Chapter Text
It is becoming night, and this means what it always means.
Rose Lalonde and Jade Harley are huddled underneath one of the scratchier quilts from Rose’s bed, their chins propped on their knees and the flashlight hollowing out their little faces. Jade thinks this quilt smells rather like a retirement home, or at least like someone left their great aunt outside in a rainstorm. It’s a little hard to breathe. Nothing else is thick enough to smother the light, though. Rose’s mom will stumble down the hallway sooner or later, her fingers tracing the wall for support, and she will sigh with contentment and make her way to bed when she sees that there is only darkness seeping out from the bottom of the door. In the morning, she’ll ruffle Jade’s hair on her way to her brother’s car and poke fun of “you kids” for tiring so quickly. Silly girls.
“And anyway, no one really knows why it is that we dream, or how,” Rose continues.
She’s pulled her headband out for the night, and her close-cut hair traces her head like a halo. It shines in the bright white of the flashlight propped upright between her feet, and Jade will realize in only a moment why it is that Rose wants to start bleaching her hair. It would suit her. Ten is too young to be frying your hair, though, says Ms. Lalonde.
“Our minds are very primitive in the subconscious, when you get down to it. Your deepest self can’t even invent a face – everyone in the crowds of our sleep, all those random people you’ve never seen before, they’re all people you’ve passed on the street, or seen on TV in your waking hours. Our lived experiences become the miasma of what makes up our dreams.”
Jade burrows her chin deeper between her knees. From Rose’s view, the spheres of her lenses have gone white. It gives her a look like a banshee, unintentionally rendering her words ominous.
“All right, but what if they’re not taking place in your head?”
“Our dreams?”
“Yes.”
Rose gives Jade a flat and even stare, only the faintest twitch of her eyebrow betraying her surprise. “Oh, I see. You’re implying you believe in astral projection.”
“Says the girl who did all her workbook pages the hour before school started ‘cause she was up all night reading The Necronomicon.”
“I can appreciate fiction for fiction’s sake.”
Jade snorts. “Okay.”
“So what you’re telling me is that you’re astral projecting every night, I take it?”
“I don’t think it’s outside the realm of possibility,” Jade hoots, putting on her best posh accent. Rose relents and gives a small laugh, and they snort behind their hands to keep the volume down. “What say you, oh great professor?”
Down in the cellar, the furnace can be heard roaring to life.
“I find the overwhelming wash of yellow in your dreams troubling. We can go the Fitzgerald route. We can say that you feel your life is a gilded, superficial farce, so much so that your entire world is awash in the color of decay and deceit.”
“Oh, very nice.” Jade claps slowly. “I’m having a breakthrough. How do you do it?”
“The chess folk are another matter. They are entirely white, yes?”
“Yup!”
“Going down the biblical branch, we can interpret this as meaning that you find the others around you to be pure of heart and spirit. They are ‘saved,’ while you are not. You feel perhaps resentment, but mostly guilt that you are not in the echelons of the innocent.”
“Yeah right, the carapacians rock. They love me.”
Rose blinks. “Carapacians.”
“Uh, yeah.” Jade wrings her long hair in her hands, and a quiet wisp of cool air slips under the blanket. They both breathe in, covetous of the draft. “You have normal, boring dreams then? You have no idea what I’m talking about?”
“I tend not to remember my dreams.”
“Somehow I doubt that.”
And somehow, Jade knows what lurks on the tip of Rose’s tongue.
“Is it possible you’re mistaking the remarkability of a recurring dream for something that spans beyond human experience?”
There it is. Rose thinks Jade is a pathological liar, and Jade knows that Rose suspects this, and Rose has a hunch that Jade might know that Rose knows this. Something cold passes between them – for Jade, the tired feeling of not being understood by a dear friend. For Rose, it is only a curious and wounded suspicion, for how could the one girl she’s known the longest make something like this up? For attention, for bragging rights? Rose does not know what to call it.
Ah, but then here’s the sound of Madame Lalonde trundling down the hall. Tonight she hums something low and indistinct, and as her footsteps creak, Jade sees the weariness leak into Rose’s features. Her mouth settles into a soft frown, and then her thumb is switching the flashlight off. She throws the blanket off of their heads, and both girls breathe in the air.
“We have lessons tomorrow,” Rose murmurs into her pillow once she’s thrown herself under the quilt. It’s true. Jade meets her Arabic tutor not long after eleven, and Rose has violin even earlier than that. “You should try to sleep, Gigi.”
The use of her nickname – the sounded-out version of her chumhandle’s abbreviation – reassures Jade and calms her down. She lowers herself gently, breathing in the lavender scent of the pillow that’s become more familiar than her own room. There is an unspoken challenge about Roses words – just try and tell me again that you go to a golden moon in your sleep. Rose’s eyes are already shut, and Jade searches her face.
Perhaps we should take a few steps back.
It is a brilliant and unseasonably warm day in Maple Valley, Washington. The air is crisp, the sun a little too bright. The wind blows in from the neighboring village, Hauntswitch – so classified a village because the WASPs who founded it thought that it might increase property value. For the beginning of December, Roxanne Lalonde barely needs a coat. She folds her arms inside of her stark black shawl, and the corner of her mouth twitches when she sees Dr. Harley reappear from the car. The shadow of trunks and suitcases can be seen from the curb.
Today is December the first, 1996.
“I shouldn’t be here,” Roxanne says. Dr. Harley looks at her, and it’s hard for him to tell if she’s angry, but her crumpled eyebrows can be seen past her circular sunglasses. “If you would only let me use the jet like you said you’d ‘consider,’” she complains, tossing up air quotes with manicured hands, “I’d be in Houston in plenty of time. I could be back here before that crater has time to stop smoking.”
Dr. Harley says nothing. It drives Roxanne crazy when he does this – that is, leaving her in such long pauses that she falls into a trench of doubt. Perhaps he hopes she’ll draw her own conclusions if he stays quiet and lets her figure out the answer for herself.
They stand watching the sky, eyeing the little white clouds sail past. Roxanne thinks they move unusually quickly. Maybe they’re hurrying out of the way before the impact arrives.
“That meteor isn’t meant for you, Roxanne.”
“I can’t want what’s best for my children?”
She flinches as soon as she says it. She isn’t even thirty yet, the ink on her master’s degree barely dry – to think she’s about to be responsible for another living creature that only has two legs. Jesus. It’s terrifying, but somehow so exciting she feels her lungs balloon with yellow joy. Whenever that child comes blasting out of the sky, she will already be head over heels.
“What’s best is committing yourself to what you know you’re able to accomplish. You cannot stretch yourself out like that, and we both know it. All you can do is let her know she’s loved.”
A sharp wind passes through, rattling Roxanne’s earrings. In some street behind them, two excited dogs bark at one another with the shared joy of meeting a new friend.
It smarts to hear this from him. If all this research is to be believed, if Roxanne can trust the primordial stew of memories that bubbles up in her sleep and pricks at the surface with the sharp tang of a forgotten name, then her child will soon be out there, and they will be in a nameless danger that chills her to the nerve. But that meteor is not for Roxanne.
Of course he would never understand how badly she wants to swoop to that child’s aid, to rescue them from the savage sun and glinting skyscrapers. He doesn’t understand how many people she’d be willing to beat back with the full weight of her Michael Kors bag. For Dr. Harley, it’s always been hard to differentiate parenting and apprenticeship. Sometimes your daughter becomes nothing more than your protégé. Well, in her case, at least. Isn’t the first child always the guinea pig?
“Are you still thinking about New York?” he finally asks.
“Are you still thinking about the Pacific fucking Ocean?” Roxanne bites back.
“Language, Roxanne.” His gruff tone nearly makes her bite down hard on her bright pink nails – a habit from childhood. “In any case, I wish you would stay. The kids will want you here.”
“They’ll want you here even more.”
For an instant so brief she’ll later be sure she imagined it, Dr. Harley almost seems to shift uncomfortably. Surely he didn’t. Dr. Harley’s boots always stay firmly on the ground. An unmovable object minus the unstoppable force.
“I know.”
“What about the little straggler? The one in April?”
Her father-slash-tutor’s face turns stony again. Dr. Harley pushes his glasses up, his moustache twitching.
“It’s out of our control.”
Where’s that fast forward button again? Ah, yes.
It is Thursday, and this means that Jude Harley has allowed himself the day off. The client for whom he’s writing Martians Stole My Farmland for Interstellar Condominiums doesn’t expect the second draft for another month. This one is lenient, as they all tend to be – they want to slap their name on a kitschy Amazon bestseller without actually having to sit down and type it out. The perk of being a ghost writer is that you have your own schedule, but it’s only a perk if you have good time management skills. Jude has no such thing.
The front door rattles – a fault with the deadlock he keeps meaning to fix – and there’s the daily sound of Jade dumping her bag on the floor and sighing, followed by the clicking nails of Becquerel coming to greet his favorite human. The long uphill trudge towards Harley Manor always leaves her winded, and her mumbles sound weary as she stoops to talk to her dog. Then her footsteps pitter out, probably lost as she wanders into the kitchen. Jude closes out of his Internet tab and shuts his computer. What sounds much better than writing novellas about extraterrestrial land development is hanging out with his baby sister.
Jude always decides to wait a while before going down to bug Jade. He knows from experience how annoying it can be to have your guardian fall upon you like carrion the minute you walk through the door, even if it comes from a good place. When he finally treads downstairs in his “working slippers” (the Area 51 pair he bought on a long stretch of Nevada highway), Jade is sitting on the marble counter. The heels of her Mary Janes thump against the wood as she swings her legs. She’s already yanked off her woolen uniform sweater; the embroidered emblem of Antler Creek Middle School looks nightmarish inside-out, white stag eyes bulging.
“Hey, Josie and the Pussycats,” Jude says. He snatches the box of Froot Loops from her hands and grabs a handful. By the back door, Becquerel lifts his head at the sound and rests it once more on his paws when he realizes it isn’t doggy treats.
“Hello, Jason and the Argonauts.”
They can go back and forth like this until the other relents and changes the subject. Both are unsure how this tradition started – it may have been when a small and inarticulate Jade was utterly incapable of telling the family names apart.
“How’s school, Judith and Holofernes?”
Jade shrugs. The uniform makes her look muted, gray and white plaids dampening the girl who can’t go a day without pastel. When she rolls her sleeves up, Jude sees the rainbow bands hidden on her wrist. “Pretty cool. Me and Rose finally figured out where the gap between the bookshelves in the library goes. We asked the librarian for a call number that doesn’t exist and took it from there.”
“Is that the truth?” Jude plants a hand on his hip. “Don’t leave me hanging, what’s the scoop? Is it coal miner treasure? Flint arrowhead reserves?”
“Actually, I think it was more of a spider reserve.”
Jude shudders, then picks a tuft of white silk from Jade’s hair. It’s puffed up towards the end where she always gets tired of straightening it.
“The more you know, right?”
Jude hops up onto the opposite counter, leaning his head against the glass cabinet doors which house the china. The grandfather clock in the dining room can be heard, the heavy pendulum swinging back and forth. One of many clocks in the manor that are wholly out of sync, chiming their hours minutes apart. An uneven metronome for the rhythm of the household.
“Wanna play ‘Antiques Roadshow?’” Jude asks.
Jade’s face splits into a smile, and she crunches on a last Froot Loop.
“Antiques Roadshow” is the Harley way of assessing the mounds of priceless treasures their father left behind. Game trophies of grizzlies and moose, taxidermy foxes and mountain lions. Sparkling bits of obelisks unearthed from expeditions in the Gulf, friezes and incomplete suits of armor and skeletons of jungle snakes. Specimens in bell-shaped jars, urns rimmed with malachite, sparkling English plates used only once for a Georgian banquet. They seep into the cracks of his absence and exude a dusty sadness, and no matter how much space they fill, the halls always give a horribly lonely echo. This house was not meant for two people and a dog – it never was. The Roadshow gives it all life and humor once again, reclaiming those countless artifacts from the late Dr. Harley’s imposing shadow.
Jude thinks he’s done well with this one. In the parlor, Jade sits with her legs crossed on the gilded-edged sofa. It coughs with age each time she shifts. Jude adjusts his imaginary tie and presents a painting from one of the drawing rooms.
“Now, Miss Harley, today you’ve brought us this wonderful find. Tell us the story of how this incredible painting came into your possession.”
“Well,” Jade starts, planting a hand on her chest, “This has been hanging in my family home for over twenty years. It was my great aunt’s, and she always claimed it was painted by blind opossums. I just thought it was the most charming thing, and following her untimely death after brawling with a nightclub bouncer, I’ve been keeping it right over the fireplace.”
“Your great aunt was not far off the mark,” Jude sniffs. “What we have here is a classic example of Danish Raccoonism, which ran for a short period in the eighteenth century. When an increase of starving artists led to a number of Danish masters losing their hands for bread pilfering, many took to training the raccoons who came to pick the crumbs of slob from their naked bodies. By using their feet to splatter the paint, an artist could create a work of art by coaxing his flea-ridden colleague across the canvas. What we’re left with is an impressionistic, bold statement piece far before Manet’s time. Truly remarkable work.”
In reality, this could be a Seurat – neither sibling are very interested in art history. It might even be some Fauve lost to history, who knows! In any case, it doesn’t mesh with the Dr.’s tastes at all. He probably acquired it with the goal of selling it off for a higher bid later, but never got the chance to complete the investment.
"Who ever knew that an unholy sewer gremlin could produce such beautiful work?” Jade gasps. Underneath the sofa, Bec yawns and stretches out his paws.
“It takes the dual talents of artistic genius and a knack for animal domestication.” Jude nods sagely. “Do you know how much your great aunt paid for this painting?”
“Why, I believe she threatened the local peddler with her toothbrush shiv from Alcatraz until he gave it up and left town!”
“She was a wise buyer. We can see a few tears in the upper left corner – perhaps a mark left behind by our frothing co-artist – and that can work for or against the final price. You may also wish to get it reframed. This one simply won’t do! Frankly, it smells of rotting garbage. Perhaps leftover from the raccoons as well?”
“No, my great aunt just lived in squalor.”
“Very well. Do you want to guess how much this specimen is worth?”
Jade rubs her chin. “I’d say… two Snapple bottle caps and a box of Marlboro’s.”
Jude places his hands together and steeples his fingers. “Miss Harley… you may be pleased to know... that this painting is worth a whole half-dollar.”
Jade fakes a swoon, throwing her wrist limply over her forehead and collapsing against the pillows. Filled with genuine alarm, Becquerel leaps up and licks her face.
It is five thirty on an otherwise insignificant Friday, and that means that Jade Harley and Rose Lalonde have been released from Friday school. It also means that Joey Claire has risked a speeding ticket from the Maple Valley Police in order to pick them up in time, on top of kicking out two students who were taking too long to get their street clothes on while she was locking up the dance studio. She could leave them to wait for her on the front steps if she wanted – it’d teach them a lesson, probably – but Joey shivers at the thought of them giving up and walking home after the sun has already set.
“I really don’t know why you girls insist on getting yourselves detention so often,” Joey sighs. “This’ll bite you in the ass when you’re applying for college. You wanna know how many apps I filled out that asked for my disciplinary record? A lot.”
Jade and Rose sit in the back of her SUV, looking in opposite directions. Jade rubs a patch of rough plastic on the armrest, while Rose picks at the stitching on the strap of her messenger bag. They look sullen, but Joey knows that they’re trying to fool her – smirking and giggling at each other before she pulled up to get them, Joey is fully aware that these kids don’t regret shit.
She sees a lot of herself in them. Not in any part due to shared genetics, seeing as there are none, but maybe spending enough time in that crazy house on the hill just does something to a kid. Especially if that house is devoid of the person who made it crazy in the first place. After a certain point, Joey stopped being satisfied with being ignored. It wasn’t enough to hole herself up in her room and play her SNES and flip through Livejournal. And then it wasn’t enough to line the back wall with mason jars from the basement and knock them off one by one with stones. And then it wasn’t enough to be a good, bright, promising student, so she added frequent detention to the list of ways to fill her time. It hurt her teachers to see her “waste her potential” – it might’ve hurt her mom, too, if she was mentally present enough to notice. Joey is sure that Rose would love to use her as a lab rat for her kiddie playtime psychiatrist sessions. She’d take out a Squiddles! notepad and jot down notes about how the disappearance of her father and its absence of closure contributed to Joey’s more outrageous behavior as years went on.
“Look, okay… actually doing stupid shit, I get. Really, I get it! You have no clue how much stuff I got away with in school. Sure, I never got ‘Save Joey’ spray-painted on a local water tower, but I had a reputation, y’know? When Jude got to high school, his teachers were always keeping an eye on him because they thought he’d turn out like me.” Joey chews her gum loudly like she always does when she’s driving, drumming her fingers on the wheel as she waits to turn out of the high school’s driveway. “The trick is getting away with it, though. I don’t care what you get up to, but can’t you be more subtle about it?”
“I don’t see the purpose of not getting credit where credit is due,” Rose mumbles from the back. Jade snorts at this and then purses her lips, disguising it as a cough. Joey glances at them from the rearview mirror and blinks slowly.
“What did you even do this time? Rearrange the World Book encyclopedias to say ‘Boob Dick?’”
Rose smiles, and in the mirror Joey can see her lick her front teeth to get the lipstick off. Joey was certain that Roxanne’s little Punky Brewster would leave the black makeup behind in sixth grade, but the goth phase is still going strong.
"Nope!” Jade pipes up. Joey flinches at the suddenness of her low, whistling voice. “The biology teacher has lunch during the same period as us, so we went to the room where she keeps the frogs and we –”
“Okay, okay, nevermind!” Joey interrupts. “Forget I asked.”
On the radio, a Nirvana song Joey has never liked comes on. She flips to a few of her other presets, then turns the radio off when they all turn out to be commercials. The car in front of them is cruising at a nice twenty miles per hour, so Joey mumbles something under her breath and switches into the next lane.
Jade fumbles with the front pocket of her backpack and gets out her phone. Rose watches out of the corner of her eye as Jade opens Pesterchum.
-- gardenGnostic [GG] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] at 15:41 --
GG: did you ever find out what happened to the last frog?
GG: the one with the messed up leg, i mean
Rose feels her phone vibrate from the shallow pocket in her uniform skirt, then fishes it out and reads the notification on her lock screen.
TT: Ah yes, good old Toadlouse-Lautrec.
TT: Where did you last see him?
GG: pretty sure he disappeared down the uncovered vent in the english depts hallway :/ or maybe that was the other one… they all look so similar
TT: Wrong.
GG: ??
TT: Would you like to phone a friend?
GG: as a matter of fact YES. i choose my smart and lovely friend miss rose. ring ring ring!!!!
TT: You’ve reached the Lalonde landline. How may I help you?
GG: yes i am looking for a very slippery amphibian friend of mine who may have gotten lost on a classic round of wacky antics. would you happen to know where he is????
TT: Check your bag.
Jade blinks, confused, and feels something thump inside of her backpack. She unzips the main zipper, making sure that Joey’s eyes are on the road, and slowly peers inside. Then she makes eye contact with a crooked-legged frog sitting on top of her pencil bag. Jade coughs loudly to cover up its subsequent ribbit.
"Are you getting sick or something?” Joey asks. Her turn signal clicks, and then they’re two blocks from the wooden sign declaring the beginning of Hauntswitch Village.
“No!” Jade says. “Just have a frog in my throat, I guess.”
Rose bursts into laughter at this, and Joey rolls her eyes.
It is very unusual having a birthday in the same week as your best friend. Ms. Lalonde has been cracking jokes about it all week – two Big Thirteens in just a matter of days must mean terrible tidings. Too bad the Lalonde’s don’t have a black cat anymore. Then the imaginary symbolism would really be complete.
Rose has been spending the last couple of nights at Harley Manor. The entire time frame has been a haze, tote bags of pajamas and toothbrushes sprawled on the floor among backpacks and imminently due homework. Rose is unabashed with her love for the house. Something about the dusty smell settling into the Persian rugs and the spots of black tarnish on every hall mirror simply can’t compare to her own home’s white, sterile, modern art museum vibe. She’s competing with Jade on who can find the grossest heirloom to sneak on top of their combo birthday cake without rendering it inedible. A Very Addam’s Family Birthday.
The Harley’s basement is unusable, so they spend most of their time in Jade’s room. It used to be Joey’s – ancient glow-in-the-dark stars stick to the ceiling, a height chart carved into the doorframe with multicolored pens, deep scratches on the bottom of the door from where their previous dog must have clawed at it. It’s much too big a room for just one child, Rose thinks as she lazes in the window alcove. The sun filters in past the hanging pots of ferns, bright and fuzzy, and Rose adjusts the purple Squiddle she’s appropriated as a pillow.
“Are you asleep?” Jade asks from her bed. Her music plays softly from the speaker of her laptop.
Rose’s eyes flutter open to the electrical thrumming. She stretches her legs out, her fleece pajama pants creating static against the seat cushion.
“Not yet,” she murmurs.
Outside, a crow drones in the tree branches. The late afternoon sun warms Rose’s face, and Jade watches the consciousness slip from her face. Her folded fingers relax, her fringes falling out of her face. And then she really is asleep. Finally. Jade rolls over and pulls the blanket up to her chest, grinning.
Rose lurches awake and is surprised to find that her arms are prickled with goosebumps. A cold draft puffs in through the crack in Jade’s window – her window? – but she can hardly feel it through the eerie sensation of floating outside her body.
There are men in the room. Rose inhales sharply and pulls her comforter to her chin. Hers! Yes, this is her room, but since when was it so purple? Since when were her pajamas so smooth?
There are still men in the room. Stupid, stupid, don’t get distracted! Rose blinks to adjust to the violet and the lime green splattering her walls and sees that there are two shiny, stout little men standing over an open hatch in the floor. Where did her door go? Ah, but that’s not important right now, because the little men have spears, very deadly-looking ones at that, and neither of them seem pleased. But Rose is not their subject of interest at the moment.
“This is an unlawful entry of royal property!” one of them barks. Their faces are obsidian, insectoid jaws clicking together like a crustacean’s. “Delivery of postal material is forbidden without going through the Dersite Customs Office!”
“Yeah, yeah, so you can tear the packaging apart and dump it in the trash?” their captive shoots back. Her voice is high and airy, and her exoskeleton is a blinding white against the guards on either side of her. Her hat is askew, a dingy messenger bag slung over her chest. Rose examines her hands, grasping at her own neck where the spears interlock to restrain her, and sees that they’re jointed like a doll’s.
This has to be a dream, Rose thinks. The fact that this thought occurs to her is surprising in itself – she’s never been so self-aware in her sleep that she could identify a dream while it was unfolding. Everything is just a bit too crisp, a little sharp at the edges, a little cold. Rose becomes aware of a heavy darkness just outside her window.
“Our screening methods are none of your concern,” the other guard says in a gravelly tone. “What is your concern is how big a fine you’ll spit out for barging into the princess’ tower with potentially sabotaged mail.”
Rose pushes her fringe out of her face and lowers her quilt. “Excuse me…?”
The white figure scoffs. “Sabotaged! Sir, I have dignity, dignity that is directly tied to me delivering this post in one piece. If you expect me to leave my job at your doorstep and trust the rest to those careless slobs, you have another thing coming!”
Rose swallows the cotton in her throat. “Excuse me!”
The argument screeches to a halt, and three monochrome heads turn to look at her. The guards seem shocked that she’s awake at all. Their spears lower from the mailwoman’s neck, and one of them elbows the other.
Her heart continues to thump. Now that she’s got their attention, she doesn’t know what to do with it. Rose’s legs curl under the quilt, and she turns her gaze to the white-shelled little figure.
“I believe you have mail for me?” Rose asks.
The mailwoman nods, a relieved look crashing over her, and as she steps forward the guards take her by the wrists.
“Where do you think you’re going?” one snaps.
“She thinks she’s doing her job,” Rose replies coolly. “And she’ll do it.” She forces a small smile. “Well, what do you have there?”
The guards grudgingly let her go, and the postwoman clears her throat. She makes her way over to Rose until she’s a foot away from the bed, her bare feet thunking hollowly on the damask carpet, and then her doll hand dives into the messenger bag. She takes out a single envelope, thin and unbent, and hands it dutifully across the sheets. Her stance gives her the appearance of a recruited soldier on the first day of boot camp.
Rose takes the envelope, and as soon as the parcel is out of her hands, the postwoman snaps her bag shut. She gives her a questioning look, a slight are-you-going-to-help-me-out-of-this tilt of the head, and Rose purses her lips.
“You called me a princess, yes?” Rose asks the guards.
They look at each other, blinking their beetle eyes slowly.
“Well… yes, that’s what you are.”
“All right. I can work with that.” Rose straightens the violet cuffs of her long sleeves. “Well, your princess is awake. And my first decree is that you let this woman get on with her route.”
“We… well, if that’s… what….” They trail off, murmuring to each other and shrugging. Then they rest the butts of their spears on the carpet, and one of them stands aside to allow the mailwoman down the hatch.
She gives an inaudible sigh, shoots Rose a look of gratitude, and in seconds the bright white mark of her is gone. When her footsteps fade, the guards give awkward bows and follow her down. Then Rose is alone again.
A few moments are spent examining the room before Rose even remembers the envelope in her hands. The silence is deafening, a churning and uncomfortable sound exuding from somewhere outside the walls. It rings in her hears and makes the purple sickly. She breathes in a smell like nighttime, a smell like fine dust and pennies and TV static, and when her fingers clench she jumps at the sound of crinkling paper.
Ah, right. The mail. Rose digs one finger under the flap, mangling it in the process. Her fingernails aren’t long enough to shear it open – the result of a bad habit. Finally the crumpled envelope gives way to show a single slip of paper inside, and Rose tugs it out. It’s folded over nice and neatly, and from the blank side, Rose can already tell that there’s scarcely a full sentence written on it. She wills her shaking fingers to settle, still unaccustomed to this foreign and cumbersome new body, unfolds the note, and feels a massive weight of retrospective embarrassment crash down on her.
Meet me on Prospit!
<3 Gigi