Work Text:
October 26th, 1978, 2:13 pm
Redmond, despite himself, has come to enjoy a lazy afternoon. Not that this could quite be considered such, given that this was, in fact, a working lunch. But it was just him and his girl on this one, which made him feel a bit less edgy than he normally felt on a mission. Kainis had talked him into a game of backjack. The massive jukebox in the corner is playing that Johnny Cash song - I Walk The Line.
He remembers the summer he and Nielton spent driving around the American Interior, trying to hunt down escapees and watching out for new projects. In the eyes of the Institute, it had not been a successful venture. But for just a little while, it had calmed that savage, violent thing beating in his ribcage, right under his heart. It was the summer of 1972, the hottest part of June, and he and Nielton had barely spoken since they’d left Paris in September of 1970. The Institute could be a big place when you wanted it to be, especially with Nielton’s off grounds apartment, in the Real Magnus, taken into consideration. Even with Mr. Everett’s death, Red still hadn’t been allowed into the city without a minder, like he was a child, or an ill-trained mutt, and not a full grown 26 year old man. Perhaps they thought he was a flight risk. I Walk The Line had followed them for their entire eleven thousand mile journey. Haunting them at every traffic stop and convenience store and fuel shop from the Strait of Adrastos to the Gullah Geechee Corridor and back again.
Of course he found Kainis that fall, and then things really started to change.
When he was young he hadn't thought himself capable of living past 20, most certainly not 27, and now look at him, well into his 30s and the vague approximation of a family man. Parenthood, however erstwhile it may be, had changed him. In some ways - some days really - it had made him an angrier person. More nights than he would like to admit he found himself cursing the name of his good Mamma, unable to understand how she could see an innocent child and send them away to some unknowable Hell without more than a few moments thought. Of course Redmond had never been an innocent, not truly, but some nights he wakes from a nightmare wherein Kainis is in his place and he ends up vomiting in the sink with fear and guilt and worry burning a smoking, wheezing trail behind him that smells of melted church candles and burnt cooking brandy.
In some ways this whole exercise has him wishing he could shake out of his skin, like a flearidden mangy dog, because Kainis is young, so, so young. At least Echo had been in his late teens by the time he’d joined up. Kainis is 10. She’ll turn 11 come this December. She’s a child… but if this is what it takes to keep her safe within the realms of Candlewood, so be it. He thinks of Nielton, languishing in the infirmary - he’s always been a terrible patient, too demanding, unable to give up his control, however scant it may be. God look kindly on Nielton King for coming down with a sickness so bad that Redmond could be sent without a chaperone. Kainis was easily distractible, a one on one trial mission would be for the best. Besides, Kingsey is in the good hands of the infirmary nurses, smoking out of back windows and playing his violin at odd hours until the night nurse yells at him, he’ll survive.
They could do this.
He could do this.
But first, the hard part: Starting.
They’re in some middling town in New Jersey, right on the Atlantic coast. The day is grey and overcast. They’re tucked into a booth at a retro-style diner, Mabel’s, or Maud’s - the sign had been burnt out long enough to make the words illegible - half a mile from the waterfront where he’d spied a nude beach sign out the window of their rented Lincoln Continental. They’re after a young woman, a teenager really, by the name of Miriam Abatangelo. A bright, bubbly, straight-A sophomore student at the local Roman Catholic school, who just so happens to work the afternoon shift at this very diner.
Kainis is presently scribbling in her notebook with a bright blue pen. They’re her favorite, he’d bought a big pack of them at a Piggly Wiggly when he and Nielton had gotten stranded in Tennessee back in the spring. On the front cover she has one of those “Property Of:” stickers with her name written in perfectly plain block letters. He’d told her what her real name was, when he’d been able to hunt down her birth certificate a few years back - Evelyn Kaye Kennedy - but the girl never used it. She had always perfered her project title. She spelled her name as Kainis - and when forced, called herself Kainis Bright. And if that twisted Red's heart a little each time she said it, well then that was his own cross to bear.
Kainis slaps down a seven of hearts on the metal tabletop with a smile, “I win.”
He’s never been prouder of her than when they were playing cards. The little lady is a goddamned cardshark.
A waitress comes to their table to take their order. She has short, dark, feathered hair that reminds him of a bit of Bob Dylan and an intensity to her eyes like one of those renaissance paintings of Lucifer. The name tag stitched to the front of her blue and white shirtdress reads “Miriam” - bingo.
“So what’ll you folks be having?”
Kainis looks like she’s going to jump out of her seat, he expects to smell the lemon-lime tonic scent of her excitement, but he finds nothing but the smell of frying bacon and hot coffee. Curious. So Nielton had been right about the dead zones that seemed to co-occur with Miss Abatangelo’s presence. Even sick as a dog Nielton could research better than some could with a clear head.
“I’ll have the state breakfast and a coffee.”
"And what would you like?"
Kain smiles when Miriam looks at her. Preening under the sliver of attention like a greedy pillbug under a heat lamp.
"A vanilla milkshake."
She still couldn't say her L's quite right. It reminded him of how Gus had spoken as a child, he'd had a horrible lisp. It took him years to grow out of it, he thinks Easter had said he was 15 by the time it died out. He does wonder if it ever came back. Not that he would know, Gus hadn't spoken to him in years.
Kainis looks up at him, smiling with her too sharp teeth, ostensibly her teeth - she loved to call them fangs, insisted even - where the reason behind her project title. Jane had been bald face lying when she'd said it of course. Red still suspected that it was a slight at him. Mr. Everett was the first to call him a dog, right in front of Jane, no more than a week after he had arrived at Candlewood. Kainis is missing one of her Canine teeth, on the upper right side, even though she'd lost it a year ago, but all the other adult teeth that have come in have grown in sharper than their original counterparts. Most people shy away from Kain when she smiles, he can read a moment of shock on the waitress's face, but it goes away as quickly as it came.
"Can I get pancakes too?"
"'course you can, babydoll."
“With extra butter.”
He’d let the little lady eat him out of house and home if she wanted, “One stack of pancakes with extra butter.”
Somewhere, in all his wicked life, he must have done something good, because Canis smiles up at him with her wide dark eyes, and says, "Thank you Dad."
Sure, she may just be hamming it up for their shared audience, to strengthen their set-up - that’s Nielton’s influence, he’s sure. But it makes him melt regardless, because he can count on one hand the number of times Kain has called him Dad - or two hands now he supposes.
Miriam gives a soft smile, not the customer service standard. Half of him looks forward to having someone so kind at the Institute, the other hopes that she’s a fluke too, just enough power to be noticed, but not enough to do any real damage, just like everyone else he and the Hellions have tracked down in the past two years.
“I’ll have that out to you in a jiffy.”
"Is she the one?" Kainis asks as Miriam walks away, toward the counter.
"Sure is, good eye kid."
Kain smiles wide.
Red knows just how badly the little lady wanted to prove herself. Begging to be let in on mission plans, constantly trailing after them when they sat vigil. Nielton bent to it more often than he did. But Kainis knew that Red was the soft touch of the pair of them. He’d never proven her wrong yet.
“She's a little older than you. What would you think of talkin’ to her?"
"Really?" Kain’s eyes light up, smile brighter than a camera flash.
Redmond lowers his voice into this soft haired thing - conspiratorial - as though he’s telling her a secret, “Yes, really, think of it as a mission. Your first mission."
Kainis nods along as he speaks, following every word as though he’s spouting gospel. She was wearing the earrings, the silly clip on ones that had glass stars painted to look like pearls. She said she liked the way they danced when she moved her head. She shook her head around more when she spoke - to show them off, he had to assume. It made her look a little like an alley cat shaking off the rain. Red adored it.
“Kain. Babydoll."
"Uh-huh?"
He juts his chin up, toward the back of the diner.
“Oh! Right!.” She scurries up from the table and he allows himself a small chuckle at the girl’s expense as Miriam comes back with a pot of coffee
"Is she your daughter?" she asks as Canis walks away from the table towards the bathrooms.
He always got a heart warming feeling in his chest whenever anyone asked him that. It was an easy enough thing to assume, but it still made him a little giddy, nearly 6 years on. He was allowed a few simple pleasures in his life. What few he could find.
"Yes’m, she is.”
Red stirs a few creams into the coffee. When he takes a sip it tastes like coffee grounds. It reminds him of Nielton, who had burned every pot of coffee he’s ever made. It reminds him of home.
“She’s adorable.”
“Don’t think I quite had a part in that, but thank you miss.”
The young Miss Abatangelo laughs a bit and steps away to another table.
The thought crosses his mind, for a few moments, that he wasn’t but a few months older than her when he was given went off to the Institute. But then Kainis slips back into her side of the booth opposite him - back to the door - and he lets the thought lie. Dwelling on the past doesn’t do no one no good.
•-•-•-•-•
October 26th, 1978, 6:27 pm
Miriam doesn't know why the hell her sisters are so fucking difficult. At least Reba had an excuse, she's nine, and nine is a horrible age, but Irey and Clau are in middle school, they should be beyond stealing her shit. She had to interrogate Robby for 20 whole minutes to find out where her lipstick had gone. The dumbasses always hid stuff they took from her in his room, as though they thought it was free territory. Robby, for his part, thought it was hilarious to watch her yell and crow, even when it was directed at him, the little shit.
She already took the lasagna out of the fridge and put it in the oven, which means that she’s done the bare minimum needed for her to allow herself to up sticks and leave for the night. Went said he wanted to meet on the pier after sunset and if one more thing keeps her up she swears to god she's going to hit someone.
"Clau!" She hollers up the stairs, not even dignifying her sisters with entering their room.
"What the fuck do you want?"
"If you watch Mark for me I won't tell Ma you talk like that when she isn't home."
She swears can hear Claudia’s sigh from a floor down, "You suck."
"I'll call her right now, I'm sure she'd love to come home from the Phillips' house just for this."
She hears Irey laugh, as Clau forces out a furious little, "Fine."
"Thanks Cloudy."
"Go to Hell Miriam."
"I'll give you Hell, shortstop," she muttered, moreso to herself than anyone else.
She slams the door when she leaves, just to be an ass. Sincerity was something she hadn't had time for in years.
Miriam has always had the sense that she's got awful luck. Nothing ever seemed to go quite right around her. Susie had said it reminded her of some comic book or another that her brother wouldn't stop talking about. But who cared what Suze said, she was an overzealous friend-stealing bitch.
She's halfway down the block before she manages to pull on her jacket. She has her secondhand pocket copy of Jane Erye in the inner pocket of her jacket, tucked right alongside the carton of Lucky Strikes and her tarnished secondhand Zippo - just in case Went's late. Her bronze St. Christopher medallion is heavy and warm against her ribcage.
Tomorrow is her 16th birthday, her Nonna's making her favorite Rum Cake and she and the girls - sans Susie, thank god - were going to see a showing of Halloween. Marlene's boyfriend was going to sneak them in a side door so they could watch it without having to fork over money for tickets. Tomorrow is her 16th birthday - ipso facto, good times are in order. She stopped feeling guilty about this ages ago, she should get to have fun, to be free. And if she shows off that freedom by messing around with the local pretty faced drifter, then that was no one's business but hers.
Went's tall and blonde and looks like one of those West Coast movie stars. Like the actor in those old Jack Draper detective movies her Ma loves so much. Although she doesn't think Jack Draper would wear so much leather. But what did she know? Ma was the Ron Faraday fan, not her. Sure, Miriam read all the gossip rags, but they were the only reading material at the diner besides cigar magazines, and she already learned enough about those from her Pops.
She’s headed out towards Spencer’s Pier - it’s old and defunct now, but it used to be a big entertainment hot-spot, like one of the boardwalks in Atlantic City, with carnival games and a ferris wheel and all that other junk tourist’s love. It’s been closed down since she was a kid, but that hadn’t stopped it from becoming a regular hang out spot for local kids. April Chisholm, who works the same shift as her at the diner, claimed she lost her virginity in the House of Mirror’s last summer. No one else is really out on the street this time of night. If it had been summer it’d be a different story, but at this time of year the nightlife is non-existent. The last tourists came through a month ago, and now the town’s back to its offseason population of three thousand-odd residents. Everyone hunkered down in their homes, hoping to survive the already listless start to the fall.
The wind is low tonight, but it cuts at her all the same. She’d all but ruined her suede coat when it started pouring halfway through a bonfire last weekend, so she’s wearing her leather penny shop coat instead. Except, the fucking thing has no lining, so she’s shivering a little as she shuffles down the street, hands shoved deep down into her pockets because gloves are for losers.
Marlene liked to say she was enigmatic. Sheila had said that was just a nice way to say crazy, but Sheila had gone with Susie when the friend group split, so she was practically dead to Miriam now anyway. Deena said that Sheila was a grade-A bitch for calling Miriam that, so at least Susie had good company.
She catches something - or someone, rather - up ahead, under the warm glow of a streetlamp; It's the little girl from the diner, she can't be much older than Reba. The girl’s eyes shine oddly under the hazy light, like a dog’s would. She’s wearing a quilted denim jacket that looks a size or two too big for her. It reminds Miriam of the coats Ma would dress Robby in when he was little. Making him up like a baby James Dean. The girl looks worried - lost.
"Ya need help finding your dad?” Miriam calls out, words misting into the night.
The girl nods, and says something that Miriam can’t quite hear, so she trots down the sidewalk until they’re both under the light of the same streetlamp.
“Where’d you last see him?”
“Downtown. I’ve been looking for him for an hour.”
Jesus, poor kid, “What’s your name?”
“Kainis.”
“That’s a pretty name.”
“It’s Greek. From Metamorphoses,” the girl - Kainis - smiles when she says it, “It means Knife. Mr. Nielton said so, and he’s the smartest person I know.”
“Like Ovid?”
What 10 year old knows Ovid?
Kainis hums an affirmative, twisting something small and shiny between her fingers. A coin, maybe? No, no, it's a silver dollar. Like the kind Robby has a fleet of propped up on the lip of his bedroom mirror.
“Is your dad a professor?”
“Nah, he works at a research institute.”
They’d seemed nice that afternoon, the girl and her father. Out-of-towners without a doubt, but nice. The stop in and top up type who would spend a night in town at most, before leaving in the late morning or early in the afternoon. April called the ones that showed up at the diner flyovers, which Miriam thought was stupid. The girl’s dad had a pretty distinctive accent, Louisianan she thinks. But the girl, well she’s not quite sure, Great Lakes maybe? No. Maybe the Pacific? She and April had made a game of it over the summer, trying to guess where different customers were from. Making up scandalous backstories for them, and insane reasons for them showing up in town at all. Open season for judgmental bullshit because you’d never see those people again. Except for Went.
Went had rolled into town in the spring, when the tourist season started back up, doing the odd jobs at that time of year naturally brought with it. Mechanic for the rides that came in downtown, door man for one of the local clubs, an extra barback at the pub, the works. But Went hadn’t left with the jobs, he’d stuck around, he’d stuck around for her. Who in their right mind wouldn’t call that romantic? Miriam was absolutely hopelessly charmed. Went said stupid shit like "put in on my tab" when he stopped in at the diner. She found it endearing. April made fun of her for it of course. But that's why she's a work friend, not a real friend.
“Where’d you last see him?”
“The pub parking lot, but I checked 15 minutes ago, and I didn’t see the car.”
“You folks staying in town?”
Kainis shakes her head, “No.”
Miriam catches sight of the street sign and finds that they’re walking towards the pier. All roads lead to Rome, she thinks with a laugh.
“You’ve lived here your whole life?”
“I was born here.”
“Do you want to leave?” Asks Kainis, tilting her head like a questioning border collie, “The whole place looks like it’s dying.”
“Morbid much?”
The girl stares at her intently, like she’s trying to answer a question. Some nebulous, odd thing that Miriam doesn’t - or can’t - understand.
Kainis opens her mouth as though to say something, or scent the air like a snake, but she stops dead in her tracks. Feet planted frimly on the concrete of the sidewalk. She wips her head around, as though expecting something that doesn’t come. The coin fails from her finger and lands on it's edge on the pavement.
"Are you alright?"
Miriam hands the girl the coin back, the silver dollar shining under the orange light of the streetlamps.
In lieu of answering, Kainis says, “Mr. Nielton says that all tourist towns die eventually.”
That’s the second time she’s said that name.
“Mr. Nielton?”
“My Dad’s friend.”
Kainis says friend with the same cadence Deena talks about her Uncle’s "roommate."
“Have you ever wondered if your life would be different, if you left this place and never came back?”
In the gap between buildings she can spy the Pier, the rusting, shadowy forms of that old alter to entertainment, she swears that she can see a person crouched along the railing, silhouetted in the dark.
“Of course I have,” Miriam hesitates as she says it, and she doesn’t know why, nothing she says tonight will matter, because this kid is an incidental. A tourist. A flyover.
“Nobody wants to stay in the same place forever.”
“No, no they don’t.”
She wonders sometimes, when Went leaves, if she’ll get the gall to follow him. She doesn’t just want to be living in the world, she wants, badly, in a soul deep, bone clenching way, to be a part of the world. One day she will stand in a grand library in some city so old it breathes, and she will see her name on its shelves. It was just that simple. Not that she actually believes she’ll ever really do it. She knows, in her heart of hearts, that she’ll end up back in this town, one way or another. No matter what she does or who she becomes, she’ll end up rotting in the sea just like the old gods of entertainment on Spencer’s Pier.
That hope clawing at her ribs always made her think of her favorite line in all of Emily of New Moon.
“It had always seemed to Emily, ever since she could remember, that she was very, very near to a world of wonderful beauty. Between it and herself hung only a thin curtain; she could never draw the curtain aside-- but sometimes, just for a moment, a wind fluttered it and then it was as if she caught a glimpse of the enchanting realm beyond-- only a glimpse-- and heard a note of unearthly music.”
•-•-•-•-•
As they watch the dying neons dance on the blacktop, Miriam hopes that if she ever has kids, that they aren’t ever stuck, like she is.
They - her and the girl - are sitting on the candy red bench out of the diner, when a car pulls into the lot. It’s a 1970 Lincoln Continental, painted all in Light Gold, same make and model as Marlene’s. She remembers thinking just that when it pulled into the parking lot while she was taking a smoke break.
“I think that’s your dad’s car.”
“Thank you Miss Abatangelo.”
The formal title makes her nose itch, “Sure kid, of course.”
Miriam gives a wave to the girl’s father as Kainis slips into the passenger seat.
What a weird fucking kid.
It’s got to be past 9 now, she’ll be lucky if she gets home before her parents do. She wonders if Went waited up for her, and if he did, how long he waited while staring out at the sea. His eyes looked best at sunset. The dying sun turned his eyes into sea glass.
Hopefully she can make it up to Went tomorrow.
•-•-•-•-•
I was a child and she was a child in that kingdom by the sea.
•-•-•-•-•
Kainis is curled up on herself in the passenger sit as he merges onto the highway, “She’s not stock," her face falls, “Did I do something wrong?"
"Of course not doll face, c'mere,” Red clutches her close, for as long as she lets him, the cold sloughing off of her body and sinking into his bones.
“Being near her made my mind quiet,” Kainis mumbles into the vicinity of his shoulder.
He scents the air and is met with the mint gum sharpness of her admission.
“No voices?” He asks, flipping on the heat.
“No voices,” she confirms.
He doesn’t speak it aloud, but he thinks Kainis is wrong. He believes Miss Abatangelo is, in fact, of Candlewood stock.
He thinks of Maree and her boy, who’s not yet two and half, Richie. He thinks of how Maree lives in fear of the day his powers manifest. He thinks of her broken voice over the long distance line from New York, her bitter vicious fear.
He thinks, for just a moment, of what Kainis could be at 16, brave and smart and wild. Sharp teeth and sharper wit and sky-eyed freedom, the sort that a young girl deserves. Not the bloodied promise of the life of a Hellion.
He thinks of the cemetery, of the bodies that rot beneath its soil, taken before their time.
Perhaps, it would be better if the Intitute never got its hands on the likes of the young, bright, kind Miriam Abatangelo.
What the Everett’s don’t know won’t hurt them after all.
In his log book he writes his final mission report.
M. R. Abatangelo
Remarks: Miss A, after investigation by R. Bright and K. Bright, and research by W. King, was found to have a small, if unremarkable, field of affect around her, which renders Projects in her presence powerless. This effect dissipates after extended time in subject’s “field of control” - Miss A. does seem to possess a small amount of Enzyme CU/Dionyzine in her blood - see field test by R. Bright attached - but nothing above the general marks found within those less than three generations out from exposure to Host 1.
Suggestions: While Miss A. has met the potentiality quotient, her abilities have not manifested beyond what has been detailed above. Further surveillance could be done in the future, given the young age of the subject, R. Bright believes a course of no more than 2 years to be sufficient.
File under: Mission Failure.