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Harvest festivals had been quiet for Toriel since the separation. While she could have used the money – her pie booth had been legendary in its heyday, charging ruinous markups by the slice to a crowd that would have stomped other stalls into matchwood just for a chance to lick the crust – Asgore needed it more, and would have undoubtedly spent the day hovering around her instead of running his business. It would have been no good for either of them. So she would dispatch Asriel to show Kris a good time and then she’d tidy up the house and garden, with a nicer-than-usual dinner waiting for them when they returned home, and then send them to bed and sit and read and think of nothing but the words on the page until sleep found her at last. This was the first year she’d started the festival curled up on that same chair, with drool on her chin and a visegrip of a headache. Under that sullen thumping in her skull, she’d thought that the day could only improve from here.
The hangover receded and the sun crawled onward. It lay on her back as she pulled weeds from the flowerbeds and pooled in her lap as she sat in her reading chair and sipped her lunchtime tea. Several times she reached for her phone and scrolled down to Kris’s contact before pocketing it again. Hometown was mobbed with more adults today than any other time of year, and Kris had seemed more relaxed around Susie than she could remember seeing even before Asriel had left home – a settling in their shoulders, a twitch at the corners of their mouth. As long as those two were together, Toriel believed, they would either behave themselves or wreak so much havoc she’d be able to hear it from the house. Not much point in calling them either way.
Nevertheless, she fretted. And when the sunlight began to rust, she sighed, took her purse, and made for the front door. The festival would be at low ebb, and she ought to be seen around the neighborhood a little – there was already enough gossip going on at church, and Asgore’s latest impromptu rendezvous with her after yesterday’s service had been very public. If he decided to proffer another bouquet, at least she would see him coming. She might bump into Kris. Possibly Sans. She could apologize, in an oblique way, to Susie, for how she’d behaved; through the bleary haze of last night’s wine she could still recall how the girl had suddenly hunched in on herself, and it was far too reminiscent of that time Toriel had found her crying on the cemetery bench.
Outside was faint music, shot through with birdsong. A light breeze carrying a whiff of charcoal and sugar. Thin scuds of cloud overhead were shaded a sweltering orange-red by the setting sun as though the sky had been rent open. Her shadow stretched long on the pavement beside her as she walked through the emptying streets. The gates to the Holiday estate were open and it looked like the king and queen had been crowned not long ago; she couldn’t guess at the lucky winners, but most of the onlookers had already departed, milling about the streets and picking up what leftovers they could from the booths before the owners packed up. The path in front of Asgore’s shop was mobbed with outdoor flower stalls, and while she didn’t get too close, she noticed with some relief that many of the holders were empty; unless he’d gone completely mad with free samples, he likely wouldn’t have to worry about his rent for another month. Past the diner, QC and her sister were set up in their eternal vigil, and the former noticed her and sharply elbowed the latter. They both waved. Toriel waved back.
No sign of blond mane, green shirt, or purple scales. No Sans either. He’d told her last night that he would have an ice cream stall set up in front of his store, but it was conspicuously unmanned, or un-Sansed. Toriel thought she could at least continue down to the school. It would give her an excuse to see most of the town and she could get some papers in order for the new week. The dance was coming up soon. One party after another, these modest celebrations marking off the years.
She heard the commotion before she saw it. A low murmur like ocean waves, undulating gossip. Toriel peered down the street in the direction of City Hall and saw some of the townspeople clustered there, in oddly furtive poses, heads tilted toward one another. Years of parenting Kris had taught her to recognize rubberneckers; their pranks had been a frequent source of community entertainment. She wondered if there was something new the Holidays were putting on to ring out the festival’s end, but as she approached, the murmuring grew clearer – not enough to pick up the words, but the hushed, anxious edge. A few stragglers near the hospital. Worried faces passing her by as she walked.
It had already happened when she arrived. Maybe before she’d even stepped out the door. Heads turned in her direction as she pushed past the throng and looked at the portico, her heartbeat thrumming. Her first thought was of Kris, then of Asgore, but when she saw the collapsed ladder, the festival lights terminating in an undone string that dangled like a noose, she already had a picture of what had transpired. The voices around her merely filled the outline.
* * *
Her memories were indistinct in the days following Dess Holiday’s disappearance. Fragmented from the destruction of all the old routines, the world rearranging itself as it moved on. Hard to say which were the worst, but the ones that returned to her most keenly were the early nights when Asgore and Rudy frantically swept the woods while she stayed home to mind the children. She’d tried to reassure them with no hope of success – Asriel had been the one soothing her half the time, and Kris had already fallen into a silence that would become smothering over the years – feed them their dinner, send them to bed, and stay up through the night waiting for Asgore to come home. She would pick up a book and put it down. She would kneel and pray, only to forget the words. Cups of cold tea and the television’s muted flicker. The darkness would press up against the picture window thick enough to erase all detail; she’d stare out the window at silhouettes that were more imagined than seen. In those days, it had seemed to her that night was not a time, but a place. Strange country that was found at the end of every path, and just stretched on and on.
Tonight, she was back there again.
Rudy had been found crumpled by the ladder, unresponsive, a coil of lights still cinched around one arm. By the time Toriel had left City Hall, the witnesses had dispersed through the streets with their poisonous payload of bad news. QC and her sister had still been at their stall, but QC now turned away, sobbing into her palm, as her sister tried to comfort her and the children watched anxiously from across the sidewalk. Everything in disarray. Rudy had been nearly as beloved and prevalent a figure as Gerson Boom. He was the town handyman, irrepressibly cheerful even after the tragedy that had struck his family; his illness had been common knowledge, but the town had apparently found it unthinkable that it would overtake him like this. Toriel had overheard Alvin would be holding emergency services in the church to coordinate whatever aid they could, prayer or otherwise, and she understood the urgency. Losing Rudy would be terrible; losing him on the day of the festival would open a wound in the town that might never recover.
But Toriel couldn’t go to the church. She encountered Sans on the way back, at his stall as though he’d never left, and though he’d offered to keep her company (grin rigid as always but eyesockets creased with concern) she’d had to turn that down, too. Kris was at the forefront of her mind now – she wanted to be there for them when they returned home, without distractions. She’d asked Sans and everyone else she came across to send Kris home if they saw them, and after a moment’s thought, asked Sans to tell Asgore to call her as well. He was set up near the flower shop and she knew they were on speaking terms. Better he heard this news from her. With how close he was to Rudy, she didn’t want to contemplate how he might react if someone else gave him a more lurid account.
She returned home and called Kris, to no response, and kept her voice steady as she left a message asking them to come home soon as they got her message. The sun dipped below the horizon and she called again. She pulled out her pots and pans and prepared dinner and called three more times. When the food was done – chicken pot pie, one of Kris’s favorites that wasn’t loaded with sugar – she forced herself to eat a few bites, called, waited for it to cool, called, put it in the fridge, called. She wanted to go out and search but if they returned while she was gone then what could she do? It was the same as with Dess, anxiety that stretched minutes into hours, and the dark outside the window was so deep she could barely see the streetlamps.
At a quarter past ten the front doorknob rattled. Toriel, who’d been nursing a cup of tea by the kitchen table, nearly jumped from her seat, but forced herself to calm down as the latch popped and the door creaked open. She peeked around the kitchen divider as if surprised to see them there, tried to appear gently disapproving.
Kris stood there on the welcome mat, looking not much different from when they’d left. A thin mud clung to their pantcuffs. They wiped their feet as Toriel bore down on them.
“Kris! You are home!” That was the obvious part out of the way. “I was calling and calling. Did you forget to charge your phone again?”
Kris said that they had. They said they were sorry.
“Honestly, I have half a mind to plug the thing in for you. What were you doing out so late? The festival ended hours ago.”
Kris said they were talking with Susie, at the lake. They had lost track of time, they said.
“One more reason to keep it charged…” She sighed and looked them up and down. Kris’s bangs made it hard to tell where their gaze was fixed, but that did little good regardless – for most people, not meeting someone else’s eye was a sign of guilt, but Kris didn’t quite function that way.
“I have dinner in the fridge if you are hungry. But I need to talk to you first. All right, Kris?” They nodded. “Listen. Did you see Noelle while you were having fun with Susie?”
Kris said that they had, but then she’d left.
“Oh, dear. Honey, there’s something you have to know.”
She knelt down and put a hand on their shoulder. No flinch, no reaction. Kris’s hands dangled loose at their sides. Toriel’s eyes suddenly prickled and she pulled off her glasses and wiped her face with her sleeve. Important to get this out before she could break down.
“Kris, Mr. Holiday – Rudy – he had an accident. He was setting up the festival lights and fell down. He isn’t…” She felt the quaver in her voice and choked it back. “I do not think he has woken up yet. The hospital is taking care of him. But that might have been why Noelle had to leave.”
Kris said nothing. They stared and said nothing.
“What about Susie? Is she all right? Did you have fun?”
She went home, Kris said. Kris said that they walked her home.
“That’s good. I am glad.” A faint mumble. “Excuse me? I could not hear you.”
Kris said that Noelle was happy. At the festival, they said. She was happy.
Toriel blinked. Then she blinked again, because her eyes were welling up, and this time they spilled forth before she could wipe them dry.
“Oh, Kris. Sweetheart, come here.” She pulled them in and held them close. It was like hugging a fencepost – Kris hadn’t returned their family’s embraces in some time, but they made no move to push her away either.
“It’s going to be okay, Kris. Rudy might have been foolish, but he will recover. He’s strong. Noelle, too.” With her nose in their collar, she picked up another scent underneath the lake mud and their unwashed shirt. Sweetly floral. She moved back, hands still on their arms. “Kris, were you with your father?”
Kris said that he was at his store. They said that they hadn’t seen him leave.
“God, I hope no one has told him about this yet. But you let me worry about that. If you need anything, let me know, all right?”
Kris said that they were tired.
“Yes, I can imagine.” She released them, carefully wiped some pollen off their shirt. “Goodnight, honey. I will have breakfast waiting when you wake up. Be sure to eat, okay? School is tomorrow.” She gazed out the window. “Despite all of this.”
Toriel stood up then, and stood aside, so that Kris could pass. They walked past the kitchen and went up the stairs. Their bedroom door opened and closed, and she heard the ceiling creak under their footsteps, and then all was silent once more.
For far too long, it had been this way.
Here was another pervasive memory. The change that had come over Kris when Dess had left, as if she’d taken something of them with her. They had never been exactly the same as the other children, and not just in the obvious ways – even in those days Kris had expressed their emotions through oblique, often bewildering methods, as poor Noelle could attest – but anyone who spent any significant time with them could tell how they felt. The way they looked at you. How they sidled closer to Asriel whenever there was space between them on the church pew, or became restless if too much time had passed since their last visit with the Holidays. Their love still shined through. Then Dess had gone, and that light had gone out. What remained was a silence that deepened and darkened until it would swallow everything. They went to school and came home and scarfed down her baking as always, but Toriel felt more and more that most of Kris had gone somewhere she could no longer reach.
She’d done what she could, tried to keep a home for them. If Kris had pared themself down to bare routine, then at least she could make that routine comfortable, yesterday the same as tomorrow. Asgore hadn’t agreed, and that had formed another fracture, and now this. Too many pieces to hold together.
Another half-hour had passed. She was bone-tired but couldn’t settle down; she tried to go to bed only to sit at the edge of her mattress in her nightdress, lights all burning, showing the bare spots on the wall where the pictures had been taken down, the bare bureau that had once held Asgore’s belljars. Finally she grabbed her phone and opened her contacts again, scrolling to one she’d never deleted no matter how much she’d wanted to in recent months.
She called Carol Holiday. The call connected halfway through the second ring.
“Carol speaking,” she said. And then, before Toriel could speak: “Good evening, Toriel.”
Apparently she still had Toriel’s contact as well. “Good evening, Carol. I am sorry to bother you so late.”
“Hardly. You know the hours I keep.” Indeed, she sounded wide awake, and no different from how Toriel remembered. That same sharp enunciation. “I assume this concerns Rudolph.”
“Yes. Awful news. You have my— that is to say, if there is anything at all that I can do…”
“I’m at the hospital now, as a matter of fact. Why not continue this conversation in person? The receptionist has gone home, but I’ve abused my power a little. Extended visiting hours. You wouldn’t have any trouble getting in.”
Her tone was brisk and businesslike. She could have been discussing a lunch date. Toriel had known the woman to have an iron grip on her emotions, but at such a late hour, to hear her speaking like this had the hazy sensation of a dream.
“Kris has gone to sleep,” she said, after a minute. “I do not think there would be any harm in it.”
“Up to you, of course. And don’t feel the need to rush. I’m not going anywhere for a while. Regardless, thank you for reaching out, Toriel. It’s appreciated.”
“All right. I will see you soon.”
The call dropped without further acknowledgement. Toriel stared at it in her hand, at her reflection in the black glass, then got up and got dressed again and crept past Kris’s door on the way downstairs. She pulled on her overcoat, took the keys from her purse, and locked the front door behind her.
It was that time of year when the chill settled in fast after the sun went down. Toriel drew her coat tighter around herself. The scuffing of her feet and the whisper of the breeze were the only sounds now; much of the debris from the festival remained, their colors leached out by the dark, pennants wavering like seagrass. A plastic cup was snatched up by the wind and rolled past, playing a brief and brittle melody against the pavement.
The Dreemurr and Holiday families had been inseparable for many years, but when they had fallen out, Carol was the first to break away, leaving considerable damage as she did so. She’d never been the warmest individual – the closest she came was a sort of exasperated wry humor – though she'd still been cherished in her own way. Her legendary self-control didn’t buckle no matter the context; Toriel could get somewhat embarrassing when she’d had a few too many drinks, but Carol would match her glass for glass with no obvious effect. Rudy was crazy about her, and her dry interjections in the endless stories they’d told on late nights sometimes got more laughs than he did. And that wasn’t even getting into her Christmas decorations. Toriel had considered her a friend, and the way Carol had behaved after Dess left had wounded her. Still, she had tried to forgive, until Asgore had started fraternizing with her as well.
Her ex-husband’s degradation was impossible to forget. He ensured that himself, with every fresh bouquet; she’d see his hopeful face hanging behind the flowers and recall how twisted it had become over the years he’d spent “investigating” Dess’s disappearance. Creeping out the house at night, neighbors joking warily about how they’d see him stalking through the woods. He’d whipsaw between distracted vagaries and aggressive, desperate affection in a way that even unnerved Asriel – one day he’d silently pick over his food at dinner with his gaze fixed unblinking on a corner of the room, and the next he’d be trying to gather everyone up to spend the night watching reruns that had gone stale ages ago, pulling Kris and Asriel back to the couch when they tried to go to bed. And the money, always draining, draining away, down the gullet of a shop whose flowers he always seemed unwilling to sell, into its guts where reams of scattered papers brooded.
This is who you’ve always been. I just couldn’t see it until now.
That was what she had told him in the final blowout. The moment she’d given up trying to hold everything together. Some parts had to drift off. It had been inevitable, but Toriel still hoped that maybe that change in circumstances would finally make him see reason. Not move back in with her, but at least move on.
Then Rudy had fallen ill, and Carol stepped in as if she’d been waiting for the opportunity. One more piece of church gossip that Toriel had been forced to smile through – she’d heard the muttering that Carol had somehow conscripted him to find her daughter, and when she’d confronted Rudy himself with the rumors then he’d winced like a struck dog. Asgore’s flower shop and his delusional hunt for Dess were ruining him, and now, for some inexplicable reason, Carol had made certain that both would go on indefinitely. Since then, her few interactions with the woman had been sheened with ice.
All of that could be set aside for one night. Carol hadn’t asked for support – she never asked for anything – but she’d sounded grateful for the call. And Toriel wasn’t getting a wink of sleep anytime soon.
The lights in the hospital lobby were on. They printed a hard white rectangle that spilled out across the street. Toriel walked into that glare and squinted through the glass; through the double doors could be seen a formless ice-blue shape, squatted on one of the lobby couches. She exhaled a thin plume of steam and stepped forward, and the doors hissed open.
Carol had made herself comfortable. The wire-and-bead toy that had once sat on the coffee table had been moved into the same corner as the piano, and in its place were piles of paperwork arranged with geometrical neatness, in all sizes and shades. Receipts, insurance certificates, zoning permits. The lettering on that paper stood out sharply in the fluorescent lights, but it skittered across Toriel’s vision as she tried to focus on it. Instead she looked back up to Carol, and was surprised at the woman’s smile.
“That didn’t take long,” she said. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t stand up. Something might topple over.”
“If I am interrupting your work…”
“Then I wouldn’t have invited you. But I did, so you’re not. Sit, sit.” Carol had been jotting something into a small leatherbound notebook, and now gestured with it to the opposite couch. “I was pleased to receive your call. You’re still one of the only people in this town I can have a genuine conversation with.”
She took a seat, gently bewildered at the sudden flare of warmth in her chest. Carol had already gone back to scribbling.
“You’re, um.” Toriel coughed. “You look well.”
“Considering the circumstances. This lighting doesn’t do either of us any favors.” Carol glanced up at the lights as if trying to cow them into something more atmospheric. “The years just get away from you, don’t they? I’d say you’ve borne them better than I have.”
Toriel wasn’t so sure. Carol was one of those people who started to look old when they were young, but then simply stopped ageing entirely. The harsh angles of her face hadn’t wrinkled so much as hardened up; her blazer was also impeccably pressed. As she stared, Carol looked up again, and turned the notebook around. Its pages were a collection of squares and columns, written in so closely that the paper was almost black.
“Day planner, can you believe it?” she said. “Since the Internet went down, I’ve been resorting to analog. Though I’ll confess there’s something oddly satisfying about pen on paper.”
“Busy as always, I see.”
“Mhm. The work never stops and never waits. And there’s more than you’d expect for a town like this.” She flipped the notebook back around. “At least I never have to worry about the school. You’ve kept that well in hand.”
“I am doing my best,” she said. “Though it is not without its challenges. Since Gerson passed.”
“Understandable.”
She’d thought that dropping Gerson’s name would lead to the obvious subject they were avoiding, but there was only the scritching of Carol’s pen, the fluorescents’ hum. Toriel looked past to the reception desk, to the corridor entrance.
“Rudy is there?”
“He is.” No hesitation, and she didn’t look up. “Same room as always.”
“Has there been any change? In his condition?”
“None, for better or worse. I sent Noelle home. She wanted to stay with him, but fretting at his bedside wouldn’t do either of them any favors, especially with school in the morning. And I’m accustomed to all-nighters.” She snapped the notebook shut and set it aside. “I’d offer you something to drink, but I only brought the one thermos.”
“I am fine, thank you.”
“It’s past time we had a water cooler in this building.” She reached under the table, withdrew the thermos, sipped. “Hot chocolate. Well, warm-ish. It never tastes right unless it’s fresh off the stove.”
“I left home to see the festival before it closed,” Toriel said. “And then I all but tripped over the scene. Was he lying there long?”
“Not very. Father Alvin stepped out for some air and noticed him from across the street. It sounds as though you stumbled into the aftermath.” Carol took a deeper drink, then capped the thermos and replaced it. “By the look on your face, I assume you’re thinking that you could have left sooner. Arrived earlier. Put it out of your mind. I wasn’t there either. And it’s not as though I didn’t tell him that there would be risks to exerting himself like that.” She held out her palms. “So, here we are.”
She really was the same as always. Carol couldn’t talk someone’s ear off like Rudy could, in part because she spoke like someone addressing a boardroom regardless of context, but in a sense Toriel had found that admirable. Toriel had tried to maintain the routines of her household, but Carol seemed able to pin the entire world in place.
“I told Kris when they returned home,” she said. “They were out with Noelle. I think they were there when you called her.”
“They were. Kris and that new girl.”
“I hope they all had fun, before this.” She clutched at her coat. “I need to call Asgore. Tomorrow morning. Early tomorrow morning. I think he was resting in his shop before it happened, but if he gets the news from one of his customers…”
“You shouldn’t concern yourself with that.”
“No, it is my responsibility. We were all so close. We should hear this from one another.” She looked up. “Perhaps I am worrying for nothing? Rudy has a strong constitution, after all. And you seem confident that he will recover.”
“Oh, he won’t,” said Carol. “I expect him to die within a few days. A week at most.”
The lights buzzed.
Carol licked her thumb and perused one of the stacks, withdrew a sheet, skimmed, put it back. She took up her pen and, in the margins of another sheet, wrote a brief note. Toriel was dimly aware of her thumbs rasping against the fabric of her coat. She couldn’t seem to speak.
“You might be interested to know that pastry sales supposedly ticked up this year,” Carol remarked. “Though I’ll need to see the full figures in order to confirm. That pie stall of yours is sorely missed, despite all the chaos it wreaked.”
She finally got her mouth working. “I’m sorry. I think I misheard you.”
“About?”
“Rudy. About Rudy.”
“His condition, or the duration? Well, I suppose that question is an answer in itself.” She was leafing through the notebook again.
“Carol, I understand you must be distressed, but—”
“I’m quite all right, Toriel, thank you for your concern.” And she looked to be telling the truth. “This has been coming for a while. It would hardly be responsible not to prepare for it in advance.”
The noise from those lights was like a drill bit into Toriel’s skull. “I know you don’t mean that. Everyone is praying for him, Carol. The whole town—”
“It doesn’t appear to be making a difference.”
“Then why are you here? Why would you be here otherwise?”
“I’m checking up on him every thirty minutes. I’ve set a reminder.” She took out her phone to illustrate, and then stuffed it back in her pocket. “On the off chance he’s awake and lucid, I can ask if there are any sentiments he’d like me to pass on to Noelle. My last check-in was shortly before you arrived, so don’t worry about this chat interrupting the routine.”
“Noelle.” Barely a response. She’d just grabbed onto the only part of Carol’s answer that made sense.
“Yes, Noelle. He did all this for her, after all. Drove himself to this, for her. As he always would have. It would be ideal if something constructive came out of tonight’s commotion. For both of them.” She leaned back on the couch, fingers enfolded on her lap. “You know, Noelle felt similarly to you when she received the news. She thought that if she hadn’t spent all day gallivanting around with that girl, then she might have prevented all this. She’s wrong, of course, but I don’t see the need to correct her right away. At the very least, this should remind her how important it is to answer the phone.”
Where was this, she thought. What boundary had she crossed. The ice-white room started to swim around her and she pressed a hand to her eyes and buried it in dark. But this time, Carol kept speaking, implacable, those brittle syllables piling up around her.
“Rudolph cares for Noelle,” she said. “That’s what he does. He wouldn’t have stopped, regardless of the circumstances, no matter how often he was told. And so the inevitable occurred. But inevitabilities have value. When you know something is coming, you can plan for it in advance. It’s important to set a schedule.”
“Stop it.”
“The funeral arrangements, for example. I haven’t actually started putting anything in place yet, but they’ve been in my thoughts. It’s been somewhat frustrating. For the life of me, I can’t decide what object his dust should be scattered on. My mind keeps going to his fruitcake pan, Heaven help us, but that might just be because of all the times he—”
“Enough! Enough!”
The light flooded back as she lowered her hand, balled her fists, bared her teeth. She felt untethered. The years stitched together by the last time she’d felt this anger. Was this the hospital, or was it her living room, where her and Asgore’s gnashing and flailing had been morbidly reflected in the television’s screen?
“I don’t care if this is how you’re trying to cope,” she said. “Do not make jokes like this in front of me!”
“Jokes? Do you think this is funny?” Carol’s expression hadn’t changed a jot.
“If you’re serious, that is so much worse. How can you be so willing to give up on him when you still have this obsession over Dess?!”
Fifteen minutes ago, that name would have been the absolute last thing she would have wished to speak in this room. She’d expected it to strike deep. And maybe it had, but this was wrong, too, because Carol didn’t scowl, or shout, or coldly tell her to leave. Instead, she smiled again.
“Very good,” she said. “I knew that I was right to confide in you, Toriel. You understood right away.”
Something about that face made her want to shrink back in her seat. “I don’t believe I do.”
“Maybe you can’t find the words, but you grasped the essence. You’re right, of course. In a sense, this makes me a hypocrite. But it’s something else I accepted some time ago. Rudolph cares for Noelle. That’s what he does. All these other people, they gather and pray. That’s what they’ll do. Is what we do any different from what we are? If that were the truth, then could any of it be considered right or wrong? Should any of it be punished? Well, nevertheless. I search for December. That’s what I do, and I will never, ever stop. Just as Asgore couldn’t.”
And that brought a red haze roaring up through her chest and behind her eyes. In the space of a blink she was on her feet and looming over the table, her shadow aslant over the papers. But before she could speak, expel the venom that was churning through her, Carol nodded and stood up as well. Despite her earlier misgivings about upsetting the paperwork, not a single sheet rustled.
“Now that’s a good idea,” she said. “Why not step outside for a bit? We could both use the air.”
And with that, she strode out, the doors hissing open and shut. Toriel was left there, rage ebbing into nausea. She looked down at the papers and considered sweeping them off the table. She looked back at the corridor and considered going that way instead, taking Rudy’s hand, as if her well-wishes could be transmitted through his skin. But in the end she stepped out too, where Carol stood on the sidewalk, arms primly crossed. They faced each other half-bleached in the light that bled from the doorglass.
“We were discussing Asgore?” Carol said.
“Don’t speak his name again,” she hissed. “As bad as he became, if you hadn’t fired him, roped him into this insane scheme… Do you know how many horrible rumors I heard at church after Dess left? The things they said about you? I tried so hard to push back on them, long after we stopped speaking. I have done my best not to lay blame. Now I think they might have been right after all. Maybe Dess left just to get away from you. Your family deserved better.”
“No one deserves anything, Toriel. Least of all adults. If you want something, you have to work for it.”
“Why did you call me here? To taunt me? Your husband might be on his deathbed and you decide that’s an opportunity to take all you’ve done to Asgore and throw it in my face?”
“I was being sincere,” said Carol. “It’s been good to hear from you. Someone reasonable.”
“This is nothing reasonable about—”
“And as I said, I can be honest with you. Because I know that you’ll never tell anyone.” One side of her mouth twitched; the other was buried in shadow. “Horrible rumors, were they. Well, if such a rumor were started by someone like you – someone so important to this community – it would be taken very seriously. That’s why you won’t do it. You keep an orderly household. A safe place for your family. Perhaps that means averting your eyes from unpleasant truths every so often. Holding your tongue. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. But here is the issue, Toriel. It’s only effective up to a point. Eventually, one must see further than that. You have to consider the inevitabilities. The appointments that must be kept. When December disappeared, many such moments were set. Your separation from Asgore was only one of them. And yet, between those spaces, you can find a little freedom to move. To test the boundaries. I’ve had some success, constrained though I am. And you could, too, with what time you have left. There isn’t as much of it as you might believe.”
Half of Carol was awash in white. The other in such darkness it drowned her features. Her shadow was a spike cutting through the asphalt. Her posture had not shifted an inch through all the time she’d spoken. Not even her hair moved; the wind had died completely.
“I don’t recognize you,” Toriel whispered. “I don’t know who you are.”
“Maybe I’ve always been this way. You just couldn’t see it until now.”
She and Asgore squaring off in a position much like this one, the dark pressed up against their window. Asgore’s face collapsing as those words sank in. She could feel her own chest tighten as the words found their way back to her.
She said, “He told you…?”
“Only because I asked,” said Carol. “Don’t blame him for it. He was trying to be helpful.” She scoffed. “Our men, hm? Alike in so many ways. Rudolph always wanted to be helpful, too. He wanted it so badly that it killed him. It makes you wonder, when might Asgore—”
Toriel’s hand cracked against the side of Carol’s face. It was an open-palm slap, but Toriel had a strong arm, and the sound it made was like a rifle shot and echoed through the empty streets. Carol’s head snapped to the side and her one foot scuffed across the pavement, but that was all. She didn’t even uncross her arms. Then her face slowly swiveled back to its original position, her foot scraped back in place. Her cheek had the imprint of Toriel’s hand, and she was smiling. Wider and warmer than she had at any other time this night.
Toriel watched mutely as Carol touched the mark, flexed the fingers of her other hand. She spoke with deep fascination.
“I’d prepared myself for it,” she said. “And yet that doesn’t stop the feeling. Such warmth, all throughout me. Like electricity under the skin. There’s value in this too, isn’t there? In punishment.” The hand moved to her breast. “Yet it's over so quickly. My heartbeat’s already slowing down.”
But Toriel’s heart quickened, in a chest that seemed to have no room for air. She took a step back, holding her own stinging palm.
“Nevertheless,” Carol continued, “I’m grateful, Toriel. For all you’ve done tonight. This is exactly what I needed. I can understand Noelle a little better now. And Kris too, of course.”
“Kris?” she said. “Why are you… what does this have to do with…”
“Why not ask them?” Carol replied. “You could ask them tonight. Why not?”
And for that, Toriel had no answer. She didn’t know if it was a question meant to be answered. The wind picked up again and set all the pennants shivering, and Carol turned and stepped back through the doors. The doors shut and reduced her once again to an ice-blue sliver, but though Toriel lingered there on the sidewalk, that shape never returned to the couch. It merely stayed there, in the center of the room, like a flaw in the glass.
She had to keep her head down as she walked back home. Every time she raised her eyes, nothing she saw looked familiar. The night eroding all silhouettes, drinking away the color, until the streets she’d known for so long were reduced to a melted facsimile. She stopped at the intersection to QC’s Diner and couldn’t make out the lettering no matter how she focused. It was a cloudless night but she couldn’t see the stars.
It was important to call Asgore tomorrow. Tell him not just about Rudy, but this madness with Carol as well. They couldn’t reconcile as he wanted but she couldn’t let things go on as they were now. But when she tried to think of how she could broach the topic, what she might say, her thoughts locked up. It would sever his only remaining lifeline, and then what?
This was what she had done for so long – maneuvered through a world gone terribly fragile by unexpected losses, trying to clear a space where nothing else might break. Now it seemed she couldn’t find anywhere else to step.
By the time her house came into view Toriel was striding fast enough for her lungs to burn. She made it to the Welcome mat, rattled her key in the lock. All of a sudden she had the feeling of something bearing down on her and she shoved the door open and locked it behind her without turning around to look. The aromas of tonight’s uneaten dinner hung heavy in the air. As she lurched to the couch, pulling off her coat, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the window and for a moment couldn’t recognize what she saw. This pale and disheveled shape, spectacles askew, one eye eaten up by the light glaring off the lens.
The clock in the kitchen neared midnight. She put away the dishes with shaking hands. It would be necessary to go to bed soon. She was much too old to stay up this late, especially after the events of last night. It wouldn’t do for the students to see her half-asleep. And she’d have to wake up early, to prepare Kris’s breakfast. Where had they gone tonight? Where had they been?
The floor creaked underfoot as she went to the stairs. The hall light was off and darkness dripped down the stairwell; she reached for the light switch, withdrew her hand, and gripped the banister, and the shadows enfolded her as she ascended.
Upstairs was such blackness so that even with years of memory guiding her she could not tell exactly where she stood, and she reached out into that dark until her questing fingers found the bookshelf. Her claws scraped across their spines as she walked past it, and then touched the wall, and then the closed door of Kris’s bedroom. Before her eyes, the woodgrain rippled like waves.
Toriel stayed there for a long time. She gripped the doorknob, but couldn’t turn it. She tried to whisper through the door but couldn’t find her voice. Eventually the tears came back and filmed her vision with water, and there wasn’t any point in wiping them away when she could already barely see. All she could do was lay her palms and forehead against the wood, a penitent’s posture, and pray fiercely, wordlessly, for the world to be kind to them for just a little longer, to them and to everything they still cared for, as if this desperate love could be transmitted through the door and find its way to them in the dark.