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Slate gray cliffs. Mossy pastures. Forever repeating days. The air itself, thick with the weight of the sameness that September 3rd, 1940 Carinholm forever had. It all blended together in a messy life Victor had begun to dread as the days, weeks, years, passed by. Decades spent subconsciously rotting away in the agony of being trapped in the day over and over and over, never growing, never changing.
He sat on a rock ledge overlooking the sea, hidden by the tall oak trees and the various hills surrounding the area. He watched the horizon attentively, as if daring it to shift, to surprise him, to be anything other than what it had been yesterday. Nothing. The waves crashed against the shore below the cliff’s edge, in the same pattern as always.
Behind him came the soft crunch of footing on the leaves and sticks that lay on the damp woodland floor. He didn’t need to look to know who it was.
“Vic, you’ve been out here for hours…” Bronwyn said gently. He felt her kneel before taking a seat next to him, throwing her legs over the edge, mirroring his. He didn't dare look at her, keeping his gaze on the vast horizon.
Victor grunted. “Better out here than in there,” he mumbled.
“In where?”
The house. Cairnholm. This loop. Take your pick. He sighed, slumping forward, pulling his knees up to his chest and laying his forearms on them. He was conflicted between speaking his truth or staying content with a lie.
“Nothing.” He picked the rather.
Victor felt the slight shift from his sister. He knew without looking that she was reading him like an open book. It was almost unfair, how she always seemed to know when something was troubling him. He thought it was a sibling thing, but he had seen the same ability used in various scenarios with the others as well. It was a Bronwyn thing.
“You’re feeling troubled again,” she said. “I can hear it in your voice and see it in your body language.”
He’s usually better at keeping his negative emotions in toll, but these past couple of months (or so he thinks; keeping track has been getting more difficult) have been compact with more intrusive thoughts. He slowly was starting to wish he had spoken the truth moments ago. “I’m alright.” He thought about it for a second, before running a hand through his hair. “All right, maybe I’m not. I just…” The truth. At least a part of it. “...Do you ever think about it, ‘Wyn? About how strange this is, to live the same day over and over, like…like rats in a cage?”
Victor glanced over at Bronwyn for the first time since she joined him. She folded her hands in her lap, sitting up straighter. She looked to be contemplating his question with her own troubled thoughts as she stared out into the sea.
“I…am not sure, Victor. Do…you ever think about it?”
She had a solemn, deep look in her eyes, one Victor doesn’t see from her a lot: she already knew the answer, she just wanted to hear it from him.
Victor laughed slightly, before sighing and turning away. “I…ugh, I feel like I’m rotting here Bronwyn, ok?” He surprised himself with his agitation, but continued. “Every day the same blasted thing. No one changes, nothing moves forward. I don’t know how much longer I can stand it! I…I feel like I’m being swallowed whole and it is suffocating me, ‘Wyn! How do you, or Millard, or Hugh or anyone else go through day by day and continue to be-”
Bronwyn firmly wrapped her arms around him, throwing Victor off of his spiral. She hugged him tight, but with a softness that only she could manage. He felt himself choke up, tears forming in his eyes, before putting his own arms around her. Victor doesn’t know how long they stayed like that. Seconds, minutes. Bronwyn was the one to finally pull away, looking at her brother with a pained but maskfully happy expression. He saw tears in her eyes just as he felt them in his own.
“Victor,” she said softly, “I may not completely understand how you feel, but I know you. Always the free spirit…hehe, remember the time Miss Peregrine caught you arm wrestling various attendees in The Priest Hole?.”
He chuckled. “How embarrassed they were…I would have been crowned champion of arm wrestling if I had gotten to the last couple men in there.”
“I do not doubt it, Vic. That, and when you were caught in Mrs. Fiddlesten’s tree knocking acorns off of the branches and onto her children’s heads?-”
“Ok, ok, hey, no need to bring that up! Besides, Millard was alongside me, he is just to blame for that. Plus, those kids were annoying…” He whispered the last part, but Bronwyn seemed to hear anyway. She heartily laughed, then took a deep breath in and out of her mouth.
“Moments like that…are what keep me going.”
Oh Bronwyn. Caring, optimistic Bronwyn.
Bronwyn touched his shoulder, steadying. “These moments that you hold, do they not keep your love for our island?”
Caring, optimistic, naive Bronwyn.
Victor sighed, resting his hand on top of where hers laid on his shoulder. “No, Bronwyn. Not anymore. Every time the day resets, it feels smaller, like the world’s shrinking in on itself. And I hate it, Wyn. I…I hate this island.”
“You don’t hate it. You hate what it makes you feel.”
He glanced at her, brow furrowed. Philosophical Bronwyn. “What’s the difference?”
“The difference is, the cliffs. the grass. The days that go on. You want more than this life can give, and I don’t blame you. This life…is not what either of us could have expected. But don’t turn your anger on Cairnholm itself. It won’t change anything, it’ll only make you bitter.”
Victor blew out a long breath, his body deflating just slightly. “You always do that.”
“Do what?”
Take the stones out of my chest. Provide me a comfort I didn’t know I needed. Anchor me from the storm.
Victor didn’t answer. He turned back to view off of the edge. The waves were slowing. It was getting late.
Bronwyn took her hand off of his shoulder, and he could see her smile faintly out of his peripherals before a sorrowful stoicness ushered Victor to look back at her.
“Victor?”
“Yeah, ‘Wyn?”
“Please…” She hesitated, appearing as if contemplating words. “I am here for you no matter what, you know that, right?”
Victor was almost shocked; of course he knew that.
“Good.” The corner of her lips upturned slightly (he said that aloud?) before starting again. “...Along with that, I want you to know…I will always, always, support you Vic. No matter what you do. No matter what you…” She was tearing up. Victor both did and did not know why.
“I understand, ‘Wyn. Thank you.” Was he tearing up?
“But, I need you to do something for me. Tell me. Tell me when you are having thoughts. Whether they be like this, or of anything miniscule. I am here for you. You’re my brother. I love you, Victor.”
That hit him harder than anticipated. He knew it was true, but hearing those words, those living, loving words…
“I love you too, Bronwyn.” He initiated the hug this time, hearing faint laughs and sniffles from over his shoulder. He wishes he could do the same, but he felt a strange combination of joy and guilt. He didn't answer her that he would. He had already made up his mind on what he wanted to do. He could not tell Bronwyn, he knew she would do anything with him, and she had just confirmed that for him. He was happy now that in the moment, she was, falsely, assured. Happy. That is all he wished of her.
“Alright alright, it is late, dear brother,” Bronwyn was the one to pull away again. She did indeed look much happier than she had this entire time. “What'd you say we had back up? Miss Peregrine said after dinner, we'd make chocolate chip cookies! She went into town today and bought some ingredients for us.”
“How exciting,” Victor said as he stood up, extending a hand out for his dear sister to grab. “We just need to make sure to tell Claire and Olive to not eat all of the chocolate chips this time.”
Bronwyn laughed as she took his hand, already beginning to walk back towards the little path that had been formed between the trees and bush due to their journeys there. “Do not act like you don't join them in their antics!”
“Same to you!” He huffed out a laugh. He started his trek back up to the large house he'd considered a home, before stumbling and stopping right before he left the ledge. He looked out on the horizon again, watching, seeing for anything unrecognizable to him. Hopeful. But again, nothing.
He took a deep breath in and turned, taking in the familiarity of it all, his final time.
The waves crashed against the shore below the cliff’s edge, in the same pattern as always.