Chapter Text
Warm steam wafted around Annabel Lee’s face as she inhaled the spicy scent of her freshly brewed tea. She had already closed the curtains and locked the door for the night, and she settled into the couch under a soft new blanket. Annabel listened to the rhythmic thumping of the tree branches that grew over her house on the roof as the wind blew outside. Cozied up in her blanket, with everyone else in the house asleep, she felt safe and protected from the world, as if nothing could affect her at that moment.
As per usual, she was proven wrong in just a few seconds.
Annabel nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard a crash in the rose bushes outside and, a couple seconds later, a yelp that was decidedly human. Prospero burst out of his room, looking panicked.
“Annabel, what the hell was that?!” he asked, staring at the door leading to the backyard. Without answering, Annabel leapt up and retrieved a knife from the bookcase that she was only 80% sure she had informed Prospero about. She steeled herself and whipped the curtain from the glass door as Prospero flicked on the outside light.
A person who looked rather like a disheveled cat was heaving themselves out of the bushes, their jaw clenched tightly. Glancing up, they looked like a deer in headlights when they saw the two bewildered inhabitants of the house staring at them. Hanging their head, the person limped towards the door, and Annabel noticed that their leg appeared to be injured, though she couldn’t see any blood or awkwardly angled bones.
Without releasing her grip on her knife, Annabel slid open the door and walked out to meet the intruder. She heard clamoring voices from a few houses over, panicking about ‘what has she gotten herself into’ and ‘whose house even is that?’
The ‘she’ in question met Annabel’s eyes sheepishly, rubbing her neck. Annabel kept a stern expression on her face, simply raising an eyebrow. To herself, she thought the stranger might have caught her eye if she had seen her on the street, but right now she was an intruder on Annabel’s property.
“So. Um.” She tried to shift her weight and winced as she put weight on the leg that Annabel had noted earlier. “I’m Lenore. Wow, this is awkward. I wasn’t trying to break into your house, I swear.”
“Excellent start to this conversation,” Annabel said dryly. “If you weren’t intending to frighten me and my roommate half out of our minds, why have you ended up in our backyard?”
“It was a dare, but not for your house,” Lenore elaborated. “Our friend lives on this street—Morella, do you know her?”
Annabel shook her head.
“Okay, well, she lives a couple houses down from this one, and I was trying to get to her backyard. It’s a surprise. I came to England for a year at Nevermore University, so I got here over the summer to make sure I could stay with someone, met up with a couple friends, and they said Morella had an extra room and wanted to split the rent, so I figured I’d come down here and ask.” She paused to catch her breath.
“Right.” Annabel looked at her flatly. “So you decided the best way to get her to say yes would be to appear in her backyard in the middle of the night?”
“I texted to ask if she was still awake five minutes before I went over,” Lenore protested. “I wasn’t expecting the wind to be so strong.”
Annabel sighed.
“Well, I doubt your friend wants you to show up looking like an injured cat,” she said. Spotting the torn skin from the thorns, she added, “I’ll find some bandages.” She glanced at the leg Lenore was favoring. “May I ask—”
“Old injury,” Lenore answered quickly. “It’s not a big deal anymore, I’ve learned to live with it. I probably would have been fine if I had had my cane, but it wouldn’t have been very useful on such a slanted surface anyways.”
Annabel hummed and pulled over a yard chair, which her unexpected company took gratefully. Leaving her, Annabel walked back into her house. Prospero looked expectantly at her.
“So what, precisely, is she doing jumping into our garden at midnight?”
“It was an accident,” Annabel answered, only half paying attention as she set down the knife and rustled through the cabinet by the door that had been intended to hold easily-accessible first aid supplies, but had ended up as a storage place for their odds-and-ends that weren’t quite useful but had enough potential not to throw away. “She was attempting to climb to a friend’s house, and didn’t quite make it. According to her, the wind threw her off-balance.”
Annabel could feel Prospero’s eyes on her as she bustled back outside with the only package of bandages and Neosporin the cabinet had actually held to Lenore. The other girl accepted them without any argument. Annabel stood nearby, oddly nervous. She made sure to keep her expression even, but she wasn’t sure where to look. Staring at Lenore as she bandaged herself up would be uncomfortable, Annabel was sure, but looking off into the distance made her look uncomfortable. She settled for tugging over another chair and taking a seat a foot or so away from the other girl.
The silence between them hung in the air, punctuated occasionally by the backs of Band-Aids being removed. Annabel wasn’t used to this, not knowing what to do. Her mind was racing, and as much as she tried to shut it down, she wondered what would have happened had they met for the first time in a class or a cafe, instead of Lenore quite literally dropping into her life like this. Annabel would never have entertained the idea of climbing over other people’s roofs to visit a friend and ask for a room. Even from just this interaction, she could tell the two were so incredibly different that it was incredible the universe had allowed their paths to intersect. And yet, something about the absurd situation made Annabel’s heart flutter with excitement at the prospect of simply befriending someone who had seemingly no reserves doing things like this, things Annabel never would have even thought of.
“Sorry,” Lenore said, interrupting Annabel’s thoughts, “but could you get this one on the back of my arm? I can’t see it.”
Suddenly grateful the porch light was behind her, Annabel picked up the box of bandages. In her unusually flustered state, she nearly dropped the tube of Neosporin, fumbling with the lid as she tried to speed through the steps. Her face was burning as she managed to stick the Band-Aid over Lenore’s scratch, and she set the box and tube down on the chair next to her as she tried to stop the pinkness spreading over her face.
Lenore stood up and bent her arms, making sure all the worst scratches were covered. She was still favoring her injured leg, but she smiled at Annabel.
“Thanks for helping me out, especially since I just technically trespassed on your property,” she said awkwardly. “Maybe I’ll see you around?”
“Most likely, yes,” Annabel replied nonchalantly, fighting down the twinge of excitement at the prospect of meeting this strange, impulsive girl again. “And don’t worry about it. There was no malicious intent, even if I do think it was a questionable decision at best to go climbing over roofs at this hour instead of simply knocking on the door.”
“Yeah, that wasn’t my best idea. It wasn’t my idea at all, actually,” she added. “I assume you’d like me to leave through the front door? Of course, I could always climb up the fence if you’d prefer I left the way I came.” Lenore grinned, and Annabel’s heart fluttered.
“Yes, the front door would be preferable, as much as I’m sure you’d like to crash into another neighbor’s roses,” she said lightly, battling her face to stay cheerful and nothing else.
Lenore chuckled and motioned for Annabel to lead her to the door now that she was no longer bleeding. Annabel fought any feelings down, reminding herself that she was not here to date, or even gain interest in anyone. She was here to get a degree and leave as quickly as she could, so that, just maybe, she could be out of her father’s jurisdiction for once in her life.
Ignoring Prospero’s eyes boring into the back of her neck, Annabel took Lenore through the sitting room to the front door. She was hesitant to open it, reluctant to bring their time, however strangely brought about, to an end. Somehow, the other girl had managed to worm her way into Annabel’s mind—and, as much as Annabel hated it, her heart. They stood facing each other, neither one making a move to open the door.
“Would you like my number?” Lenore asked suddenly.
Annabel blinked, then smiled. Despite every rational part of her brain screaming at her to say no, she retrieved her phone and looked expectantly at Lenore, who proceeded to recite a number Annabel tapped into a new contact. She put Lenore’s name in and reluctantly unlocked and opened the door.
“Well…” Lenore paused on her way out. “Good night, er…”
“Annabel Lee.”
Lenore bowed. “Good night, Annabel Lee. May we be fortunate enough to meet again.”
Annabel laughed, surprising herself in doing so.
“Good night, Lenore.” The girl headed down the path to the front door, her steps sure and confident.
“May we meet again,” she whispered as Lenore walked down the street, waving to a group waiting on the steps of a house down the street.
Annabel shut the door and leaned her back against it, mind racing and heart pounding. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, trying to compose herself before she re-entered the sitting room.
“Annabel?”
Her eyes shot open. Prospero was standing at the other end of the short hallway leading to the door, staring at her.
“Yes?”
“...Are you okay?” he asked uncertainly, as if he wasn’t sure what to make of the admittedly strange situation.
Annabel shoved her emotions down into the pits of her heart, imagining grinding them into dust with her heel, before smiling.
“Of course, love.”