mystery would be an interesting angle and allow for insight into her mental processes, but it just feels so isolating. Now I’m thinking I might try giving her a few people to keep her company, although that would require completely rewriting everything I have…” Nancy groaned, staring at the pile of scribbled on paper in front of her before letting her eyes wander to the calendar on the wall. Normally it was a painful reminder of the passing of time, but it gave her a glimmer of hope as she studied the date. A sign of freedom, and growth, and a bit of relaxation and peace. Her birthday was in two days, and with it came the glowing lights in the sky. “My birthday is coming up?”
Chrissy glanced up from her place by the bookcase, dusting off the stacks of books. “We were going to surprise you,” she admitted. “I was going to bake a cake and we fixed your old favorite skirt.”
“And I offered to take the tasks you hate the most…just tomorrow, though,” Max added, studying the ends of her braids nonchalantly.
Nancy’s face softened. Even though she had let the days pass her by, each one blurring into the next until her eighteenth birthday was a mere two days away, Max and Chrissy didn’t. They made the effort, even amidst the dull decay of their lives. “You both–you don’t have to do all this…”
“Of course we do,” Chrissy insisted. “It’s your eighteenth birthday.”
Nancy hummed a soft response before rising from her seat and heading to the window.
“You know what I’d really like for my birthday?” Nancy asked, turning back to face the other girls. There was a glint of mischief in her eye, as though she were a child plotting a harmless prank. Neither Max nor Chrissy replied, as if somehow they already knew what Nancy was going to say. “Help me sneak out.”
Max groaned, her head falling back to stare at the ceiling. “God, not this again.”
“It’s my eighteenth birthday! He has to let me go!” Nancy cried, pacing around the living space. “And if he doesn’t, I’ll force my way out. I just—I need to see what’s out there. I need to see those lights.”
Max dropped her braid and pushed herself to her feet. “Have you ever considered that this is all for our own good? And even if it isn’t, what makes you think that you’ll make it out there after all these years in here?”
“It feels different, okay? And I know that sounds crazy, but—“
“Yeah, Nancy, that does sound crazy,” Max interrupted, before practically stomping over to her bed.
Nancy turned her attention to Chrissy as a hail-Mary attempt. “Chrissy, you have to believe me.”
“Nance, I believe in you, of course, but I’m not so sure about this whole thing…it feels unsafe,” Chrissy countered, twisting a piece of copper colored hair around her finger.
Nancy sighed, walking over to her bed before falling back onto it. “If I had you two to protect and cover for me, I would be fine. I wouldn’t be gone for more than a day.”
“A day is a pretty long time, Nancy,” Chrissy reasoned. “And we’d have no way to contact you or make sure you’re safe.”
Max sat up to face Nancy, a steely expression on her face. “Look, you’ve tried before and you’ve failed, so what makes you so confident that you’ll be able to pull it off this time?”
Max was right. Nancy had, of course, tried to leave a few times. Once when she was nine, when she read Journey to the Center of the Earth in less than a day, only to internalize the book's ideas of travel and adventure and convince herself that she had to see the rest of the world. Only, she took one look at the height difference from her window and the ground and immediately ducked back inside. She tried again at twelve, and fourteen, and seventeen, all resulting in similar executions and explanations. Every time she got to the window, no matter how desperately she wanted to leave and see what the outside world had in store for her, she would become overwhelmed with fear and guilt that she returned to the safety of the place she had always known.
At some point in her memories, though, the novelty of Nancy’s life washed away. Her real life, not the ones she created as distractions. She had asked Henry once why they weren’t allowed outside, and what was out there that was so horrible, only to warrant a lecture about how dangerous and cruel the outside world was, and how they needed to stay there and get stronger in order to help him to seek revenge on the world that had seemingly wronged him. Again, Nancy pressed about what was so wrong about the world and what had caused him to be this way, but received very little information back. It became an endless cycle, between trials and quiet mutters about who was excelling and who wasn’t (Nancy and Max always seemed to be alternating as Henry’s favorites, with Chrissy barely scraping by), between mind-altering stories and their concurrent nightmares that left each of the girls frail and afraid of imaginary things, Nancy would continue to question and receive mediocre answers in return.
By the time she was an early teenager, no longer filled with childlike innocence and persistence but rather driven by a desire far deeper and more complex, Nancy swore she had things figured out. Well, not entirely, but she knew she couldn’t stay trapped forever.
“Why are you both so afraid?” Nancy asked, looking out the window on the southern wall. “Aren’t you even the slightest bit curious about what’s out there?”
Max huffed. “How do you know that what’s out there isn’t worse than we have here? What we have here is fine.”
“It’s fine, it’s not good! And it’s not all that’s out there. We have been in the same routine since we were kids, and there has to be some part of both of you that wants to know what life is like beyond these walls,” Nancy persisted, looking from Max to Chrissy, then directly out the window. “Just…to smell the air, to feel the grass, and to experience new things.”
“Nance, I think Max has a point,” Chrissy sighed, sitting down on her bed and pulling her knees to her chest. “I mean, what if Henry finds out?”
Nancy rolled her eyes. “He won’t. He hasn’t come here in years.”
Even still, as she said it, she felt the familiar twinge that she felt on her past few attempts at escape. He’d been gone for years, yes, but with every passing day, it seemed only more likely he’d show up at the foot of the tower once more. What if he happened to pick the same day she did? She didn’t know what to think of Henry catching her outside, and she didn’t like to think about it much. It surely wouldn’t be a happy reunion.
With none of the girls wanting to engage any further and possibly poke the metaphorical bear, the conversation dissipated, each returning to whatever task that they had been working on before the discussions of birthdays and the outside world. Still, despite her efforts to focus on her novel or the mountain of laundry that desperately needed to be folded and put away, Nancy couldn’t help but think about the lights, the world, and everything she could be missing out on.
Nancy had only known this life, the one with Max and Chrissy in their desolate little space made a bit brighter. All of her childhood memories were very clearly divided, like blowing out a candle and leaving a haze of smoke behind, between what she recalled and what she didn’t, fuzzy and crystalline clear. She assumed that she had to have had a life and parents prior to coming to having the current one, but any attempt to imagine her birth mother and father came up dry. Any records were completely missing from the archive of books and journals kept in the house, and any conversations with Chrissy and Max warranted similar results. They were, after all, younger than her. None of them could remember anything beyond being where they were presently, even if they all had a feeling of some version of an iteration of a past life. At times, she wondered if Henry immaculately conceived and created her, Max, and Chrissy, all for the sake of having company. If his life had been anything like this before the three of them, she couldn’t really blame him.
Just after dinner, as each of the girls dispersed to take part in their evening interests (Nancy returned to her novel, Max leafed through her small collection of comic books, and Chrissy searched through their mediocre collection of music in search of something to fill the space) the air shifted, sending a sharp chill down Nancy’s spine. At first, she had assumed it was the cool evening wind, but after a moment too long, she realized she was in for far more than a chilly night.
“Hello, girls,” Henry greeted as he entered the living space, his icy voice filling the open air. “How have you been without me?”
Nancy, Max, and Chrissy straightened up on instinct, each jumping up from their spots. “Hello, brother,” they replied, three perfectly trained mimics in unison with each other.
“Things have been just fine,” Nancy piped up, stepping just a hair forward.
Henry stared at Nancy for a moment, as if expecting her to break from any lie she had concocted, before turning his focus to Chrissy. Nancy knew, she knew this trick. Like Nancy, Max was harder to break. She had a lot of determination and fire, and a lot of sheer stubbornness that—try as he might—Henry couldn’t break out of her. Though Chrissy also had determination in her, her will was a lot easier to mold and bend as Henry saw fit. Under authority, where Nancy and Max stood firm like strong oaks, Chrissy crumbled like ash.
“Christine,” Henry said slowly, as though speaking to a child, his eyes wide. As kind as the gaze may have seemed, the girls knew the slight twitch in his left eye to mean something other than care. “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?” he continued, breezing past Nancy to stand directly in front of Chrissy, forcing her to lift her chin to look at him.
Chrissy’s gaze shifted down to the floor, focusing all her attention on the cracks in the wood. “No, I wouldn’t,” she forced out.
“Well then,” Henry frowned, lifting Chrissy’s chin with his index finger. “How have things been without me? Any mischief? Rule-breaking? You know that you can tell me.”
For a moment, Nancy thought she saw Chrissy’s gaze shift to look at her and then to Max, but quickly disregarded any notion of such thoughts as Chrissy’s attention became focused squarely on the space between Henry’s eyes. Close enough to give the appearance of looking him in the eyes, but not enough to actually look there.
“No. Nothing like that,” Chrissy said, barely lying through her teeth. There was a thickness to her voice that betrayed her, but maybe it had been long enough since his last visit that Henry wouldn’t know to listen for it. “Everything has been fine. Normal.”
Henry narrowed his eyes before tilting his head slightly, as though studying Chrissy’s expressions and movements. “Now, Christine,” he said slowly, his voice smooth and slippery like a snake. “I’m on your side. But It would have served you better to tell me the truth. You know how I feel about liars, after all,” he added, before placing his hand square on her forehead. Immediately, Chrissy’s eyelids fluttered, her blue eyes rolling back until only white showed. Nancy, as well as her sisters, had become all too familiar with what this entailed. Though externally, the pain was fairly minimal—light sensitivity, headache, maybe a minor nosebleed—the internal battles were tumultuous beyond words.
Nancy and Max both couldn’t help but flinch. If Henry’s presence in the tower was cold, his presence in their minds was sub-zero. Dark, lonely; macabre in a way that Nancy had tried and failed to explain in her stories when her characters met the lowest point in their plotline. Sometimes, Henry’s scratchy voice accompanied the visions of ever increasing terror, narrating every fear they’d never been able to fully conceptualize coming to fruition if they were to disobey him. He was the only one who could protect them from the visions that he created. The thought alone made dread rise in Nancy’s throat, her stomach twisting around her dinner.
“Leave her alone!” Max cried, attempting to push herself between Chrissy and Henry. However, her feeble attempts were no match for his fury, as Max was shoved aside to the floor before she could attempt to break the older girl’s trance. For a moment, she prepared to fight back once more, but crumbled again as she rose to her feet. In Max’s moment of weakness, Henry saw his own opportunity to relish in success and struggle. He turned instead to Max, his hand outstretched, his tall figure pinning the girl between him and the wall. He hadn’t made contact, hadn’t sent Max into the same spiral Chrissy had been under, but the fear in her eyes as she stared at the hand was just as real as the trance itself.
“Let’s try this again,” Henry said, his chin tilting ever so slightly to the side to shift his focus back to Chrissy and keep Max trapped. With his other hand, he reached out like the snap of a whip, and Chrissy’s wrist was tight in his grasp. “How have things been?”
Chrissy forced out a small gasp as she struggled against him. “F-fine,” she insisted, though Henry tightened his hold on her. Her hand, which had been clenched, went slack in his grip.
“Stop it!” Nancy cried, her voice far more shrill and tight than she intended. “Stop! They—they’re just covering for me. I’m the one you should be upset with.”
Henry dropped a hand, letting Max get just a moment of relief as she backed up even further against the wall. “And why is that, Nancy?”
“I—I want to leave. I want to see…what’s outside, and see the lights in the sky that they have every year. For my birthday.”
For a moment, it was like something shifted in Henry’s demeanor, as though he went from an all-powerful male authority figure to fearing at the mere thought of losing his would-be second in command. No sooner had it shifted, though, had it went back to normal, icy cold and piercing into the depths of Nancy’s soul. “Leave?” he asked. The pressure on Chrissy’s wrist clearly lessened, and both girls breathed a momentary sigh of relief. Nancy prepared for her own round of psychological warfare, but instead, he just stared at her. In the way Max had stared in fear at the prospect of Henry’s grip on her mind, Nancy could feel creeping up her back exactly what she would hear, what she would see if he used his authority over her. Her sisters had been hurt, scared, and it was all to protect her. If she had just stayed compliant, squashed down her naive thoughts of her future, neither of them would have been put in harm’s way. She was, at the end of the day, to blame for anything that happened to them. She was the eldest.
“Why would you want to go out there, Nancy?” Henry asked, dropping both hands to his sides, letting Chrissy and Max free. Nancy opened her mouth to speak, only to be cut off a moment later. “Haven't I given you enough here? Everything that you’ve asked for I’ve provided for you, and more. Haven’t I given you all the books and paper and ink you could want? People to talk to, a bed to sleep in and food to eat? You should be more than grateful just for the roof over your head. In the outside world, nothing you have here is guaranteed, not even that. Sweet girls like you don’t live in towers with their loving families out there, they live in gutters, in alleys, alone, cold, begging for crusts of bread. You must know that I want you to live a wonderful life here. Those people won’t know you like I do. They won’t understand what you need. They won’t be as forgiving of your habits and your temper as I am. They’ll only use you and desert you when you need their help in return. Everything and everyone out there is ruthless and filled with hate. They will see any bit of goodness and light and snuff it out. Those who are different are targets of their hate. If you go out there, they will kill you, or worse, attempt to use you to fulfill their sick desires. You’re much safer here, Nancy.”
Nancy stared up at him, hurtful tears burning in her eyes. “You don’t know that,” she forced out. But even she barely believed herself anymore. Henry had that effect when he wanted to, to turn her own thoughts against her.
“Don’t I, though?” Henry grinned, a wicked expression slowly spreading across his face. “You may go, Nancy, but don’t expect us to be here for you when you inevitably come to your senses. You can’t turn your back on your family and then run home when things get scary.”
Without any further discussion, Henry turned and left, leaving the air heavy and the three girls alone.
“Here, come here…both of you,” Nancy urged the moment the coast was clear. “I’m sorry for all of this. I didn’t know he’d come, much less take it out on both of you.” Sitting in the center of her bed, she waited for her sisters to crawl onto the mattress on either side of her, letting themselves be enveloped in Nancy’s outstretched arms. When things got scary, when a storm tore down around their walls or a particularly bad night of terrors behind their eyelids got unbearable, they often huddled here. Nancy let herself be a comfort to her little sisters, and they all laid back against her blankets to recoup and ground themselves.
Chrissy sighed, settling her cheek against Nancy’s shoulder and resting her head back against the pillow. “It’s alright…none of us could have known,” she said in a small voice. Max stayed silent, but she still burrowed into Nancy’s side, tucking her arms in against her chest and steeling her expression.
Nancy reached her arms around their heads and brushed her fingers over their foreheads. She closed her eyes, trying to make her touch gentle and warm in every way Henry’s was harsh and frigid. Despite all the inky-black thoughts swirling in Nancy’s mind, she attempted to center herself, imagining moments filled with brightness and joy. Warm memories of soft summertime, lounging in patches of sunlight until their skin was pink and freckles dotted every part of their bodies, and cozy winter memories filled with cookies and cocoa and thick sweaters. Every memory that she could recall with the two that made their bleak lives a bit brighter, all in hopes of restoring an ounce of strength to the people she cared for most.
Chrissy, ever telegraphing her thoughts on her face, smiled wide and took another deep breath. Max nudged Nancy’s side with her hand in thanks. She knew her family, and she knew that if it was her that usually got them into trouble, it was her responsibility to make them feel better at the end of the day.
“There…now, let’s go to bed, alright? Rest can do us all good, even if it’s not sleep,” Nancy coaxed, opening her eyes and gently encouraging Chrissy and Max off her bed with a kiss to the tops of their heads. “Goodnight.”
“‘Night, Nancy,” Chrissy murmured, accompanied by an indifferent (but warm nonetheless) noise from Max as they returned to their own beds and prepared for sleep.
And in the dark, long after Max and Chrissy had gone to bed and attempted to drift off to sleep, Nancy grabbed her paper and pen and began to write down her escape route, as well as a letter goodbye, the glow of candlelight and the moon illuminating her the entire time.