Chapter Text
Beth didn't know who her mother had talked to before sitting back in the car with her. Her view from the backseat wasn't clear enough for her to make out a figure that she could recognize, other than Mama, she could recognize mama anywhere.
One time, Mama had seemed to forget that she was in the grocery store with Beth. The young girl had been looking at some lemons, trying to figure out which ones were the best. When she had picked one out (the perfect one) mama was walking away. She left the cart with her daughter and, with a blank look in her eyes, continued off with determination.
Beth put the perfect lemon back and started off after Mama, in the crowd of people that had rushed to the store she had been able to pick out Mama like she was the only perfect lemon in a sea of misshapen ones.
But that wasn't important now, with Mama back in the car. But Mama had that look in her eyes, the one that made her shush Beth when she asked questions.
Eventually after driving for a long enough time that Beth considered it to be safe to ask a simple question. “Who was that?”
Her quiet voice seemed to echo in the silence of the space, only broken by the car's engine humming away beneath them.
“A mistake. A-a rounding error.” Mama liked to speak like that, she had once heard somebody say that she liked to speak in riddles, the woman had made it sound like that was a bad thing, but Beth liked the way Mama talked, nobody else talked to her like that, everyone else spoke to her in a way that made her feel small, like they were bigger than her.
“It's just a problem I gotta solve.” Mama had a tremble in her voice, one that little Beth had heard rarely in her life.
“What problem?” Beth asked, for as long as she could remember, mama had always shared everything with her, why they were moving, what research she was doing, she told Beth everything. But now? Now she was keeping secrets, and that bothered her.
Mama looked back at Beth through the mirror that hung above the windshield. “What I do with you.”
The question startled Beth, why did she have to do anything with her? And why couldn't mama seem to look her in the eye.
They drove on in silence for a while longer, the landscape had since changed, a suburban area full of homes and families into a forest full of wildlife.
Mama looked her in the eyes for the first time that trip and Beth couldn't seem to notice that the car was speeding up, or that mama had that distant look in her eyes, like that day in the grocery store.
“Close your eyes.”
The woman that was driving her away from her Mama, spoke to her in the way that the woman had, like she was small. She asked her all sports of stupid questions, questions that Beth was sure no child would want to hear, she sure didn't.
So, she opted to stare out of the window instead, watching as the landscape changed again.
The building that the Matron had taken her to was large, much larger than any place she had stayed in with Mama. As the car slowed to a stop a woman who had a kind face stepped out of the doors.
Despite her kind face, the woman seemed eager, too eager, in Elizabeth's mind. She opened the door of the car before it came to a full stop. “Welcome Elizabeth.” She said with a voice that matched her face.
Although she hated to be called Elizabeth, she couldn't find it in herself to correct the woman who was already reaching out to take her hand.
As she climbed out of the car, she could vaguely hear the Matron, “Good luck to you, dear.” over the busy humming in her head.
The orphanage was even more daunting on the inside than it was on the outside, there were people everywhere and as she looked closer, she couldn't help but feel very out of place, her hair was different and so were her clothes. Beth liked her clothes and she liked her hair, she did not want to change them, but she also didn't want to stand out like she did.
She figured that she didn't want to be at Methuen.
With a new haircut (that she hated) and a new dress, she said goodbye to Mrs. Deardorff and waited. Beth didn't know what she was waiting for, but the rest of the girls were too, so she figured that it couldn't be that bad.
The girl in front of her, who seemed to be a few years older than Beth, turned around and gave her a sly wink. She had dark skin, and seemed to be exempt from the haircut that the rest of the girls were given.
“The green ones are the best.” She spoke after the two spent a moment staring at each other.
“What are they?” Beth inquired, as she wracked her brain trying to think of a viable option for that she could be standing in line for. None came to mind.
“Vitamins.” She said with a much lighter voice compared to Beth's sad, low tone.
The girl in front of the girl had turned around and decided to butt in. “Magic vitamins.” She spoke, causing the two to laugh, but Beth didn't, she still had no clue what they were talking about, from what she knew she didn't need vitamins, and she was certain that the odds of every single girl in the place needing them were not very high.
“If I were you, I'd save the green ones ‘till night time. Otherwise, they turn off right when you need them to turn on.” Her voice was still airy and she seemed to be the exact opposite of Beth, open and somewhat happy. “If you know what I mean.” She concluded.
They moved up the line a few steps, each step Beth got a bit closer to finally getting her answers. “Hey, what's your name, girl.”
Beth looked up from the spot on the floor where she was looking, the older girl had turned around again, and was staring at her, expecting an answer. “Beth.” She replied simply.
“Jolene.” She supplied, at least now she had a name to call her. “Your Mama and Daddy dead?” She asked, and Beth was a little taken aback, the question seemed so rude and insensitive at a first glance, but as Beth pondered over it for a second she realized that Jolene wasn't speaking to her like she was little, it was a refreshing break from the babying that she had been receiving, so she decided to brush past the inventiveness of the question.
But she couldn't bring herself to say anything, she didn't know if her Dad was dead, she only knew her mom was, but her dad had not come to take her, to save her from the bleakness of the Methuen Home. Beth nodded.
“What's the last thing they said to you before they died?” Another slightly insensitive question, but no babying. “I ask everybody that, we get some really fun answers.”
Still, Beth had no intention of speaking those crucial words back to anyone other than herself in the safety of solitary that she figured she would not have any access to for a long time.
“I don't remember.” Were the words she instead supplied to an ever insisting Jolene.
“Someday you might. If you do, you let me know.” By now the line had cleared and they were the last two. Jolene stepped up to the ledge and took the cup given to her. Before promptly crushing it infront of Mr. Ferguson who did not seem phased by her antics
As Jolene walked away she did not spare a glance at Beth, who wouldn't have noticed if she did. She stared into the cup, down at the two small pills. A green one and an orange one. Jolene had said that the green ones were good, what did good even mean? She asked herself as she continued to stare as Mr. Ferguson explained what they were. “Take ‘em both.” He finished
As they slid down her dry throat, she couldn't help but wonder why they needed to take them, she had never taken them before, did the other girls get them before they came here? Or did the home simply assume that her mother had not raised her properly.
Beth didn't have time to ponder this topic for long. As she walked away from Ferguson the room started to change, were the effects of the crash finally starting to come after her? Did she try to see how long she could hold her breath again? (it was 3 minutes and 5 seconds before the room started to look funny) And the sounds, every sound that she heard seemed to echo in her mind before fading off into nothing before she could recognize it.
As she stumbled around the twisty turns of Methuen she leaned on a door frame and for a split second, she was sure that she saw mama, standing there, in all her glory, smiling at her. But then reality honed in on her, and mama turned into a man, mopping the floor, paying no mind to the young girl.
The visions and the sounds had worn off as she placed her try down across from jolene’s, but she knew that everyone could tell that she was still stumbling. “I thought I told you to wait, and to take those vitamins at bedtime.” Jolene scolded.
But it went deaf on Beth's ears as she looked down at her food. “What is this?” She asked.
The girl she was seated beside responded. “Fish.” She didn't seem to be as interested in Beth as Jolene had been, although she did carry on a small conversation. “We eat it every Friday, you have to eat every bite, or they’ll tell Mrs. Deardorff about you, and you won't get adopted.”
Although the fish was terrible and the mashed potatoes were lumpy, the threat of not getting adopted got to Beth and she slowly ate every bite, making sure to swallow as fast as she could so as to not leave the taste on her tongue.
Beth did not sleep well that night. The tree branches shadows cast on the ceiling and were playing tricks on her mind when she was awake and nightmares that took form in memories plagued her dreams.
Her father chased after her and mama, calling her ‘mad’ and asking to talk to Beth, although he called her Lizzie, she hated that name even more than Elizabeth. That was the last time she saw him, through the window of a camper van.
That night mama got rid of the books that she had written in a fire, mama thought that it was beautiful, while the young Harmon thought that she would miss flipping through the pages as mama sewed her a dress.
The math that her teacher gave her was, in a word: undemanding. Even with her thoughts running wild she still managed to finish the problems before any of the other students.
As the teacher walked by, she noticed that Beth had finished, although the young girl could tell that the woman was sure that she had gotten them wrong, or not answered them at all. But, as she looked over the answers her face morphed into a mix of shock and a hint of pride, before she schooled it back to a simple one that she put on for the kids.
“Why don't you take the erasers down to the basement and clean them?” Beth had never been to the basement, but she assumed that it would be like most basements she had encountered: Small, dark and dusty.
On the way to the basement she encountered Mr. Ferguson and Jolene. Neither of them seemed pleased with the other.
Her suspicions of the basement were correct, although it was slightly larger than the others, the gloominess of the one in Methuen made up for the size difference.
As she made her way around the twisting corners of the room, a light peaked through the shelves separating the spaces, there was a man. Beth cranked her neck to get a better view of what the man looked like.
Her eyes adjusted to the light, with her neck at an odd angle she was able to make out his figure. It was the man from the hallway, with the mop.
How could I ever mistake mama for a man? She berated herself silently. She prided herself on being able to recognize mama, what if now, that she wasn't around her anymore, she couldn't pick her out anymore? It was a terrifying though for Beth, who missed mama dearly.
Banging the erasers on each other was louder than she had hoped, disturbing the man, who had made no sound for the time that Beth had been there. And she hoped that she wasn't causing him too much of an interference, although she didn't know what she could be disturbing, for he was only looking down at a white boot with an odd heel.
Beth found herself starting at the shoe as she hit the erasers together, the man moved the boot, now she could see that it had a weird top too, it was tall and the laces were to be tied in a different way than she was used to: instead of holes in the boot, there were hooks.
By now the man had felt her eyes boring into his back, and turned to look at the young girl, his eyes met hers, and for a moment they stayed still like that, each accusing the other of something. Before anyone could say anything, Beth took her erasers and scurried off, away from the awkward interaction.
Once again Beth was last in line for the vitamins, but Jolene wasn't with her this time, instead she was nearer to the front. As she passed Beth she stuck out her tongue, she had kept the green pill in her mouth.
She didn't understand why the pill would be any better at night time, but Jolene and her friends had all said that they were good then, who was Beth to say that they were wrong. After all, they had been here for much longer than she had.
As she laid in her bed she felt the pill in her fingers. She stared at it for a good while before putting it in her mouth. It was dry again, but she didn't feel stumbly or sick like the last time, insead her mind started to drift, to the weird shoes that the janitor was inspecting.
The way the laces hooked, the way the heel was positioned, and for the first time since she came to the home, the branches on the ceiling didn't scare her. Instead, they gently pulled her to sleep.
When the morning came, Beth felt refreshed, she had truly slept. One of the things that she didn't like about mornings was that Mrs. Deardorff always announced if a girl had been adopted. Each morning Beth hoped that she would call out her name, but each morning she was disappointed.
This particular day, it was Mary-sue, a girl a year or two younger than herself, she had gotten to Methuen after Beth, and she had not taken it well, crying in her sleep every night, but apparently that's what the Spelmans wanted, because Beth hadn't been considered, not even for a moment.
She laid down on her stomach and watched in envy as Mary-sue packed her bag. Jolene came and laid beside her, and she too watched. “That is not fair. She got her after you.”
Beth couldn't even imagine how Jolene must feel, having to watch as so many girls get adopted. She must feel the exact same way, Beth thought as she looked over at Jolene.
“Most of us are lifers. Been here a long time, nobody’s gonna come for us now, we're too old. ” Beth didn't know if the word ‘lifer’ was an actual word, but she knew that she didn't want to be one. But she had the feeling that she would need to accept it.
“Or to black.” Jolene finished. Beth had noticed that most of the time the people who looked like Jolene were not considered either.
The young Harmon girl quickly found that she did not like chapel, no, she hated chapel. She hated it so much that she was willing to fake having to use the washroom to get out of it. But she wasn't just going to wander the halls, not only were the chances of getting caught way too high, her mind could not stop wandering back to the man in the basement.
This time, as Beth made her way into the basement, she didn't bother to hide herself. She walked out Infront of him and his small table. On the table were the shoes that he was looking at, only now on the bottom they had blades. Long sharp blades that Beth could not have come up with a reason for had she not seen the photographs that covered the rest of the table.
“What do you want child,” He spoke without lifting his head from where it hung, the pictures in his line of sight. “you should be in chapel.”
Beth inched closer to him, and she could make out what was being depicted on the pieces of paper. It was people, wearing the shoes with blades, most of them were men, but she could see some women among the pile.
The people weren't on the ground either, they were on ice, Beth noticed, and they were not standing still. Most of them seemed to be propelling themselves off of the ice or coming back down onto it. In one of the piles on the desk, the janitor had written small things on the paper, they looked like corrections one might get on a test from a teacher.
“You should be upstairs with the others.” He mumbled, as he marked another page and moved it to the finished pile.
“I don't wanna be with the others.” Said Beth, as she continued to stare him down. “I wanna know what those shoes are for.” She nodded to them. That got his attention, he finally looked up at her and sighed.
“They are for figure skating.” He went back to his marking.
“Will you teach me?” She asked and he looked at her differently, almost as if she insulted him. “I know you know how, you're marking their skating.” She pointed to the papers and the pen in his hand.
“I don't teach strangers.” Beth knew that some of the older girls went out on the frozen lake by the orphanage in the colder months, which, where they are, is most of the year. But they said that they had some experience before coming to Methuen, and Beth didn't want to just hang out on the lake, she wanted to do what the people in the pictures were doing.
But Beth was never good at confronting people, especially people she didn't even know the name of, so she turned and walked back upstairs, back up to chapel.
Mr. Ferguson said goodnight and Beth took the green pill she had saved from the day. She laid back in her bed, and looked up at the ceiling, expecting to see the branches that had soothed her to sleep the night before. But they weren't there, in their place were the skates, but they weren't frozen in time like the pictures, instead the skates moved from the propelling position, then a rotation, before landing back softly in the second position.
She leaned up in her bed, using her arms to keep herself steady as she watched the jumps play out in her mind.
Her brain seemed to be able to put together the first and second positions for each one, some started from the front and landed back, and some were back and back, but each was different.
It was cold outside, cold enough that the kids all had to wear jackets, but not cold enough for the lake to be frozen. Beth had heard the older girls complaining that they wanted to skate around on it, and she couldn't help herself but agree.
“You were right.” She spoke as she walked up to Jolene. “The vitamins work better at night.” They stood, watching the younger kids play with each other, they were the kids who would get adopted.
“How many you take?” Her friend asked her, as they turned to look at each other. Beth shrugged her shoulders. “I don't know. Sometimes I skip a day, or a bunch of days. Then take two or three.”
“I like the way it feels.” Jolene's face had changed from the time that they were watching the kids, now it was more concerned, as she looked down at Beth. “I bet you do.” The older girl said. “You just be careful you don't get too used to that feeling.”
Once again, Beth was sent down to the basement to clean the erasers. The man was there again, going through the same papers. Beth got tired of the glances they kept shooting one another and put the erasers down.
“I'm not a stranger.” She spoke firmly, leaning on one of the shelving units. “I live here. I already know some of the jumps. From the pictures.”
“I don't teach anymore, especially not girls.” He spoke firmly. Not bothering to look up at the young girl. She moved forward, coming to stand right beside the table.
Beth pointed to one of the papers that currently sat on the top of the pile. “That is the only one to start forward, but the rest start backwards.” She backed up making her way to leave.
“And this one?” He pulled out a paper from the finished pile. She moved back to the man. “It's one of the two that don't use the pointy thing. It uses the edges.” He picked up another. “You use the points to push you up and land on the same leg.”
“Sit. I’ll teach you the names, for now.” When Beth made no move from the spot she had rooted her feet in, he spoke again. “Now or never.” She pulled out an old milk crate and sat.
They had a nice system, Beth told him how to do it, then he told her the name. The quizzing went on for a while, until she could tell him the names and execution of each jump, then he pulled out one that she didn't know. Beth shook her head at him. “I don't know that one.”
He set it down. “It's called the Lutz.” He began to pack up the pages. “How do you do it?” She wondered, looking to him for the answer. He shook his head. “Not today.”
“Tell me.” Beth insisted.
“Not today.”
Beth had not taken a pill for a long time, she had a collection now, of at least five (she had lost count), and she shoved them all down her throat. “It's called the Lutz” The custodian's voice echoed in her head. As she learned back on her bed, waiting for the visions to come to her.
It didn't take long before they did, the starting position of the Lutz came first, and now she had time to study it, it looked like the flip but different. She watched it over and over again, playing out in her mind.