Claire takes her mother's dog out for a walk the day following Thanksgiving and makes the acquaintance of a lovely Raevan enjoying the first chill of winter.
Winter Warm-Up
The cold made Claire move at the pace of molasses. Her breath came in small puffs as she walked along the sidewalk, boots clacking against the cement. Luckily the walk was not icy, but if her nose was correct, it seemed like snow was in the air (a rarity for Gambino, but one that occurred from time to time nonetheless). The sky was darkening above her head and swirling with clouds as evening pressed on, and she stopped to gaze skyward momentarily. The tug on the leash in her hands, however, reminded her that she did have a task today. Her mother's borzoi Misha yelped impatiently and pulled her on, and she smiled, rolling her eyes as she resumed their walk. Her mother had called her and asked if she could take Misha for a walk; the cold was terrible on her arthritis.
"Lucky you, being built for the cold," Claire commented to the long-haired dog, laughing. The dog trotted ahead happily and pulled her towards the park, eager for his favorite stomping ground. "Want the park, boy? Alright, alright - I didn't bring your frisbee though." She redirected herself towards the park entrance and hoped that Misha would wear out soon - the cold was seeping through her jeans at record pace. A coffee was in the cards on their return trip.
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Posted: Mon May 11, 2015 10:14 am
Quick Reunion March 27, 2015 Skype PRP with NeonMace
Aaron and Henry run into each other at the pharmacy and do a quick catch up.
The sun was shining hotter than Aaron was prepared for as he dashed inside the local pharmacy. For March, it was unusually warm, and with the receding of rains came the blooming of everything else - and the spread of pollon, his worst natural enemy (next to heavy red meats). He and Claire both had woken up with the first stuffed noses of the season and he had volunteered to head out and get their much-needed Claritin D, among other goods. It seemed that others had the same idea, as the line was snaking out into the main aisle when he tagged onto the end, sniffling dramatically.
Aaron: -grumbles- Fantastic.. -reaches into his pocket, fiddling with the phone and punching out a brief text to Claire, 'in line, it's gonna be a while'-
Henry: -having the same idea as Aaron, though on behalf of his brother as Henry was the description of Fit at all times- -his hair was tied back in a knot to keep the heat away, but he had long let his hair grow from its green hues-
Aaron: -once finished with the text, he pocketed the phone, and sighed- -leans back to look at the line, and gives a start when he recognizes the slightly faded out green hair, although it was definitely longer..-
Henry: -wasn't the best at remembering faces and hadn't quite noticed Aaron yet, though does feel like he's being stared at-
Aaron: -smiles as it finally clicks, and he waves to him a few places ahead in line- Hey man, you were at the Lab Halloween party, right? Thought you looked familiar.
Henry: -perks up at the wave, a stupid puppy grin on his face- "...Oh yeah, hey! Didn't recognize you for a minute! Aaron, right?"
Aaron: -grins- That's me. I guess that happens I guess when we're not in Halloween costumes. -shrugs- How ya been, Henry? Other than stuck in line at the pharmacy like the rest of us poor saps. -laughs-
Henry: -chuckles, crossing his arms over his chest- "I guess so! I've been okay, working and taking care of Ethiriel and my brother. Can't complain! How about you?"
Aaron: -scratches the back of his head and adjusts the hand basket- Sounds like you've been busy. About the same, been working a lot. -perks up momentarily as the line moves forward a bit and shuffles with it- Don't think you got to meet Claire at the party properly, did ya? She's been busy getting things in order since we got approved for the program at the Lab.
Henry: -takes a step forward to keep with the line, still smiling- "I remember seeing her but I don't think we got to talk! How's she doing with the possiblity of having her own Raevan?"
Aaron: -smile falters just a bit and he looks down, rubbing the back of his neck- Not as good as when she was first approved. Like it's a lot to take in... especially the uh, requirements for it. -sighs- She said she'll think of something but it's stressing her out. -basket slips a little on his arm and he moves it to hold instead- Any tips for us there? We'll take any help we can get. -laughs-
Henry: -smile falters as well as Aaron continues, but keeps a small crescent on his face- "I'm sure she'll get everything figured out. I'm... actually not the best for that kind of advice; Ethiriel was given to me."
Aaron: Aaah, then looks like this'll be a learning experience then. -smile returns a little more fully- She has a few ideas, so we're hoping one of those works out. The cloth.. thing? On the bottle is green, so that limits it to plants and other things like it, and we're definitely not short those in our house. -the line moves up once again as one more customer is helped- How's Ethiriel been doing?
Henry: "That's pretty cool! I don't know how the early stages of Raevans work but they're certainly interesting! -takes another stride forward- "Ethiriel's been okay, she's definitely improving. She's been in much higher spirits lately and I'm so glad."
Aaron: Ahhh, right on. -nods- That's good to hear. Any special reason for the good mood?
Henry: "I think it's that she's finally settling. She was really depressed when she came into my life, so i'm glad to see some good is happening."
Aaron: That's good, settling's hard, man. -thinks momentarily of Claire- If she ever needs a getaway, Claire would probably love to have you guys over! Her mom's got a pretty nice garden.. I have a feeling the girls would all get along pretty well.
Henry: -perks up again, smile returning full force- "That sounds great! I'm sure Ethiriel would love to meet Claire too!"
Aaron: Hey, great. I'll let her know! We can set something up -- -the line moves forward again, leaving Henry next to the counter- oh hey, looks like you're up next. That went a lot faster than I'da thought. -chuckles-
Henry: "Oh, how about that!" -chuckles, holding up a finger for the teller- "Gimme just a minute and I'll give you my phone." -turns around and does his business with the pharmacist, getting his brother's allergy meds and stepping out of line- "Okay! -whips out phone, immediately goes to the contacts page-
Aaron: -fishes in his pocket for his phone as soon as Henry steps out of line and hits his contacts page, luckily having a minute as he has one more person ahead of him before his turn at the counter- Alright, Hen.. ry.. there. -punches in the name- Ready for your number whenever you are!
Henry: -rolls off his number easily, though pauses between each group of numbers as to not lose Aaron- "Aaaand yours..."
Aaron: -does the same, punching back to his contacts once that's done- Awesome, I'll let Claire know... hope you don't mind Luigi for your profile pic, got a theme goin' on my phone here. -laughs as he assigns the Brawl profile image of Luigi for Henry, then locks his phone and pockets it- But yeah we'll keep in touch!
Henry: -laughs- "Of course I don't mind, Luigi's the bomb!" -moves a couple steps away from the line as another person moves forward- "Definitely looking forward to it!"
Aaron: Well good! -grins as he too moves up in line, coming up next at the counter- I'll talk to you later, man, tell Ethiriel we said hi and let her know Claire would love to meet her!
Henry: "Can and will do! Good luck with your prescrips and have a great day! You tell Claire I said hey!" -gives a last wave before turning on his heel and heads out-
Posted: Mon May 11, 2015 10:20 am
Final Touches May 11, 2015
There were still a few weeks to go before they were due to depart, but as Claire walked up the pathway to her front door, sifting through the mail, she began to wonder if that was not enough time. Packing was always an arduous experience, especially when she had been to Russia all of once; the weather was tumultuous and unpredictable. She sifted through the bills and junk mail as she edged into the door - power bill, flyer for the local grocery market's weekend sale, a notice from the housing association about water conservation during the summer. Her heart skipped as she got to the back of the pile and found one addressed to her from the Russia consulate in Durem. Eager fingers tore along the envelope's edge and she scrolled quickly through the letter's contents, eyes alight in excitement.
Her and Ivy's migration cards and travel visas had arrived. Aside from flight confirmation, this was the last thing they had been waiting on.
She leaned against the wall as she continued to read, double checking that all the information was correct. As Ivy had handled the airline tickets and other travel accomodations, Claire took it upon herself to get their visas in order with the consulate and make sure their passports were up to date. But now her excitement was building and the trip was more than just a date circled on the kitchen calendar. Her enthusiasm carried her to the bedroom, to the closet, where her rollaway was already half-packed for the trip. It fell with a soft thump on the bed as she cracked it open, perusing the contents. She kept spare essentials in the carry-on just in case luggage was lost in travel (always a very real possibility) - extra sets of clothes, her windbreaker, tiny bottles of conditioner and shampoo to be refilled wherever she landed, her camera. She tucked the visas and migration cards safely into the inner lining, giving it a fond pat, and sat on the edge of the bed. It bowed gently under her and she swung her feet enthusiastically. As she cycled through her mental packing list once more, her eyes scanned the room for anything she might have forgotten, and they fell on the silver suitcase from the Lab. It sat just where she had left it on the drawers, and her swinging legs slowed and dwindled to a stop. She leaned forward thoughtfully, elbows on her thighs, and rested her chin in her palms.
"What am I gonna do about you?" she mused aloud to it. She had not entirely forgotten about the suitcase, nor the step that came next in obtaining her Raevan, but it had been momentarily lost in the excitement of preparing for her and Ivy's visit. The reality of what awaited her with this suitcase struck her once again, and her fingers clenched against her cheek, eyebrows lowering as she watched the late afternoon light filter in from the windows. It reflected off this seemingly harmless-looking case, throwing reflections on the walls from the metallic, and she could not believe that inside was an object that would end another creature's life. It had idled here while she shuffled her feet, or tried not to think about it, but it had never left her thoughts entirely.
'Is this right?'
Claire started when she heard the front door open, and her husband's voice called from down the hall, accompanied by the jingle of keys. She opened her mouth to respond and a small noise issued from the back of her throat before she firmly closed it again. There was a moment's pause and then footsteps approached the door, and there Aaron appeared in his suit, nudging the door open with a shoulder as he struggled free of his suit jacket. He gave a jolt when he noticed her standing on the bed, but he recovered quickly, joining her bedside to give her a kiss on the cheek.
"Packing already?" He moved past her to the closet, retrieving a hanger to hang up his suit jacket and loosen his tie. She smiled tiredly and nodded, averting her gaze back to the suitcase as he continued to get changed.
"The visas and migration cards came in, so I wanted to put it where I wouldn't forget about it." There was a tinkling of wire hangers against one another as he tucked his suit into the closet; she chanced a glance at him through the mirror and smiled at the sight of him in boxers and tanktop, struggling into a clean t-shirt.
"That takes me back," he laughed, the noise muffled until his head resurfaced through the neck hole. "I remember how much of a pain in the a** it was just to get the student visa." She chuckled in return.
"Well you're not wrong, but now that we got them, everything is moving ahead." She locked eyes with the case, dropping one of her hands and draping it in her lap. There was another rustle of fabric as Aaron pulled his jeans on, and soon the bed dipped once again as he came to rest beside her. He followed her line of sight to the suitcase, hands draped between his legs as he leaned forward. He looked between the case and his wife's reflection in the mirror behind it.
"Are you going to take the case with you?" She gently shook her head, loosing a long strand of hair from behind her ear that she tucked away automatically.
"Not sure yet." Her voice was clear in its uncertainty. "There's a lot to consider." He leaned back using his arms as support, gaze locked on the carpet.
"Sounds it." His own feet swung a little at the edge of the bed, a similarity to her earlier that she noted with a half smile. "Well.. take the case, think about it. Nobody says you have to capture anything while you're there but just in case, you'll be prepared?" Rather than look at her reflection, he looked to her, all optimism, all smiles. But her own eyes remained fixed.
"Maybe just the bottle. Russia is very particular about what goes in and out of its borders." His smile fell a bit but he nodded in agreement, glancing to her reflection in the mirror first, then gave her a gentle pat on the forearm and stood up.
"Buck up, I'm sure you'll find something great out there." He smiled encouragingly and disappeared through the doorway, making a beeline for the kitchen. Claire, too, stood up, smoothing out her skirt, and she made to follow him but the sight of the open suitcase gave her pause. Aaron had offered the last bit hopefully, trying to help, but it did not assuage Claire's doubts. It did not absolve her of having to kill something for the sake of her Raevan's existence, and that is what troubled her most. But where they were going in Russia had a lot of greenery, so perhaps it would not be as arduous as she was thinking. Claire knew she had a penchant for overthinking issues; perhaps this was much the same. She strode forward before another thought could dissuade her and clicked open the silver case, plucking the empty bottle from its cozy confines. Cradling it between two hands, she turned it between her fingers, examining it closely. The leafy green pattern on the limiter cloth gave her some form of comfort and reaffirmed a direction she could go in. She could handle taking a plant's life, could she not?
Claire set the bottle gently in her suitcase, folding it in the safety of her windbreaker and pushing it towards the corner of the case, far from anything that could crush it. There was no doubt in her mind that she would likely pull the bottle out in the coming weeks and try to rethink her decision to take it with her, or, even more, to just return everything to the Lab untouched. But she had come this far; she wanted to believe that it would be fine, and for now, she was going to look towards the future with a hopeful glint in her eye.
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Posted: Mon May 11, 2015 10:22 am
Encounter June 12, 2015
Insects were humming loudly in the early summer sun as Claire sat on the front steps of her mother’s friend Arina’s home, nursing a now-empty glass of iced tea between her hands. She was surprised how hot mid-June was in Russia, especially when the season did not peak until halfway through July. Arina had enlightened her and her jet-lagged mother on the way home from the Ulyanovsk Vostochny International Airport about the heat wave and how they had come at a perfect time – just before tourist season started in earnest. Ivy was dozing in the front seat of the car but Claire replied for the both of them, trying to take the opportunity to practice her rusty language skills she had tried to hone on the many long flights from Gambino, however Arina just laughed and told her not to bother, as she had not spoken English in quite some time. Her grown-up daughter lived in Saint Petersburg and stuck to speaking Russian, and as she had retired from her work with the Park Service, she did not see as many English tourists as she once did. Claire frowned, but nodded all the same, feeling a bit disappointed that she had wasted so much time.
‘At least I got some practice in at the airport. Maybe when we go to town,’ she thought, and felt some measure of consolation. It was always a great treat to see Arina, but it was her first time actually travelling to her home in the Ulyanovsk Oblast to see her. Arina Martin-Starikova was her mother’s mentor during her time in the Peace Corps and almost fifteen years her senior, and she was no stranger to the Wainwright’s home when she was still living in Gambino and unmarried. She worked for many years as the Gambino branch Peace Corps recruiter after her time in the field had ended, and Ivy stopped by to see her quite often when she had found the time. Arina’s parents hailed from Moscow and had immigrated to Gaia during the 1930s, but from the way that she told stories of her youth and homeland, it felt to Claire as though she had only left just yesterday. She always remembered the tall, sun tanned woman with the bright smile and the graying brunette hair who told her and Matt about avoiding dhampir, the rusalka in the rivers, and the stories-tall leshies that guarded the forests, and how her eyes shone as though she had lived the tales she told. When Arina was called back to Moscow to help care for an ailing aunt, the Wainwrights knew that she would not be living in Gambino for long. The siren call of her home was too strong, and soon enough Arina and her elderly parents returned to Russia, but the impression that she had left on the family still lingered. Ivy still maintained close correspondence with her (and was the first to be updated about Arina’s marriage, even before her own parents; “we only had a legal ceremony, we didn’t want any fuss, you’ll meet him next time you come out”), and visited often. It had been several years since they had last seen her, and with how much Ivy was buzzing about seeing her old friend, Claire was glad that things worked out so fortuitously.
But now she was left wondering about her place in this visit. It was great to get out of Gaia for a while and see a part of Russia she had not seen during her study abroad years ago, but she still felt a little lost. Despite being unemployed and having nothing but time on her hands, she still felt as though she were running away from her responsibilities. Her and Aaron were at a strange sort of standstill in their relationship, but it had been in place ever since her second miscarriage. She felt she owed it to him to at least be there when he got home and try to be the good wife, but most of the time she wanted to sleep most of the day away and avoid the unhappiness that began creeping into her thoughts. Ivy had coaxed her into this trip fully knowing about her daughter's unhappiness. "Couples sometimes need to do things separately in order not to drive each other crazy. If you force yourself to do every little thing together all the time, you're going to get resentful, and that does nobody any good." Even Aaron had urged her to go, take her time, get refreshed. Part of her wanted him to urge her to stay, and the other half longed to go.
And then there was the topic of the bottle. It was sitting on the desk in the guest bedroom, kept away from the windowsill plants, while Claire pondered what to do. She had brought it with her knowingly, hoping she could find a green stone of some sort - even killing a plant for her own sake felt low, and the very topic of death was still sensitive to her as it dredged up all manner of unpleasant memories.
“Nice day, yeah?” Arina poked her head around the screen door, weathered face lightened by her grin. "Come inside and get some more tea, dear." Claire nodded and carried her glass inside. Ivy was seated at her small kitchen table and smiled as the two entered, the carafe of tea on the table looking appetizingly full to Claire’s eyes. The kitchen was the definition of early-70s décor, with its mustard yellow and orange tiling. Both women were dressed in breezy, light clothes for the warm weather, and looked to have little more planned than a nice, long catch-up chat.
“Yeah, it's a very nice day,” she replied belatedly, turning her gaze towards the window, and the forest edge visible on the other side of the road. The village that Arina lived in was tucked alongside one of the larger parks in the Ulyanovsk region, just shy of the Volga River curving to the south west and the gentle hills to the north. Retirement did not take her far from the forests she had worked in for decades, and she seemed to like it that way.
“You should take a walk.” Ivy tilted her glass towards her daughter with a smile. “I took one this morning. The paths are really nice and it’s still early, no people out yet as the season isn't in full swing. Best to go before noon hits though and it gets really hot.” The suggestion had a good amount of appeal, and she found herself nodding.
"Yeah, I think I will."
A short while later, Claire was redressed for a walk in sturdy boots, jeans, a tanktop and crocheted sweater, and a windbreaker (as well as Arina's hunting knife tucked onto her belt, just in case - one could not be too careful in the woods). She waved her goodbyes to Arina and Ivy as she set off into the forest, shouldering her backpack. Perhaps a quiet lunch in the woods would help clear her head, as she was on vacation; stressing from several continents away about her life would not serve any purpose other than making her sick. Ivy and Aaron had both wanted her to go on this trip, she might as well do her best to enjoy it.
It was a peaceful walk as she moved deeper into the forest, birds singing from the skies and their nests high above her head. Ten minutes slipped away, then twenty, and Claire reveled in the sweet scent of the pine trees and earth around her. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly - it was so different from the smoggy air of Durem or the salt-water scent of Gambino, and it had been so long since she had been out in the woods. Yet the greenery about her reminded her of the leafy-patterned cloth on her bottle, and her good mood waned. Claire could almost feel it pressing against the small of her back from its safe place in her pack.
She spotted a rock a short distance away and planted herself on it, sliding the backpack from her shoulders. She loosed the clasp and moved a few of the items around inside and felt the cool glass of the bottle beneath her fingertips. Moving it away, the sunlight that filtered through the treetops reflected off of it gently. It looked liked any other bottle.
'You're going to have to kill something if you want this to work.' Not that the thought made it any easier to bear. Killing something as a means to an end was still wrong. 'I wish I knew more about rocks. Maybe I should have done some research rather than just bring it out here and hope for the best.'
It was times like this that she most missed her father. Steven had been a nature enthusiast (it was one of the things that drew him and Ivy together, after all), and had many guidebooks on different plants, animals, and minerals. As he was the stay-at-home parent during Ivy's tenure in the Peace Corps, he delighted in teaching Claire and Matt about all the nature around them, but for the life of her Claire could not remember much of it. It had been too long ago, and now his memory was too convoluted with grief over his sudden passing. She frowned, and closed the top of the backpack, when she heard a voice from far off.
She rose to her feet and glanced around warily. The birds were still singing as they had been when she entered the forest, and she shook her head. Perhaps she had heard a stray birdcall. 'You were thinking about Dad and heard a bird somewhere, that's all. There's nobody else out.'
“Claire.” The call was closer, and her heart almost stopped. She squinted into the darkness of the forest where the call had come from. The voice was very clear. Somebody had spoken her name. Her hands began to shake.
"W-Who's there?" she called out, but nothing answered. Her nerves were beginning to get the better of her as she leaned over to retrieve her backpack and sling it over her shoulder, but her legs propelled her forward. She moved off the main road and headed towards a slightly overgrown sidepath. There was enough light to guide her but it was getting harder to see as she went. She could hear the birds, but it was difficult to focus on that over the drumming of her heart in her ears. Claire felt like a little girl again, and she wished very deeply that her father was here with her, his large presence radiating safety.
"Claire? Come out, sweetheart.” Her head swiveled and she squinted into the dimness of the forest around her. She had not noticed how dark this part of the woods was – had she been so lost in thought that she had not paid attention to where she was going? The paths here were still well-tended and signs were ever present, so she was not worried about being lost, but she could see enough of the glen around her to tell that she was alone.
Nobody should be speaking to her.
Her father’s voice should not be speaking to her.
Claire’s heart leapt from her chest into her throat and she swallowed to force it down. Her sweating fingers curled into fists and she gazed around slowly, not trying to appear startled. Somebody could be playing a prank on her, but that did not seem realistic; nobody knew her out here other than her own mother and Arina back at the house, and nobody spoke with her father’s voice, sounding as though it had been plucked straight from her memories.
‘Dad is dead, there’s no way he could be here.’ A lump formed in her throat where her heart had been sitting just moments before, but the truth was the only way to reason with herself. However once the floodgates opened, it was sometimes hard to stop the flow of invasive thoughts, and just as they had started to do in the past few years, they decided to do now. ‘Just like my children. They’re all dead, none of them can talk to you.’
A twig snapped and she was seized in sudden terror. It took every fiber of her will to dislodge her hand from around her backpack strap and lower the heavy limb to her belt. She kept her movements slow and deliberate, body braced as she reached for Arina’s hunting knife. ‘Okay, self-defense, go for the eyes or the knees, or the nose.. would stomach work? What if it’s an animal though?’ Her thoughts began their panicked jog around her head as she scanned the forest before her one more time. Another crunch of leaves and twigs sounded to the side of her, and she pulled the knife free from the holster and turned slowly towards it, hands shaking.
Two large, glowing eyes peered at her from between the trees. Her breath hitched and a small, dry noise escaped her throat. There was a great rushing noise of leaves and twigs as the eyes floated up further and further and a face became discernible among the branches - a large, moss-colored beard and pale bluish skin that seemed to glow under the sunlight; vines were wrapped around his limbs as he took a step forward, head tilting at the intruder to its domain, and yet birds continued to chirp as though there were nothing wrong. Squirrels darted between its great tree trunk legs - almost quite literally tree trunks, with bark patterning up its calves and tiny roots sinking into the ground beneath. The creature arrested Claire with a gaze that was a mixture of curiosity and sternness.
The knife almost tumbled from her grasp and she had to re-steady her hand to keep hold. Once again her mind was flurried with panic and she could not sort out one thought to follow; her heart pounded wildly against her ribs and ached to escape when her own legs would not move, and instead she stood in the stories-tall shadow, trembling.
The glowing orbs moved to the knife in her hands, and she darted a glance at it, returning it quickly to the creature. The size of him told her enough that if he were to attack, there was no chance she could defend herself, not even with Arina's hunting knife. Something about how the creature watched her gave her the feeling that he was not interested in hunting her, or causing her harm - his eyes were careful and wary, still wild, but they studied her. As though to say that as long as she did not do anything foolish, no harm would come to her.
"Sorry.. I -- here." She kneeled down and tossed the knife a short distance away, before trying to rise again on shaky legs. Claire flexed her fingers and took a steadying breath as she tried to survey the scene before her. What was the creature in front of her? She felt she had a name on the tip of her tongue, something she had heard about a long time ago, from Arina's stories that dotted her childhood.
She finally noticed the birds. Songbirds nested in the creature's mess of hair and within the beard, and he did not move to swat them away. They treated him as though he were any other large tree, singing happily; there was none of the fear that she was feeling now. The squirrels and mice watched her with more wariness than she would give them, all of them almost gathered behind the creature for his protection - as though he were their father.
Suddenly, it clicked.
'A leshy.' Arina's stories of the lords of the forest came back in a rush of many pieces, and she scrambled to find the useful bits. 'Protector of the forests and its creatures, farmers making pacts with them.. oh my god, I can't believe it.. it's real. It's right here.' She pressed a hand to her forehead to make sure she did not have a fever - surely this must be a hallucination. 'Oh my god.'
But what to do next? She could not remain frozen here forever. Her shaking legs threatened to give way but she steeled herself once again and searched her memories as fervently as her nerves would allow. Farmers made pacts with leshies in the past by offering them their crucifix pendants (which did her little good, as she was not religious), or avoided being spirited away by turning their clothes inside out or switching their shoes. The legends also described leshies a little differently in appearance (this one clearly was not wearing shoes) but it was all she had to go on. The leshy's head remained gently tilted to the side as she lowered herself to a kneeling position and began to shakily unlace her boots. The project took longer than anticipated with her trembling fingers but she managed to pull them free and switch them on her own feet. Lacing them back up was an easier task and, once finished with that, she leaned back to let the backpack slide from her shoulders.
The forest went quiet again as all eyes were on her, so many eyes that were now merely curious. She shrugged out of her windbreaker once free of her pack and turned it inside out, and scrambled back into her rudimentary knowledge of Russian, littered with mistakes in her panic.
"<<Please forgive.. I do not have a cross to offer as I am not religion.. >>" Claire turned her attention to the light crocheted sweater and struggled out of that, trying to turn it inside out without damaging it. Once she put it back on and was working on putting her windbreaker back on in its inside out state (there was no way she was stripping down to her skivvies to turn her tank top and pants inside out), a low, rumbling sound broke the silence.
Claire froze. She gazed up at the leshy in sudden fear but the feeling stopped short when she noticed a wide upturn around the corners of his bearded mouth. A wave of indignation overtook the fear as she realized the leshy was laughing at her. The branches creaked and groaned as a long, bark-covered limb reached out and rested gently on top of her head, casting her whole body into shadow beneath it.
"It's okay." Her father's voice rang clear as day out of the leshy's mouth, and she could almost see the crinkle of her father's nose whenever he was amused, and that proved to be too much for her. She toppled backwards and landed hard on her backside, eyes wide, and the leshy elicited another deep laugh and turned away, moving into the darker portions of the woods. Its footfalls still echoed after he had disappeared into the thicket of trees, accompanied by the return of birdsong now that the spectacle was over. Claire could do little more than try to calm her racing heart, and after a moment of willing herself to re-shoulder her pack and stand back up, she gazed down the path the leshy had taken.
She turned back towards the path and bolted.
While it was not necessarily a long walk, it was made much harder by her backwards shoes. Her feet complained with each step and her lungs felt ready to burst from the sudden exertion, the backpack thumping against her back, but she could not stop. Adrenaline pushed her forward, the exhilaration of what she had just seen, the voice of her father coming back to her egging her on to Arina's house. She had to tell them.
It was a good fifteen minutes later when she stumbled into her kitchen, the screen door banging open loudly to announce her arrival. Both women were seated at the table and looked up in shock as Claire rushed in. Her hands were pale as she clutched the table, struggling to catch her breath.
"What in the world, Claire?" Ivy asked, standing up and rushing to her side. "Sit down, you look awful!"
“A leshy,” she huffed out, sweat running down her cheeks and splattering on the tabletop. Ivy paused for a moment, enough for her daughter to notice, before she pressed a hand to her sweaty shoulder. “I saw a leshy out there, Ma.” Her eyes were wide, her hands shaking so badly that she balled them into fists. “I didn’t think they were real but he spoke to me, he used Dad’s voice, he laughed and I just… oh my god.” Her hand clutched her chest as she tried to catch her breath. She looked between the two women for some kind of reaction, but the old friends merely exchanged a glance before Arina returned her attention to Claire with a thoughtful expression as she crossed her arms.
“Oh, so you met him already, did you?” Arina’s eyebrows brushed the edge of her wispy hair in gentle surprise. “I’m surprised. It took me three years of living here before he showed himself to me.” Claire's legs shook again as though threatening to give way from exhaustion.
“You know about him?" she croaked out, still struggling to catch her breath. "How? Why didn’t you tell me?!” This time, Arina looked to Ivy, who stroked Claire on the back.
“Would you have believed her?” her mother replied. It was a fair point. Perhaps, when she was a child, she might have, but things were different. She always considered herself a logical person who did not entertain myths or fantasy outside of a book to read or a movie to watch.
“No I… I guess not.” She sank into a vacant chair and uncurled her balled fists on her lap. Little semicircles were etched into her palm and she set to work rubbing them away. “Wait, Ma. You knew, too?” Ivy looked a little sheepish as she was put on the spot, and merely shrugged.
“Somewhat." Claire squinted at her mother, urging her with her gaze to explain. "It was after Steven died, but I only ever heard him, I never got to see him.” Ivy smiled. "So you definitely beat me there."
“That makes sense. Leshies can sense sadness, after all.” Arina leaned forward and rested her chin in her hand. “That explains why I saw him more after my own husband died.” The way the two of them spoke so casually about a creature the size of a building, one that she had, until now, thought to be just a myth, baffled Claire. There was so much to digest and her head was positively swimming from the impact of it all. She folded her arms on the table and rested her sweat-soaked face into them.
“Are you okay, Claire?” Ivy’s voice asked hazily to her right. Claire groaned in response.
“I need a drink.”
Posted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 1:34 pm
A Simple Request June 14, 2015
Many questions had been on Claire's mind for two days, and despite the initial fear of her encounter, she could not get the leshy out of her mind. Nothing remotely as fantastic had ever happened to her within recollection; perhaps that is why she could not let it go. The leshy had sensed her innate sadness, harnessed it, and lured her to him, but there was none of the maliciousness or hurtful mischief that had played background to so many legends about them. She had spent the last restless night scouring the internet for more information, but it was all much of the same.
When she was standing at the kitchen counter, helping Arina make roast beef sandwiches for lunch, the first of many questions tumbled from her lips.
“How did you end up talking to the leshy, Arina?” The older woman lowered the knife and looked at her curiously, before a smile crossed her features and she resumed her work.
“Curious, I take it?” She placed the sandwich, cut diagonally, on the plate and slid it to Claire, who littered a handful of potato chips around it. “Well, it was nothing terribly exciting. When you both work towards keeping the forest safe and healthy, we were destined to meet, I suppose.” The talk of destiny felt a little too mythical for Claire, but it made sense, given the older woman's former occupation. She wondered how many times they had met in those years for the woman to classify the meeting as "nothing terribly exciting," as Claire was certain she would never forget the meeting as long as she lived.
“Were you scared?” She searched for something in the story that rung true with hers, as Arina's tale was a bit too generic, and the question seemed like a stab in the right direction.
“Terrified, naturally.” Arina laughed, tucked a stray hair behind her ear, and set to work on putting mustard on a slice of bread. “All I had to rely on were the stories my parents and grandparents told me, and they were all cautionary tales. My grandparents did tell me that not all leshies are malevolent creatures, most of them are just mischievous.” She set the slice down and peeled a few green leaves of lettuce from the head sitting just in front of her, rinsing them under the running faucet in the sink.
“I didn’t think he seemed really mean… although hearing Dad’s voice is really unsettling.”
“Leshies respond to sadness, remember what I said yesterday?” Claire nodded slowly, hands waiting to receive the sandwich. Instead Arina reached into the upper cupboard and grabbed a roll of aluminum foil and a ziploc bag. “He likely senses the sadness in you and reached for the memory with the strongest voice to talk to you and bring you to him.” She tucked the sandwich quickly into a square of foil and expertly wrapped it up, setting it aside to reach in front of Claire and grab a handful of chips to shove into the plastic bag. She wiped her hands on a paper towel and plucked a small paper lunch sack from under the counter, shaking it open.
“Why me, though?” Claire never considered herself anything especially noteworthy - she was no hero or stand-out citizen, even if she did try to do the right thing and help out where she could. All she wanted was to have a family and live a happy life, even if half of that wish went unrealized - perhaps Arina was right after all.
“I’m sure he is lonely for company, just like anyone else would be. I don’t get to make it into his glen as often as I used to.” Arina laughed again, shrugged, and stuffed the wrapped sandwich and chips into the paper bag. "Which is better, you think - apple, orange, or banana?"
"Uh, I like oranges myself." Claire raised an eyebrow at the abrupt detour in conversation and idly wondered what Arina was doing - had her talk of the leshy encouraged the older woman to go see him? “Anyway, what do you think I should do?”
"You want to see him again, am I right?" Arina plucked an orange from the fruit bowl and dropped it into the bag, straightened it and rolled the top down. "Otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation." Claire paused to consider her words and found herself nodding slowly.
"Yeah." The leshy had been on her mind since the encounter in the woods two days prior, and maybe it was because it was such a fantastic event, or that he spoke with her father's voice (however unsettling that was), but the fact remained that she wanted to see him again. She did not want to leave it hanging on that awkward note.
“Talk to him. Or share your lunch with him.” Arina's smile widened and she shoved the lunch bag into Claire's hands. “That is what I did, and it worked wonderfully.” The younger woman glanced down at the sack in her hands and smiled herself.
“Duly noted.”
Following a short walk that did not seem that short at all due to her excited thoughts and pounding heart, Claire found herself in the leshy's glen once again. She steadied herself against the rock she had settled against before and held the lunch bag up as a sort of offering to the darkened woods, once again scrounging up her rusty knowledge of Russian.
"<< I.. I have lunch. >>" The bag crinkled in her hands. Birds continued to chirp overhead, and so far nothing gave an indication that the leshy was nearby. "<< I am not knowing if you eat meat, Arina was not telling me, is that okay? >>"
"That's fine." Her father's voice sounded from right next to her ear, and she jumped, turning - and the leshy was there, eye level with her. His approach had been so quiet she had not heard him at all. He glanced at the bag in her hands and then back at her, the corners of his old eyes crinkling further. "English is also fine." A groan of wood on wood and a slight sound of cracking, and the leshy resumed his usual height, planting himself on a large felled log that complained slightly under his weight. Claire plopped onto the rock a little more quickly than she had intended, spasms of pain radiating up her backside for it, and she fished into the bag, heart hammering against her ribs. She peeled the foil back from the sandwich and freed half of it, standing on shaky legs to hand it to the leshy. One of the squirrels resting on his huge shoulders skittered down his hand to sniff at the offering when the leshy took it. "Thank you." She flinched again at her father's voice as she resumed her seat. "Does this bother you?" It felt so strange that the leshy was checking up on her in this way, and she was not sure if it would be insulting to tell him what she was thinking. They had come this far, though, and he seemed just as keen to see her again as she had been.
"It's just that.. is there another voice you could speak with, other than my father's?" Claire's cheek flushed at the request and she busied herself with fishing the rest of the contents out of the lunch bag. "He died, and it's just.. really unsettling. Not to insult you, I mean no offense, but it's just.. unsettling, that's all." She wanted to keep her father in her memories, locked away and safe, where she could remember him as he was, and not the way he died. She chanced a glance at the leshy's face, who was thoughtfully picking pieces of the bread from the sandwich and offering it to the squirrels on his shoulders and the birds diving from his hair. 'Aaron would love this.' The leshy's eyes snapped up to meet hers as soon as the thought crossed her mind.
"Is this better?" Aaron's voice escaped the large bearded mouth, and the eyes were once again creased in his cheerfulness, the tone almost implying he wanted to please. Claire picked up the grain of truth from what Arina had said earlier - he probably was eager for company.
"Y-yeah, thank you." She smiled earnestly this time, and bit into her sandwich.
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Posted: Mon Jun 22, 2015 10:49 am
Shared Grief June 17, 2015
“Do you have a family?” Claire bit into the tuna sandwich she had hastily packed on her way out the door. If asked the prior week what she would be doing while visiting Russia, having lunch with the mythical-but-completely-real lord of the forest would definitely not be her first answer. But here she was, enjoying the increasingly warmer days in the leshy's glen and a shared lunch, surrounded by the happy chirps of songbirds and the chattering of squirrels and mice resting around the great lord of the forest. Over the past few days, the animals had gotten a little more adventurous and came up to Claire to beg for food, but would always return to hide under the huge tree trunk legs for safety. By now the leshy's domain was very familiar to her; she knew every inch of the glen by sight, the log he used as a seat during their lunchtime rendezvous, and where to sit on the rock to keep her backside from falling asleep.
"Sons, two of them to the south." Aaron's voice rumbled from the leshy as he chewed thoughtfully on the orange slices Claire had offered him. "They're both grown. I see them in winter." She smiled at the image. It seemed that even mythical creatures took family vacations south in the wintertime, as well. She swallowed and reached for the thermos of cold iced tea, pouring a small serving into the cup.
"Does your wife go too, or is it "boys only"?" she giggled and raised the cup to her lips, but the abrupt silence on the leshy's part gave her pause. His movements stilled for a moment and he looked distant, pensive, before offering some of the orange to the songbirds nested in his hair. "Oh.. I'm so sorry." He nodded, and she took a sip to busy herself with something while she figured out what to say. His actions carried a familiar grief, and she wondered if they were on familiar enough terms for her to ask what was on her mind. "May I.. ask what happened? If you don't want to answer that's okay, I know it's sensitive --"
"Deforestation." It was an answer she had not expected, and her confused expression prompted an explanation. "Hers was a small forest to the west, but it was paved over to expand the city." She vaguely remembered something Arina had told her and Matt when they were younger in her stories - if the forest the leshy is protecting dies, the leshy dies with it. In that sense, the grief he felt dwarfed what she felt for her father somewhat; her father's death had been an accident. The leshy's wife was killed somewhat deliberately, as she was the forest.
"Do you hate people?" Claire could not say she blamed him if he did. She felt so much anger and sadness in the wake of Steven's death, and the death of her own children, that she wished she could take it out in some way. She did not want to cause harm to anyone, heavens no, but she beat up quite a lot of pillows. She certainly wanted to do all manner of ridiculous things that came to her in her grievous state, like go scream at the hardware store for not inspecting their ladders better, or at the ob-gyn for not being more vigilant in helping her avoid miscarriage.
"... No." Again, the leshy's answer surprised her. "As long as they stay where I allow them to." The follow-up felt a little more realistic, as his gaze lingered towards the east, where Claire knew the road into the national park proper ran. The pre-season was starting to pick up with the unseasonal heat wave, and she and Ivy had watched a few tourist cars drive through the village towards the campgrounds. "But I do not travel west anymore." Hearing such sadness in the leshy's borrowed voice made her ache for Aaron's presence, even though he was no good at consolation.
"I'm sorry for your loss." She chewed her lip thoughtfully, fussing with the foil in her lap. "I know a little bit how you feel. It was my dad, for me, but you, uh, kinda know that already. Six years ago." She felt the day at times as though it were yesterday, and no matter how much her mother tried to put a happy face on it, she knew Ivy thought about it much more than she did. Her house was the same one that Claire and Matt grew up in; memories of him were in every corner, in so many pictures, the deck he had hand-stained himself, the rain gutters he had been installing when he fell to his death. She was grateful that he had been alive for her wedding, and she fondly recalled the father-daughter dance at the reception, and the unrestrained tears he shed during the ceremony proper as she and Aaron exchanged their vows. Claire missed her burly-bearded, large, sensitive father more deeply than she thought.
She also wished she could have made him a grandfather.
"And also your children." Claire paused and glanced up at the leshy. His eyes mirrored the sympathy that reflected in hers for his own loss. Without thinking, her hand flew to her abdomen, fingers clenching against her shirt.
"How did you know about that?"
"You think of them often." A tiny songbird flew from its perch on the leshy's head and landed on Claire's lap, tiny feet tapping on the foil square as it pecked at the remaining crumbs of her sandwich. She willed herself to lower her hand back down and the bird flitted away to its nest, beak full of crumbs to feed its young. Their tiny, hungry chirps blossomed a familiar sadness in her chest. "I feel it."
"Yeah," was all she could manage to say with the lump rising in her throat. Tears threatened to break loose but she pushed them back - the leshy would not judge her grief but she did not want to open the gates to more invasive thoughts.
"Children are.. important." There was a long creak as the leshy stood up, and she was thrown into shadow. "I am sorry for the loss of your son and daughter." Her heart stalled. The children had both passed on before their genders could be determined, but she had hoped..
Visions of two toddlers trundling through the grass of their front yard played clearly in her mind, laughing as they ran between her and Aaron, joy so thick in the air that it felt unreal. She pictured cradling a little girl with Aaron's curls in her arms and humming her to sleep, coloring with a dark haired little boy in a grocery store coloring book, visits from Auntie Anais and Uncle Matt, playing with cousin Dinah and Brendan on the front porch.
Christmas at Grandma Ivy's with the whole clan.
All memories that would never be.
Claire's tears escaped as she dreamed, and she cupped a hand to her mouth to hide the sob that rose in her throat. Her head bowed and hot tears fell on her bare knees. She knew now she had lost a son and a daughter, and she could not tell if she felt better for knowing or if she felt worse. Face hot, she swiped at her tears fretfully, ignoring the seemingly-distant groan of wood until she felt something rough and large settle gently on her head. The leshy merely rested his hand there, not applying too much pressure but enough to show that he was there.
"I'm sorry." A few more tears coursed their way down her cheeks, and she nodded.
Posted: Mon Jun 22, 2015 12:35 pm
Up is Down June 19, 2015
The end of their vacation was drawing nearer, and Claire knew that she'd have to say goodbye to the leshy sooner than she would like to. She was trooping into the forest for their usual lunch together, but her thoughts were heavy with what she would have to say within the next few days - she would have to say goodbye. While her vacation was more than she could have ever dreamed it could be, the weight of what she had run from by coming and what she had yet to do pressed on her. The bottle remained woefully empty; she had still not called Aaron; she had not resolved herself to sit down with him and finally talk, as she had been able to do with the leshy a few days prior.
She was more truthful with a mythical creature than her own husband - the thought stung.
Perhaps most important was the predicament of the bottle. After getting to know the leshy and traversing his beautiful forest, it was becoming harder and harder for her to will herself to kill something just for her own gain. The leshy's bitterness and grief when describing what had happened to his wife tinged her own thoughts with guilt. Claire would be no better than those humans who had unknowingly killed his wife, except she would be fully aware of what she was doing, and she could not abide that. Her goal of finding a wayward soul for her bottle was a flop, and she would be returning empty-handed.
'Better that than -- that.' She nodded resolutely as she approached their usual meeting spot. Claire mustered the most cheerful smile she could and pushed the heavy thoughts away as she saw the leshy waiting with his entourage of small forest creatures. She sat with a flourish on the rock that acted as her chair for the past several days and shrugged out of her backpack.
"Peanut butter today, hope you don't mind." The leshy's eyebrows knit together in concern and her smile wavered just a bit. She had to remember how intuitive it was, and she took a breath. After lunch, she would break the news of her departure. The backpack was opened and she frowned, fishing around in the contents for the lunch bag, which had shifted from her trek to the glen. At last, her fingers brushed the paper of the lunch sack. One of the squirrels resting on the leshy's knee perked its ears at the familiar noise and dashed to her side. She laughed as it scaled the front of the pack and poked its nose in, whiskers tickling her hand as it went. "Hey, just a minute!" she laughed, until the squirrel made a shrill, horrified squeal and dashed back to the leshy faster than its initial approach. Both Claire and the leshy stood in shock, the backpack toppling over as Claire did so and some of the contents spilling forth - out came the lunch sack and half of its contents, her tea thermos..
The empty bottle toppled wordlessly out behind them, clicking gently on the rocks and dirt beneath it.
A great fearful ruckus arose from the animals surrounding the leshy, and he leaned forward slowly, extending a finger towards it. Claire could feel sweat tracing down her cheeks and she lunged forward, screaming at him to stop, but it was drowned out in a deep, rumbling noise that arose from the leshy himself as he realized what the bottle was. The sound rose volumes in mere seconds and Claire's eyes squeezed shut as she clapped her hands over her ears - her very eardrums vibrated from the deep, angry noise. It was unlike anything she had ever encountered before and she felt it in her chest as much as she heard it.
It sounded like betrayal.
The noise subsided enough for her to remove her hands from her ringing ears, but when she glanced up, the forest ahead of her was deserted. The birdsong was distant now, scorning her for what she had done, and the trail the leshy had blazed behind the felled log stopped short as he disappeared into the thicket of trees.
"Come back!" Claire called into the woods. Panic settled into her chest and she closed her trembling fingers into fists and took another deep breath to coax him back. "I'm sorry!" Distant chirping answered her, playing keepaway. Her eyes welled with tears and her fists began to shake in earnest. "Dammit." She knelt down and shoveled the left over belongings back into the bag, the bottle clinking unhappily against the thermos, and she found it hard to see through the veil of threatening tears. Something glinted a short distance away in the sunlight, and she wiped her eyes and squinted in that direction to discern Arina's forgotten hunting knife, left there from the first meeting with the leshy.
'And that was the last,' she thought bitterly, reaching over for the knife and shoving it unceremoniously into the bag. The guilt assaulted her as she stood up and reshouldered her bag, looking back into the forest and calling with a hoarse voice, "I'm so sorry."
The walk took no time at all and yet felt like it stretched on longer than her journey out that morning when she walked into the kitchen. Ivy and Arina looked at her much as they had on the first day she had dashed into the kitchen, both faces etched with concern. "What happened?"
"Arina, he left. I made him mad and he left." She gave a small hiccup of a laugh and lowered herself into one of the kitchen chairs, clutching her head between her hands. "Why did I take the bottle with me?"
"Bottle?" Confusion was evident in her voice, and she looked to Ivy for an explanation. She merely waved her hand in a gesture implying she would explain later, and placed a hand on Claire's arm.
"Give him some time. It was probably just a shock, is all. You've visited him enough times in the past week for him to figure you out as a person, I'm sure he knew you meant no harm." In most other situations, she would welcome their consolations, but she did not want to be comforted just now. As far as she was concerned, she had betrayed the leshy. He saw the bottle, he felt what it was capable of, he knew she was out to kill something for her own gain. She was no better than his wife's murderers.
"But it made me just like them!" Claire's hands came together over her face and she moaned into them.
"'Them'.. ?" Ivy prompted, but her daughter shook her head, sweat soaked hair swaying to and fro. She released her face from her own sweating palms and looked in anguish to her mother.
"What if he thinks I was just using him? I couldn't stand it if he thought that of me. I don't know what to do.. why did I have to mess this up so badly?" She moaned again, feeling thoroughly depressed that she had messed up the most interesting friendship she had yet to experience. Ivy frowned deeply and grabbed her by the forearms firmly.
"Claire, sweetie, you can't change what other folks think. That's just the bottom line. All you can do is try your best to be a good person." Claire avoided her mother and Arina's eyes and let her gaze wander the orange and brown linoleum. "And if this leshy creature is as decent as you and Arina say, just give him some space, talk to him in a few days, let him cool his head. Maybe you can think of what to say, or what to bring as a peace offering."
"Yeah, I suppose..." Her lips pressed together anxiously, only to be shaken gently by Ivy.
"No more of that, chin up. Let's go into Ulyanovsk tomorrow and do some sightseeing. There are a few places I'd love for you to see. We can get a hotel room and make it a two day trip, finish out our vacation with a bang." Her mother was bound and determined to raise her mood, and she felt a small swell of gratitude towards her, even if it was dwarfed by so much of her own sadness. "Then you can come back and patch things up, sound good?" Ivy's smile was triumphant as she turned to her friend. "Care to come with, Arina?"
"You two go ahead," the older woman laughed, waving her hand. "I think I'll take the opportunity to pick some of the veggies in the garden before this heatwave dries them out." Ivy's hands left Claire's arms and she was left to rub away the soreness while the two older women conversed about tourist locations and good restaurants, their thoughts already turned towards happier times, but Claire could not muster enough enthusiasm. All she was doing was running away again, and it left a bitter taste in her mouth.
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Posted: Mon Jun 22, 2015 3:41 pm
Suddenly June 21, 2015
"So what did you think?" Claire was stirred from her reverie by her mother's insistent voice across the table from her. Their breakfast sat half-finished between them, simmering in the rising heat. "Claire."
"Oh, sorry.. it was nice, thanks for taking me." Claire mustered a smile for her mother, who sighed and sunk back into her seat, taking a long draw from her coffee cup. She felt a little bad for Ivy; she was trying her best to help Claire forget about the incident with the leshy and show her around Ulyanovsk. They had gone to the famous Puppet Show Theater and the Symphony Orchestra the night before, ate a lovely dinner at a pricey French restaurant, and then Ivy had whisked her off to the Karamzin State Library, which had been wonderful, but Claire's thoughts could not stay on Ulyanovsk and sightseeing when she kept remembering the leshy's disappointed howl. She was also surprised by the frequent use of sirens in the city, having counted at least four or five times that morning they had heard them outside the library.
"Claire, please don't make yourself sick with worry." Ivy advised, not unkindly, lowering her cup to the saucer. Claire nodded and stared into the recesses of her coffee cup, unable to keep her thoughts away from what had happened, when loud sirens pounded their way into her thoughts. The fire engines roared past the café; the patrons sharing the outside patio with them stood up, leaned over, did whatever they could to follow their pursuit. Ivy did likewise, leaning sideways in her chair as the engines disappeared around a bend in the road. Claire’s eyes drifted towards the sky, and her heart gave a hard thump against her ribs – gray smoke was curling on the horizon to the northeast.
“Ma,” she pre-empted, but Ivy was ahead of her, chair screeching against the cement as she scrambled for her phone. She dialed Arina’s number as quickly as she could and pressed the phone to her ear. Several tense moments passed, and Ivy’s face paled. The phone dropped to her lap and she tried her friend’s cell phone number.
Again, nothing.
Panic settled into her mother’s face as Ivy tried the house line one more time, but Claire had sprung from her seat and ran to the register, pushing the rubles quickly into the cashier’s hand without waiting for the check.
“<< We must go, keep change, please, >>” she stammered out as she returned to the table to grab her purse. Ivy was still alternating between numbers, her eyes widened and mouth set in a firm line as each call went unanswered. “Let’s go.”
“I – yeah, sorry.” Ivy shook her head and stood up, trembling hands shoving her cell phone into her bag and struggling to close the latch. “I’m just –“
“Yeah.” Claire cut her off gently, resting her hand under her arm. “Me too. C’mon.” They made their way to the car and her mother struggled to fish out the keys, while Claire watched the sky with rattled nerves – there was more than just Arina on her mind. 'Please be alright.'
The congestion over President Bridge was horrible as emergency vehicles rushed to the scene, their progress impeded for an extra hour as cars were detoured and made to take alternate routes. The darkening skies once they finally reached the other side of the Volga only heightened their anxiety, and they pushed on with aching hearts.
It was two hours later when they finally arrived in the small village that Arina called home, and the sky was smoky gray and black, the rest of the roadway barricaded by police and firefighters. Many villagers were trapped on the route they had just come, making for the safety of Ulyanovsk across the river. Claire hunched over the wheel.
"Ma, there's no way through," she said, her backpack sandwiched between her and the seat and digging into her. Her eyes darted to and fro to find some way through the barricade, and Ivy waved her hand to indicate all the other stopped and parked vehicles pulled off the road.
"Park, we'll walk." Claire nodded with another glance at the darkened sky and pulled off the road as easily as she could. The vehicle was barely put into park when Ivy jumped out and hustled into the crowd.
"Ma!" she cried out the window, struggling out of her seatbelt and the car itself. For a woman in her early sixties, her mother was still terribly spry, and it sometimes caught Claire off guard. She followed her mother's path as best as she could and kept her eyes peeled for her mother's spring green blouse among the crowdgoers. The air was thick and unbearably warm, and even though the fire looked to be fully contained in this portion of the forest, the flames still peaked over the trees towards the national park's entrance, close to the campgrounds. Claire's heart ached; there was no telling how many were dead.
At last, she spotted her mother hiking the hill towards Arina's cottage, mixing in with various citizens, paramedics, and firefighters, and she struggled to catch up. "Ma!" she shouted as she jogged up the hill, catching her mother's attention as they nervously grasped each other's hands and crested the hill. Arina's cottage looked untouched, as many of the other houses did on the southeast side of the road - thankfully the fire had not jumped the road and the firefighters had responded quickly. Tire tracks in the sooty, mud-covered road told of the firetrucks that had been here, now reconvened where the fire was still raging. Ambulances had taken up residence around Arina's house in their stead and were tending to those pulled from the campgrounds, and Ivy bolted into the crowd, calling as loudly as she could for her old mentor.
"Ivy!" Relief washed over both of them as Arina disentangled herself from the oxygen mask a paramedic pressed to her face and rushed into her best friend's arms. Claire pressed a hand to her chest to calm her heart while the two women cried with relief. "Why did you come back?!"
"Why, she says!" Ivy shouted. "You should have come with us!" The terseness of the moment dissolved as both began crying again, the relief of finding each other mostly alive and well overcoming all else. "What happened? You're not hurt, are you?" Arina's face grew solemn, and she nodded and turned her head towards the distant flames. Claire noticed the soot on her face and clothes, the impression of the oxygen mask around her nose and mouth.
"They think it was campers. They could not have known. Most tourists don't pay too much attention.. it was a very dry winter and with this heat wave.." She gestured listlessly towards the forest. "It will take a long time for the area to recover. At least they contained it before too many people were hurt." Claire's heart sank into her stomach as she looked towards where she would normally enter the woods to visit the leshy, now rendered unrecognizable by the fire.
'If the woods die, the leshy dies with it,'Arina had told her when she was little. Claire's feet were moving before she even realized it, and soon she was jogging around the other side of the house, and then running full-tilt towards the burnt woods.
“CLAIRE!” Ivy’s voice was sharp, warning, mostly scared, but her continued cries faded into the ambient noise as Claire ran. The fire had passed through here and most of the firefighters had moved further east to combat what was left, but a few problem spots remained – a burning log here and there, embers deceptively hidden under ash. The air was close and thick, and it did not take Claire long to feel the effects. She paused and hunched over with her hands on her knees to catch her breath, coughing, but she knew she could not give up now.
“I’m – I’m coming,” she wheezed out, coughing once more, before she pulled the collar of her shirt up over her nose, pressed her hand to it, and started off once again at a quick jog. The path was unfamiliar with so much of the landscape barren now that she had a hard time picking out the trail.
Posted: Mon Jun 22, 2015 4:40 pm
A Glimmer of Sun June 21, 2015
The ash was slippery in places where the firefighters had soaked through to the dirt below. Claire did her best to keep her footing as she dodged between the barren trees, struggling to get her bearings in a forest where almost all signs were absent. Many trees barred her path as she jogged, and she struggled around them and over them, holding her shirt to her face to filter out the smoke. Scratches marred her aching legs as branches grabbed at her but all she could think of was the leshy. Her head swiveled around to find something that would point her down the right path; she could only go so far on instinct and weak muscle memory.
At last she reached the slight incline that marked where she would hop off the main path, and she dug her stance into the mud and scrambled up the hill as quickly as the slick slope would allow, but a patch gave way beneath her and she went tumbling backwards. Her arms and legs flailed as she tried to grab onto something to stop her descent, but everything gave way beneath her fingers, until she crashed into a log at the bottom of the incline that was still bright with embers. She cried out as it burned into the back of her neck, the side of her face, her arm, and tried to pull herself free with her head spinning and skin crying with pain. She rolled forward onto her forearms and huffed to catch her breath, but the air was too thick.
'Not yet,' she thought, and she struggled to her feet. Her backpack caught on one of the log's branches and ripped a wide hole, and a number of small knick knacks and pamphlets gathered while in town littered the forest floor, but she merely reshouldered it, doing her best to ignore the pain, replaced the shirt around her nose and mouth and trudged forward. Using her hands this time, she scaled the gentle, slippery hill, and glanced around at where she thought she should be, feeling she was in the right place, but still feeling vaguely lost.
The glen was silent in a way she had never imagined it could be. Ash clouded the air and drifted to the ground like dirty snow, the sunlight hard to see through the thick smoke high in the air. No birds chirped here, nor did any other creatures skitter across the forest floor. The greenery was coated in gray and black, and all that remained now were the shells of once proud oaks and pines - charred, naked, and dead. The landscape looked completely different than it had two days before, before she and Ivy had gone sightseeing in Ulyanovsk. Without the familiar markers it was hard to distinguish it as the place she and the leshy had shared their lunches, but she barely made out the sooty rock beneath a fallen oak. A low groan shook her out of her stupor, and she reeled at what she had thought was another fallen tree.
The leshy was stretched next to his favorite felled log, his slow movements even slower as his breathing was barely audible to Claire’s ears. While the leshy was slow and deliberate in his movements during the peak of health, here he seemed paler and diminished. His great beard and long, mossy hair were charred black, flecks of orange still alight in the twigs that resided there, and his blue cheeks were gray. So much of his giant being radiated pain that it felt as though a weight were pressing down on top of her. The piercing gaze that she recognized in him so well was tired and wavering as he tried to focus on her face.
Burned twigs crunched under her muddied boots, each step heavier than the last in her approach. A thousand words flitted through her mind but she could not seem to catch one to give him. Her burned arm throbbed and she reached over and squeezed it in response, the shirt collar slipping from her nose back to its proper place at her neckline.
There was so much she wished to say to him; words of condolence, pleas for him to hang on as long as she could, that she would fetch Arina and she would know what to do, they would fix it, that everything would be okay. Most of all, that she was sorry that she had not been here to help sooner - that she did not want him to die and leave this forest and its residents without their protector, or his sons off in southern forests without a father. She knew what that was like and she could not suffer his children to face that, even if they were grown by now.
That she could not bear for another soul she cared about to die. Even now, she could not reconcile the selfishness of the thought within.
Instead of words, tears spilled forth, coursing tracks down her soot-covered cheeks. She sank to her knees next to him and cried harder. The ashen air made it hard enough to breathe and impeded her sobs as much as it could, but she could not will herself to stop. The helplessness she felt was as great as she had remembered it from times of strife, and she hated it. The logical side of her knew that one tourist could not stop a forest fire once fully ablaze, nor that she had any hand in saving her father when he fell from his ladder while she lived miles from home, nor her two unborn children whom she had never gotten to meet, but all the same she wished that there was something she could do - a way, any way at all, that she could save them.
A gentle brush against her injured arm drew her attention and she gasped. A small vine, still stubbornly bright green, reached out to her from its home against the leshy's woodlike fingers. It traced a careful path around the burns and scratches, and with a great groan of wood that threatened to crack, the arm lifted, fingers uncurled, and touched her cheek. The wetness soaked into them but did little good otherwise - the damage was done, and bitterness infused Claire's tears when she finally raised her eyes to the leshy's face.
"No... tears..." His voice rumbled in her chest and with a sudden shock she realized that this is the first time outside of his anguished yell from days prior that she had heard the leshy's true voice. He smiled, and finally a word loosed itself from her tightened throat.
"P-please." It hurt to breathe and the word felt so heavy and congested as it hung between them, but the leshy merely smiled a very tired smile, raised the arm once more and rested it gently atop her head in a gentle, fatherly pat.
A whisper of wind blew through the glen, and then the arm slid down and away from her with a soft thud into the ash, and the leshy was gone, eyelids still parted and lips ever smiling. Her eyes glossed over with another coat of tears and she unleashed a loud sob.
Another gale, fiercer than before, came through and kicked ash and smoke into the air, and the limb at her side darkened and disintegrated into smaller particles. The orange embers alight in his beard and hair spread over him quickly and returned him to nothing, and the wind carried him away, leaving Claire covered in the stirred up soot and mud.
"If the woods die, the leshy dies with it," she mumbled, clutching fistfuls of soot in her hands. And so the leshy had gone, leaving the barren woods behind.
The wood was silent as death without its master during her trek back. Her arm and neck hurt, her lungs burned, the backpack heavy on her shoulders and the faint smell of burning hair assaulted her nose, but she could only note it with a vague awareness. It did not hurt as much as the memory of the leshy smiling as he died and his body burned. The sky had lightened a touch since she had entered the forest but the flames were still consuming the campgrounds by the time she crossed the road. Ivy and Arina were huddled together near the paramedics, seemingly frantic as they asked a bunch of questions, but Arina yelped and shoved Ivy's shoulders, pointing towards Claire as she approached them, who could only look on benignly when they approached. She did not even flinch when Ivy raised her hand and slapped her hard on the unburnt side of her face.
"Don't ever do that again, Claire, you hear me?!" She grabbed her by the arms and shook her, and her daughter replied with a yelp of pain which caused Ivy to recoil anxiously. "Oh my god, your arm! Your face too! I'm getting a paramedic!" She did not respond, but merely looked over to Arina, who studied her with a heavy, resigned gaze.
"Claire?" she asked, with all the anxieties ever present in the one word. Claire could not swallow, she could barely breathe, and instead shook her head and tried to muster the words from her dried, aching throat.
"I'm sorry," she croaked out. The only shred of hope alight in Arina's eyes passed as quickly as it came, and her face crumpled with tears forming in her eyes. She bowed her head and pressed her palms to her face to hide them, and Claire wrapped her arms around the older woman; tears rushed to her own eyes and she wept into Arina's hair. The backpack slipped on her shoulders but she did not move from her spot. Both of them grieved for the leshy, for the forest, for the loss of life, and they remained like that until Ivy returned with the paramedic and pried them gently apart. Claire sat numbly on the back of the ambulance and let the medic slide the backpack from her shoulders, handing it to Ivy while she set to work cleaning the grime off of her injuries. She allowed her thoughts to drift, not wanting to feel anything but just remain in that familiar, vacuous sadness that followed her in the wake of her father's death, and the premature passing of her children.
Vague bits of conversation caught her attention, comments from the paramedic about burns on the back of her neck from where she had fallen, Arina commenting that her hair would need a cut with so much of it singed, but her mother only kept saying her name over and over, clutching the backpack in her hands. The paramedic excused herself to find more gauze, and Ivy called a little more insistently.
"Claire." She turned dazedly towards her mother, who held the shredded, burnt backpack between them. The gaping hole that had been ripped in her fall revealed a glimmer of something else among the ruined souvenirs that managed to keep their place. Ivy reached inside and plucked the soul bottle from its nest of singed fabric, oddly undamaged, and placed it into Claire's waiting hands. A few flecks of soot marred the glass while a lazy, green mist swirled around inside, the bottle warm as the sun.
alpha lyrae
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alpha lyrae
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Posted: Mon Jun 22, 2015 5:43 pm
A Brief Exchange June 21, 2015 Skype PRP with Ravina Loki
Claire texts Zeke for advice following the incident with the leshy.
A Brief Exchange
To: Zeke Hey Zeke? I need some advice if you can. Sent: Sun Jun 21, 10:17 PM
To: Claire Hey Claire! Long time no see! Whatcha need? Sent: Sat Jun 20, 10:17 AM
To: Zeke Sorry to bother you, hopefully I'm not keeping you from your work. Sent: Sun Jun 21, 10:19 PM
To: Zeke Well... I did it, my bottle is filled! Sent: Sun Jun 21, 10:19 PM
To: Claire Nah it's okay! I'm between appointments! Oh man really?! CONGRATULATIONS!!! Sent: Sat Jun 20, 10:21 AM
To: Zeke You're the first to know, aside from Ma anyway. Thank you! Sent: Sun Jun 21, 10:22 PM
To: Claire I feel honored! And you're welcome! You know I was starting to worry when I didn't hear anything back from you for so long! Sent: Sat Jun 20, 10:23 AM
To: Zeke Haha well I certainly wasn't resting on my laurels, it was just a very hard decision to make. Sent: Sun Jun 21, 10:25 PM
To: Zeke I'm sure you're no stranger to hearing that, though. Sent: Sun Jun 21, 10:25 PM
To: Claire Oh for sure! I feel like I'll be hearing it a lot more in the future as well! Still have a few other bottles still yet to be returned! Sent: Sat Jun 20, 10:26 AM
To: Zeke Glad to hear I'm not alone there! Sent: Sun Jun 21, 10:27 PM
To: Zeke So here's my question - not sure how much help you can give me but it's kind of a strange situation. Sent: Sun Jun 21, 10:30 PM
To: Zeke I'm not actually IN Gambino right now, I'm with my mother in Russia visiting her friend when the capture happened. Sent: Sun Jun 21, 10:31 PM
To: Claire Oh wow! We're going to have a Russian Raevan, eh?! That's so cool! But what do you need to know? Sent: Sat Jun 20, 10:33 AM
To: Zeke We're due to start our flights back in a couple of days and I'm worried about getting the bottle through customs. It was one thing when it was empty but I don't want to chance it getting confiscated. Sent: Sun Jun 21, 10:35 PM
To: Zeke Is this something that has happened before or am I the first? Sent: Sun Jun 21, 10:35 PM
To: Zeke Would your courier service work through the postal system here, you think? Sent: Sun Jun 21, 10:35 PM
To: Claire Oh hey no need to be worried! We've had souls captured from outside the country a few times before in the past! Sent: Sat Jun 20, 10:36 AM
To: Claire But given how tight airport security is nowadays...I don't believe they do, no. They'll ship TO Russia I'm sure but I dunno about the opposite way. Sent: Sat Jun 20, 10:36 AM
To: Zeke Hmmm, that seems like it might be a problem. Then again, I would wonder if the x-rays would pick up a soul swirling around, they did not ask me about the empty bottle before so it may be something I have to risk.. Sent: Sun Jun 21, 10:38 PM
To: Zeke Did those who had captures outside the country have much issue with that, if you know? Sent: Sun Jun 21, 10:38 PM
To: Claire I don't think an xray machine can pick up a soul. It's vaporous and I don't think they can pick up a liquid inside a bottle either. You'd have to worry about bag searches if anything. Did they look through your bags on the way in or did you not do carry on? I don't believe those who caught outside the country had any issues. The only issues they had was the capture itself! Sent: Sat Jun 20, 10:40 AM
To: Zeke I only had a purse for my carry-on, and that was searched when going through customs once we landed in Russia, but everyone else had their carry-ons searched as per protocol. So that would make the most sense - I'll put the bottle into my stored luggage and hope for the best. Sent: Sun Jun 21, 10:44 PM
To: Zeke Would you prefer I bring it down the Lab myself once I get in or would the courier service be better? Sent: Sun Jun 21, 10:44 PM
To: Claire I wish I could say I had some sort of sticker or something you could print out and slap onto the bottle as a 'get out of Russia free' card, but something like that would cause MORE suspicion I think! Sent: Sat Jun 20, 10:45 AM
To: Claire Either or works for me! But whatever works best for YOU more importantly! I'm sure you'll need time to get settled back in at home once you're back but if you want to just drop it off on your way home, that's fine by me! Just let me know when you'll be swinging by if you go that route. Heck, lemme know if you use the courier system! If the latter, be sure to include those documents I gave you and make sure they're signed, okay? Sent: Sat Jun 20, 10:47 AM
To: Zeke Duly noted. I'll keep you posted once I get back home. Sent: Sun Jun 21, 10:50 PM
To: Zeke I'm sure I'll have a lot more questions so I'll let you know when I'm all set to send it off! Sent: Sun Jun 21, 10:54 PM
To: Claire Awesome! And hey yeah if you have anymore questions or anything, just text away! I'm always available for Lab members! I really can't wait to find out what you caught! But hey, I'm about to head off to another appointment so expect a delay if you send another message, okay? Sent: Sat Jun 20, 10:58 AM
To: Zeke Thank you for your help, and good luck at your appointment! I'll let you know when I'm back in Gambino! Sent: Sun Jun 21, 11:01 PM
Claire set the smartphone on the nightstand with a resolute clack.
Her eyes felt less like the organ they were and more like heavy wooden balls; she was exhausted - beyond so, in fact - but sleep evaded her. Perhaps it had to do with the burns she was nursing on her arm, neck and face, which was part of the issue. The hotel that she and Ivy were currently staying at had bent over backwards in the wake of the fire to accommodate all who were displaced by it. Upon seeing her bandaged arm and neck, the front desk immediately supplied her with extra pillows and the additive of "if you should need anything else, please ask." The paramedics had sent her off to the doctors as soon as they had tended to her, and it was a strange experience to be sitting in a Russian clinic after what she had just experienced. Arina handled the talking, and soon enough Claire was in and out with fresh bandages, burn cream, and some painkillers to help her rest until she was back home.
But all Claire could think about was that last smile as the leshy's spirit flew away, and her chest ached, and sleep evaded her. And that was when she decided to text Zeke.
She felt a little bad in glossing over the events so readily, but she was not quite ready to talk about her injuries, or the tears she cried, or the leshy. Not yet. There would be time for it but it was not now, through text messages. Her eyes drifted over to the nightstand again, just shy of her phone, where the bottle resided. Its green smoke drifted hazily inside its confines as though nothing were wrong, the table beneath illuminated with a weird green glow as the bedside lamp lit it from above. Her mother snorted in her sleep from the other bed and rolled over, and Claire felt a stab of jealousy as she, too, tried to readjust herself and only felt searing pain shooting through her arm and she was left wondering.
'What now?' Zeke had given her the next steps, so she had some options to consider. Her method of delivery, when she could do it, how she should explain the capture itself.. but that was for another day.
She picked up the phone and scrolled through the conversation one more time, and was struck by how terrible she felt after she paused on Zeke's enthusiastic congrats for her successful soul capture. The leshy's dying smile crossed her mind again and her eyes welled with tears. It did not feel like much of a congratulations - not when another had died for her to get what she wanted. She had pretty much killed him, and the thought tasted bitter.
What the conversation had done, most unexpectedly, was stir up a burning need to speak to Aaron. Perhaps it was because the leshy had spent much of their time borrowing his voice, but she yearned to talk to her husband, hear the real Aaron's voice, and tell him. It was time to tell him everything.
'Tomorrow,' she thought resolutely, and shut the light off, her arm searing painfully in protest.
Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2015 10:55 pm
Stilted Communication June 22, 2015
Tomorrow did not come fast enough.
Claire stared red-eyed at the clock on the nightstand, bright numbers declaring the three o'clock hour loudly against the darkness of the room. Her neck and arm were throbbing painfully; it seemed the painkillers had not yet gone to work. Her mother snored uninhibited from her own bed, and she felt a touch of jealousy. Her nose was still filled with the scent of smoke and her body's pains reminded her constantly of the fire, while her mind replayed what had happened with the leshy over and over. She heard her husband's voice in her mind coming from the leshy's beaded mouth, and now she wanted to hear it more than anything. She reached for her phone and unplugged it from the charger, padding quietly out of bed and slipping onto the balcony. The wind was warm and balmy, and still the scent of the fire lingered in the air. Fingers flashed through her contacts and she was pressing her husband's name. As she leaned against the glass, there was not even two beats before the phone was answered.
"Claire!" His voice felt like honey to her, and her lips twitched into a small smile of her own.
"Hey sweetie, been a while." Her own voice, in contrast, sounded as tired as she felt - scratchy and worn.
"Hey, how's it been? Having a good time?" She could hear a slight shuffle at the other end and she imagined him reclining on their sofa, sitting up properly once the phone rang.
"Yeah, sorry, it's been busy. I meant to call."
"No, no, it's okay." The friendliness in his tone came through loud and clear over the line. "I know you needed the break." The words, without him meaning to, stung as his tone lost some of his excitement just a touch, and she did what she could to drive the conversation back again. Claire slipped into one of the deck chairs.
"How are things there? Have you been watering the plants?"
"You've only got a couple aloes right now, remember?" He laughed, and she felt her cheeks flush in slight embarrassment.
"Ah." Her heart was sinking in her chest at the weight of what she should be telling him - not this dancing around the subject. "Yeah, that's right."
"Otherwise not much else, been working, mostly. Tried to get Cadi over for dinner but she's mostly stuck to Ivy's house. I've seen her out watering her garden and walking Misha though so preeeetty sure Ivy won't come back to complete chaos."
"Ah." It came out in the same flat tone as the previous exclamation without her fully realizing it. "Yeah, that's good. Sure Ma'll appreciate it."
"..." The line went quiet and Claire's nerves spiked momentarily. "Everything okay?" And there was her opening, but everything fled from brain to mouth at rapid pace - meeting the leshy, the fire, the fight, the scare with Arina, watching the leshy die, how he used her father's and Aaron's voices to speak to her.
Yet none escaped. All she felt was a tightness in her chest matched by one in her throat, and a few silent tears leaked out. She wiped them away with the back of her hand.
"Just tired, is all." Aaron, for his part, rolled with her denial, if he had truly picked it up. But he had learned long ago, she knew, not to push any further, and now she were wishing that she did not teach him that lesson.
"Well yeah, it's pretty late over there, right? And to think I just woke up over here!" She closed her eyes and imagined herself back home, nestled up safe in her blue comforter and white sheets, no smoky atmosphere to cloud her senses. If it were not for the slightly tinned quality of his tone, she could imagine him right next to her, feeling the warmth radiating from his place in the bed. But that was not true; she was thousands of miles away, burned and awake at ungodly hours, and she had killed to get what she wanted.
"Yeah." Her voice pitched a little, startling her, when more tears came on.
"Claire?" A hint of concern. "You getting tired? You can call me tomorrow." Perhaps it was the worry in his voice that had done it but she struggled to lock her emotions back up.
"Just wanted to see what was happening, is all." The words were congested, as she had hoped they would not be. He knew something was up by now, surely. But she did not have the strength to tell him tonight, as she had wanted, but it would not be fair to blindside him. "Hey listen, I've got.. something to tell you when we get back."
"Why?" A note of panic was evident. "Claire, what's wrong? Did something happen? Is Ivy okay?"
"We're fine, we're all fine, don't worry." She struggled to keep her tone even when the tears would not cease. "I'll tell you when we get home. Promise."
"Alright." Once again, her husband backed away. "Hey, go get some sleep, you. We'll talk tomorrow." And once again, he teased her gently to diffuse the seriousness of the moment before. Claire swallowed before she could continue, pushing down the sadness again, and all the things she had hoped to tell him about what had happened, filed away for later, as they always were.
"See you later."
"Goodnight, Claire." The last syllable of her name had barely passed through the line and with fluttering heart and sudden impulse she blurted out one of many things she had wanted to tell him.
"I miss you." The line did not immediately go dead, and there was a soft hum on the other side.
"I miss you too." The phone buzzed, and the call ended. Claire set it on the small patio table and brought her knees up to her chest, resting her head atop them as her eyes burned and her heart ached.
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Posted: Sat Jul 18, 2015 12:08 am
Homeward Bound June 23, 2015
Claire felt the ambient noises of the Ulyanovsk Vostochny International Airport as a faint buzzing the back of her brain, and she kept her carry-on close to her legs. Just like when the bottle had been empty, it was as though she could feel it pressing against her leg, although her better judgment told her that was not true. As they had packed hastily this morning on the way out of the hotel room, she had shoved the green bottle that felt like sunshine into the depths of her checked luggage, but somewhere along the line, between digging out her hair brush to tame the choppy cut she had given herself the day before, the bottle had been unearthed, and she had no heart to put it back where it had been.
Now it lay nestled in the wheeled carry-on between her crocheted sweater and her makeup case, likely clinking against the tiny music box she had purchased that morning after breakfast in the airport lobby (a weird sense of normalcy when it came to vacations with her). The niggling fear of losing it at airport security was ever present, but she much preferred that it would happen in her presence, rather than it be detected while it went through the conveyor belt downstairs and spirited away without her knowing.
'This way, if you can't come back with me, you can go back to your home with Arina. I won't have stolen you at all.' Claire's guilt was burning as hot as ever when the thought crossed her mind. She was loathe to have to give the leshy up should customs and security catch onto what she was smuggling out of the country, but that desperation came at a price. Restless nights had been her reward for her recklessness, pain that burned white hot at the earliest hours of the morning, and searing guilt. Guilt over not being able to tell Aaron the full story, once again. The leshy's cry of betrayal played back in her mind just as often as his vacant smile and half-lidded eyes when his soul fled from his body into her bottle. She was no better than those who had destroyed his wife's forest for their own gain. Rubbing her tired, bleary eyes in her palms, she blinked at the glowing signs around them. For so early in the morning, the airport was still quite busy (not surprising for an international travel hub), brightly lit as though it were midday. Her mother stood a few feet away from her and watched the departure signs with crossed arms and leaning stance. Claire leaned her head into her palms and rested her elbows on her legs, trying to quiet the buzzing in her head for a few moments.
"Have some coffee." She raised her head and a paper cup appeared before her and she blinked away her sleepiness. Arina stood behind the offered cup with a tired smile of her own, her mother still in her station with a coffee cup between two palms.
"Thank you," Claire answered and took the cup shakily, leaning back into her chair. Arina planted herself in the vacant seat next to Claire, between the girl and her mother's carry-on occupying the other seat, blowing into the tiny hole in her lid.
"It feels silly to ask," the older woman pre-empted, "but are you doing alright?" Claire redirected her blurry vision towards her, then darted it back to the paper cup in her own hands. She did not trust herself on that answer right away, and instead took a long draw. The coffee was very sweet and creamy, just how Arina liked it, but Claire was not one to complain about free coffee.
"I feel like.. I don't know, it sounds stupid." Her eyes were aching and dry and the wound on the back of her neck gave a sharp, painful throb.
"No answer is stupid." A hand rested on her arm just below her bandages. Claire squeezed her eyelids closed for a moment.
"It feels stupid," she pouted, in no mood to be comforted. She did not believe she deserved it. "I mean... I betrayed him and now he's dead." A slight hiccup of a laugh edged her voice, and the negativity that had lay simmering just below the surface began to boil like thick sludge. Her trembling fingers crinkled the thick paper of the coffee cup angrily. "He can't guard the forest anymore, I killed him. I killed the one chance the forest had because I had this stupid bottle." On the brink of her vision, she noticed her mother turn around but the sound of rustling let her know that Arina waved her off to let them be.
"Claire." The hand on her arm squeezed reassuringly. "Look at me." Claire stubbornly looked away, and the impatient hand flew to her cheek and gently redirected her sight. Arina's eyes and mouth were set in their firmness, her words spoken with conviction. "You did not cause the fire, understand? Do not blame yourself for what you did not do because you could not be there to stop it." With the younger woman's gaze on her fully, Arina let her hand slide from Claire's face and moved to sit back in her chair. "He was not stupid, he knew what that bottle was if he reacted how he did." She took a long sip from her coffee cup, and Claire did the same, if only to busy herself. "I think he knew his time had come and he wanted to stay with you longer." The words surprised her. This was a friend she had betrayed, and in his moment of death he had chosen to stay with her? Nothing seemed to add up.
"But why would he want to stay with me?" Her voice was hoarse and filled with conflicted feelings. "I killed him, Arina."
"Because he cares for you, that's why." Arina's eyes were bright. "Milaya, he chose his way out of this world, and he chose to go home to Gambino with you, to become what he will become. All things take root and grow, given time, and so will he." Claire's dry, tired eyes began to water against her wishes and did what she could to pull the tears back, but a few leaked out. "Go home and you and your husband raise him up again."
"He won't be the s-same though," she stammered out, rubbing her eyes fiercely.
"Nothing can ever be the same the second time around." Arina's hands encircled her own and squeezed their warmth into them. "It would not be an adventure if that were the case, would it?"
"I-I guess not," she conceded, finally drying her eyes as the intercom buzzed to life again. It played as little more than background noise as she finished pulling herself together and took a few steadying breaths. Arina was right, she had been the whole time, and while Claire did not feel fully absolved of her guilt, she felt a little better about what she would be doing. The leshy did his final share of comforting her and for a moment she could remember the feeling of his heavy, wooden hand on her head, the smell of earth on him. How he had departed with a smile.
"Claire?" Ivy reappeared next to them, lifting her suitcase out of the seat. "We've gotta board now, they called our seats." Claire's heart gave a heavy thump in her ribs and both she and Arina stood. Her hand grabbed the handle of her luggage and with another look at the Russian woman, all three of them headed towards security and customs.
Next came the real challenge: getting the bottle home. There had been no issues before as it had only looked like a normal, empty bottle on the x-ray, fitting within travel guidelines. Now, however, a spirit swirled around inside, and Claire was unsure how this would show up on screen. She feared what might happen, and had read many tales of detainment and even arrest during the months leading up to their visit. As they arrived at the entrance, she shuffled through her purse to make sure all the needed documents were present and accounted for while Ivy and Arina shared their goodbyes. The leshy had died because he would get another start with her; she had to honor that promise as best as she could and it would serve no purpose if she was stopped here.
"You take care, got it?" Claire turned towards the two women, hearing the tears on the edge of her mother's voice, thick with emotion. "Call me or email me when you get the chance, lemme know how things are going over here. Don't make me come drag you back to Gambino because if I get wind of another fire --" Arina laughed as the two disentangled, wiping her own eyes.
"I'll be fine, don't worry so much. You've got your hands full as it is." She nodded her head towards Claire, and Ivy chuckled. Finally, Arina turned towards her and held her arms open wide, an invitation which Claire took immediately. Her arms were tight and warm on her back, careful to avoid the problem areas. "And you.. take care, milaya. It will take work, but everything will be fine again, you'll see." She patted her back one more time, and as she pulled away, Claire felt more tears on the horizon.
"You too, Arina," she replied hoarsely, smiling widely. Stepping away, the woman waited while mother and daughter turned towards the security gates. Luck was on their side and the line was relatively short, queuing up fast behind them, but Claire's heart was in her throat. 'Please, please don't open the suitcase. If you are up there, God, please, please don't let it happen.' Ivy lifted the travel bag onto the belt and dropped her purse into the provided tub, handing over the papers when requested to the official. A moment's perusal and she was ushered through.
Claire felt sick as the officer's eyes turned towards her. She hoisted the rolling luggage onto the conveyor belt behind Ivy's suitcase, apprehension in her heart. The officer held out a hand and she supplied it readily with her tourist visa, passport, identification, and the other half of her migration card. He eyed her bandages with a tired gaze and they itched in response. "Medical papers?" His tone told her that she was likely not the first victim of the local forest fire to pass through these gates as of late.
"Here," she volunteered, tapping the batch in his hands. He nodded slowly, reading through them carefully, and Claire was thankful they had stopped by the embassy the day before to get the proper certification and extension on their visas. Anything to keep him from examining her suitcase too readily.
But the moment of truth had come, and the uniformed man eyed her luggage and asked in voice thickly accented, "Any purchased goods?"
"Music box from the lobby," Claire replied without missing a beat, and handed over the purchase certificate and receipt. He perused the paper quickly, and she did her best to keep her face as neutral as possible. Smuggling items of cultural importance was a huge problem with foreign travelers and detainment was no laughing matter; she did not want to give them any reason to search her bag. The officer's tired eyes flicked over to the x-ray screen, then back to the certificate in his hands. Claire held her breath.
"Alright, step through," he said, and she complied without trying to look too excited. Ivy waited for her on the other side, and the officer crossed over to hand her back her papers. "Have a safe flight." Both women turned back through the portal they came through and waved at Arina, who waved both hands excitedly back, before they started down the hallway, luggage clunking along behind them.
Taking a moment to think about it, Claire had been especially lucky. She had survived something that should have killed her, gotten through airport security with a magic bottle filled with the spirit of a dead forest guardian, but perhaps most noteworthy of all was that the leshy had forgiven her enough to grant her the chance she so desperately wanted - the chance to be a mother.
'I'll make it up to you when you're back with us, promise.' She smiled as they moved down the hallway towards their awaiting plane.
Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2015 8:38 pm
Restless Thoughts June 10 - 25, 2015
Aaron did not get to wave off his wife and mother-in-law at the airport, something he was quite bothered about but did not give voice to. Claire had not wanted him to be stuck in Durem much earlier than he needed to be and insisted that she and her mother would be fine; they had planned to carpool to the airport as it was and there was "no need for extra fuss." She had woken him around three that morning and murmured that she was leaving, to which he groaned sleepily and wished her well, although it came out rather undiscernable to his sleepy ears. A hand rested on his shoulder and there was a careful kiss to the temple and she was gone a beat later, his eyes cracking open a little more once he heard the car leave the driveway. He woke up a few hours later when the house rumbled with thunder to a couple of texts letting him know that they were delayed for thirty minutes until the storms abated, with a gentle reminder to go check on Misha at Ivy's before he headed to work, as Cadi was not due over until that afternoon to begin her housesitting stint.
And then another message, letting him know that they were boarded and that she would text him when they landed in New York City that night, and that was that.
He had not been home when Cadi's parents had dropped her off at Ivy's, but Joanne had texted him to let him know and he assured her that he would drop Cadi back in Durem on his way to work the day that Claire and Ivy were due back. There was a flutter of excitement inside when he realized he had the house to himself, very reminiscent of when his parents would be out of town and he had full run of the old family home for a day or two. He stopped at the grocery store and stocked up on his favorite junk foods (still pausing when he passed the red meats - as much as he sorely missed hamburgers, a miserable night of heartburn was not worth it) and took a more roundabout route home in order to drive past his mother-in-law's. The summer sun was still bright in the sky by early evening but even with that, he could see the living room lights on behind her floral-patterned curtains. If he did not have freezer foods, he would have stopped there, but instead he drove on, and once unburdened from his groceries, he shot Cadi a text. He had not seen her for almost half a year, not since Thanksgiving at least. He wondered about her college plans, with the brief to-do about her transferring out of community college to a proper university. It did not take him long to hammer out a text as soon as he got inside the house, briefcase propped against the closet door lazily.
Text To Cadi
To: Cadi Hey kid! Don't feel shy if you wanna come hang out sometime this week! Sent: Wed Jun 10, 5:43 PM
There was no answer right away.. or even within the next few hours, yet he was fairly certain she was there. Aaron squinted against the setting sun and thought it strange. Then again.. Cadi was of the quiet sort and maybe the drive from Durem had tuckered her out (he was used to the commute by this point). His stomach rumbled its welcome home chorus and he sighed and placed a hand over it. Usually Claire had something cooking by now and he could sate himself long enough with the smell.. but Claire was half a world away, and it was up to him; retreating into the bedroom, he began making his mealtime plans. 'Just you from here on out for almost two weeks. You and Cadi, anyway, if she ever decides to text you back.'
The girl in question emerged from the house the next morning while Aaron sat on the porch swing, nursing a cup of morning coffee on his telecommute day. He usually opted to telecommute on Wednesdays as a way of a mid-week break (at least to cut down on the three hour round trip commute time), and she looked just as surprised to see him. In the midst of summer she was dressed in an oversized hoodie, face flushed and clearly sweating as she attempted to keep a hold on Misha, and she raised her eyebrows as she paused at the house when he waved at her.
"Mornin', stranger," Aaron called out with a grin. She answered with a laugh and a nervous tucking of her hair behind her ear, eyes determinedly fixed on his mother-in-law's borzoi, who was impatient to return to his walk. The morning birds chirped in the trees near the front of his property and Misha yelped at the blue jay that called from the highest-up branches.
"Misha, down," she hissed, before casting another glance at Aaron. Her eyes betrayed her need to escape and Aaron felt a slight sting from such a look - they were family, had he done something wrong? "I've gotta go, he's getting antsy."
"No sweat," he added with a brief wave, and onward she went down the street. He frowned with lips pressed firmly together, fingers drumming against his mug, before he called out, somewhat impulsively, "Hey Cadi?" She turned on her heels with a quizzical look. "Swing by tonight for dinner. Gotta make sure you're not existing on junk food alone." Which was exactly what he had been doing, but he held his smile and hoped to coax her from his mother-in-law's house. "You can bring Misha, he's over all the time anyway, no big."
There was a tense moment while she looked at him, eyes holding that same quizzical look, a note of nerves evident in the way her eyebrows scrunched, but it passed and she shrugged with a timid smile. "Sure, what time?"
"Got any big, exciting plans?" The two of them had settled, lazily, on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Aaron sitting on the swing once again and Cadi on the front steps. He had lit some of the citronella candles that Claire had purchased to keep the bugs away, but this close to the ocean, they were not particularly numerous. Misha had curled up at the corner of the deck and surveyed them lazily, tongue lolling as he panted in the early evening heat.
"Catch up on my shows," Cadi replied through a mouthful of sandwich, chewing slowly. Aaron leaned back into the groaning swing and gave a short scoff of a laugh, raising an eyebrow at the girl as she swallowed.
"What, no friends coming over?" A squint and a short burst of derisive laughter was his answer, which made him lean forward again, confused.
"Nah. No friends." She shook her head and stared down at her plate, wiping her hands with the utmost care. "Ain't nobody got time for my a**. S'why I brought my 3DS and my computer." Aaron felt the swirl of uncertainty in his stomach (or perhaps it was just the jelly, he could not be entirely sure) and frowned, but she shook her head again and fiddled with the edge of her plate, the wadded napkin atop it tilting to and fro as she laughed again, more lightly this time. "Netflix is always there for me," she added with a smirk, and Aaron nodded in reply as the unsettled feeling passed as quickly as it had come on.
"What're you watching?" Her fingers paused on the paper plate's rim.
"Justice League," she replied quietly as her cheeks filled with color and she purposefully stared at the front walkway.
"Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman, right?" He remembered the ensemble more as the Super Friends (he used to watch the reruns of that when he was much younger) but he was not unfamiliar with the series itself, having seen it on the satellite guide. "Looks like the 90s Batman cartoon?"
"Yeah." The uneasiness in her face from before was gone, dissipating with surprising speed. "You're into Batman? I never woulda guessed."
"I grew up watching that show," he admitted, a little sheepishly for his part; it was something he often downplayed in junior high and high school, as many of his friends were "too cool" to watch cartoons, but he still enjoyed strolling to the proper channels to watch the newest episodes while he did his homework. "Batman's pretty cool."
"He is," Cadi replied with a noticeably brighter gleam in her eyes, now that her interest had been sparked. They sat at the dining room table as a few more minutes elapsed, picking at the burgers that Aaron had picked up, until she piped up, almost imperceptibly quiet, "Y'all have Netflix here, right? And I just started rewatching. Wanna watch with me.. ?" He dipped the fry he was holding clumsily into his ketchup and glanced up at her - she was grinning. Soon enough, he was grinning too.
"Let's do it."
It was a strange thing, getting used to a lonely house. Aaron realized he had rarely spent much time by himself: there had always been his parents, or roommates, and then, eventually, Claire. But now there was a resounding emptiness and it left Aaron feeling, daresay, lonely - and she had only just left a few days ago. Work provided enough of a distraction for him during the weekdays, and Cadi's nightly presence in the house to acquaint him with Justice League was a welcome activity. The girl brightened the further they watched, excitedly exclaiming at favorite episodes she had not seen for many years, and he enjoyed the path of discovery with these blurry, redesigned faces from his youth. Conversations blossomed in those few hours between her arrival at his front step and the time he had to shoo her out for him to go to bed, and she told him glancingly about a few things - her anticipation of moving to Gambino University for the Fall semester (she and her mother had already started apartment hunting and had a few prospects), living on her own, the newest game she was playing.. and most surprisingly to Aaron, her interest in such things that he kept locked so firmly in his heart when he was her age. Moments of silence followed stretches of engaged conversation from her (he mostly listened), a push and pull process, but it made the hours seem less lonely and he was glad to get to know his sister-by-marriage a little better.
Still, though, in the intermittent hours, it did not get rid of the feeling of emptiness the house had entirely. He missed Claire. They had settled, as many married couples tended to do, into a state of cohabitation where they orbited in and around one another. They held hands sometimes, kissed at others, but most of the passion from their early years had dimmed considerably.. for several reasons. He whittled away the slow in-between hours at work by killing time on Facebook or browsing Reddit; Claire had been fairly good about keeping up a gentle correspondence during her first few days in Russia, and then the messages stopped. She and Ivy both had a lot of catching up with their old friend to do, but it still did not stop him from missing the presence of his wife, he thought with a pout. He let loose a sigh and glanced at the clock: it was seven minutes past one in the afternoon. There was still a sizable gap of time left until the investor's meeting, and then after that he would be free for the commute home.
Free to go home to an empty house.
He sighed again and navigated back to Facebook, where his momentary boredom was whisked away by the sight of a notification. A familiar name sat in his friend request box, and a slow smile bloomed on his face as he rapidly accepted. Peter Donahue.
Pete had been one of his best friends in high school, a mainstay on the basketball team all four years. A guy who was not nearly as boisterous as the others in their group but exuded confidence and pushed everyone to the limits both on and off the court. While he may not have been the most vocal, he was definitely the brains behind the outfit. His profile image showed him laughing, a familiar comfort to Aaron, an arm looped around a very attractive girl at his side in a tropical locale that did not look like Gambino. Pete's parents had been fairly well-off so it was a safe bet that it was likely a trip to the Bahamas, or even Hawaii (he had bragged in high school that they went every other year; they had family there, he insisted). It had been the six of them for most of their high school years - him, Pete Donahue, Levi Truesdale, Ricky Channing, Evan Foster, and Tommy Marlowe. Evan had added him quietly a few years back but had never messaged him, but Tommy was nowhere to be found on the website (as far as he had known, upon searching for his old friend after Evan found him). Levi and him had been friends for a few years as well and shot a few back and forth messages to one another, but life, as it did, got in the way, and they shared a quiet existence of liking each other's photos and posts whenever they went up (although Levi's political stance left little to be desired for Aaron, but he shrugged it off under the mantle of "different strokes").
Perhaps it was loneliness that had driven him to the message box, since Cadi had not responded to his text invite to catch dinner and hang out, but he was just as surprised at the speed that Pete had replied back.
Message
>Holy s**t man it's been forever! What have you been up to??
> Haha u know, same ol same ol, I work in marketing now. What about you? Who the hell's that girl in your profile?
> My wife, haha, we got married in 2011. Thats why I wasn't at the ten year.
> Damn I never thought you'd settle down, what the Hell!
And soon enough they were tripping down memory lane together, laughing at past mishaps and catching up. Aaron recalled quite vividly the echo of the school bells as he and his motley crew from the basketball team tore out of the building, spending time at the local pizza parlor after practice or playing on Tommy's Playstation if they had enough free time. However they were usually outside, shooting hoops, trash-talking one another and having a good time. The warmth of nostalgia flooded the emptiness left by the lonely house and he rested his chin in his palm, leaning over the desk while he typed with one hand. School brought back a myriad of emotions for him, and he felt it creeping at the corners of his memories - the nervousness, the anxiety he had over social acceptance, the worry about messing up and spending his high school years completely alone.
He shook his head and pushed it away, something he was very adept at. For now, he wanted to hold onto the good.
alpha lyrae
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alpha lyrae
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Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2015 10:47 pm
Uncomfortable Truths June 25, 2015
It was early evening by the time the plane touched down, and Aaron joined the throng of other collected friends and family members of the passengers just outside of security. It was a fair few hours to Durem International Airport from their home in Gambino, but he felt the drive would be worth it to surprise his mother-in-law and wife at the terminal. They had had spotty communication with him over the past couple of days, since they had left Russia, but the early morning phone call he had received from Claire left him with a twisting feeling in his gut. She had sounded further away on the phone than he had ever heard her in real life, even in the depths of her depression, which was not easy territory for Aaron to tread. The week and some-odd days separation had been harder for him than he had anticipated, and it was after Cadi had climbed into his car to make the long trip with him to Durem that he realized the full impact of it. He could not remember when he had spent so much time by himself, and when he dropped Cadi back off at her parents' house and merged back onto the freeway, he made an abrupt decision to head to the airport.
Aaron arrived fairly early, with at least half an hour to spare before the plane was due to land, and he idled around the waiting area with a preoccupied mind. He and Ivy both had encouraged Claire to go on this vacation, hoping it would do her some good, and whenever they had spoken or texted earlier in the week, everything had a positive sheen to it. She told him it was beautiful, sent him a photo of Arina's house and the city they had landed in, snuck another photo of Arina and Ivy laughing at the dining table, and he felt a swell of happiness heart for her. Happy moments littered their memories together, but more recently they were scarcer and tinged with distance, but their time with the Lab was bringing that light back into her life - both of their lives. Then suddenly the texts and calls stopped - he did not hear anything for three days. At first, he wasn't worried; the girls had planned a trip into the city after all, perhaps they were just preoccupied. But he found himself checking international news websites, just to be sure - there had been a small snippet about a forest fire closing a portion of national forestland for the season. The place name was the same, but these divides in Russia were so expansive. There was no way their small corner of such a huge country could be where this had occured, but he had texted her to be sure. There had been no response, and worry set in like a gnawing ache in his stomach, but luckily his wife had touched base with him just a day or so after he had uncovered the news. Hearing Claire over the phone had placated him a bit, but it was Ivy who kept up correspondence during their travels home, including the stopover in England, then the United States. His wife remained at a distance.
A steady trickle of people filled the corridor behind security, and Aaron straightened up, arms still folded over his chest. It was a fair few minutes of watching, but eventually a familiar face floated into view. He saw his mother-in-law first when she rounded the corner from the terminal, bright pink sunhat helping her stand out among the thickening crowd leaving the plane. A grin broke across his face and he raised his arm in a sweeping wave to get her attention. She gave a start when she noticed him and smiled back, somewhat hesitantly, saying a few words he could not read from mouth movement alone, which gave him pause and his arm lowered a touch in response. As she stepped fully through the gate separating the terminal proper and the waiting family members, he finally caught sight of the taller woman a few paces behind, previously blocked by a bulkier man who shouted happily to the children waiting just a few feet away from Aaron. Her eyes were fixed on her suitcase and her cheeks were red, hair messily cut at the shoulders, and a large bandage marred her cheek, another visible on her arm. She turned when Ivy stalled to tie her sneaker, turning her head just enough for Aaron to spot another thicker bandage on the back of her neck.
He felt his heart sink into the pit of his stomach as Claire finally dragged her eyes from the ground and smiled so brightly at him that he felt a lurch deep inside, but not the one he had expected to feel upon being reunited with his wife. Ivy closed the distance quickly between them while Claire lingered a bit behind her, his mother-in-law throwing her arms around his sides and he scooped her up in a hug.
"Are you so eager to see us that you came all the way?" she joked with a smack to his arm. "I know we'd been gone for a while but really now!" He gave a dry laugh, masked underneath his usual tone of humor, and he finished the hug with a gentle squeeze.
"Well I was in the neighborhood and all, since I volunteered to bring Cadi home," he replied with a grin, letting Ivy slide from his arms and fully facing Claire for the first time in almost two weeks. One of her hands was tucking her hair behind her ears - a nervous habit of hers, and she looked at the floor with such determination. His grin faded a little, and when she met his eyes, he was hit with the realization that despite wanting nothing more than to talk to her again, to see her again..
He could not find any words to say to her right now. Both of them stood there helplessly for a few seconds' time, but it felt as though several minutes had elapsed, until Claire stepped forward and wrapped him in an embrace, burying her face against his chest and out of sight. He dazedly returned the gesture and pressed the side of his head against hers; the bandage tape felt scratchy against his cheek, and his fingers curled against her back in response. She finally stepped away and turned around to retrieve her carry-on, left neglected behind her, and he glimpsed her swiping her eyes with the back of her hand as she did so. A feeling like ice forming within spread through his core. He stumbled back into life as Ivy looked at him expectantly, mouth open as though she were poised to say something, but she firmly closed it when he grappled for words, a subject, anything.
"Have you guys eaten yet? Should we grab something before we head out?" he asked, rebuttoning his jacket.
"We ate on the plane." It was the first time Claire had spoken since she had landed, and it shared the same distant tone with the phone call the two had had a few days prior. She smiled cheerily. "I think we're mostly just tired though. We should probably get going."
"Hmn.. yeah," he agreed dumbly, nodding, his mind still far off. "True." He stood a few paces back while Ivy and Claire conversed and shoved his hands in his pockets for lack of anything else to do. The two women picked up their rollaways and forged the path to pick up their checked luggage, idly chatting between them.
"Are you going to be alright driving home by yourself?"
"Oh don't fuss, I'll be fine. I'm sure y'all have a lot of catching up to do, after all." It may have been Aaron's imagination but he thought he caught Ivy looking back at him with a knowing stare before she dove back into conversation with her daughter.
They stood by the baggage carousel in awkward silence, three sets of eyes focused intently on the belt and lost in their own thoughts. Minutes went by as none among them spoke; Ivy checked her watch, Claire readjusted the strap of her purse - all were waiting for this terse moment to be done. Finally the familiar two bags appeared and Aaron leaned forward to pull them free from the other luggage they were smashed up against. He did not reliquish his hold on them when the girls came forward and instead told them to proceed to the parking garage, he would follow.
Once again, they moved in silence; Aaron had a harder time than he had anticipated rolling two bags and lifted one of them off the ground in frustration. From his vantage point behind them, he could see the bandages on Claire's neck and arm very clearly, and he swallowed, grip tightening on the handles. There had not been one word about what had happened, save for a small blip in Claire's phone conversation, and even then she had denied it. Why had she not said anything? Why did they keep up the same pattern they had been holding onto since her first miscarriage? His stomach curdled at the memory and a sliver of guilt worked its way into his thoughts; he had given her space because she had asked for it, she had pushed for it, and truthfully, he did not know what to do in situations such as those but oblige. The miscarriages and Steven's death had been the first true misfortunes of his life and even then he felt strangely disconnected. It was Claire's father who had died, after all, and not his. Claire had suffered the miscarriages.
That, too, made him feel guiltier; that was not how he should feel.
They made it to his Explorer first, and the two women embraced before he took his turn to hug his mother-in-law goodbye. The sounds of her luggage wheels faded softly as she rounded the corner, and the two of them stared after her unmoving. Claire broke the silence and cleared her throat.
"Shall we?" she replied, upholding her empty cheerfulness, and she caught Aaron's eye briefly before her gaze dropped to the pavement and she headed to the passenger's side door. Aaron's eyebrows knit a deep line in his forehead and he unlocked the car and she slid into the seat. He popped the trunk and flopped the luggage inside, shutting the lid and taking a moment to lean his hand against it. Everything inside of him felt so tumultuous, and the thought of keeping company with those feelings for a fair few hours was torturous, to say the least. His fingers balled against his palm and he pushed off of the car, rounding to the driver's side and sliding into his own respective seat. He jammed the keys into the ignition a little more unceremoniously than usual but he did not turn them. Instead, he looked to Claire, who stared out the window into the dark recesses of the parking area, hands linked together on her lap. His eyes lowered from her sloppy haircut to the bandages on her neck, and he turned away to look straight ahead. The concrete wall offered him nothing, and instead he placed his hands on the steering wheel, fingers flexing on it idly. It was as though he were feeling everything at once, and his drumming fingers stilled as a question floated to the surface.
"Why didn't you say anything?" Aaron contiuned to look ahead but out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Claire's head begin to turn before she decidedly returned to her former position.
"About what?"
"About your injuries." His grip was tightening on the steering wheel but his tone was even. "Claire, why didn't you tell me?" It was a chore to keep anything that sounded like pleading out of his voice, and instead he kept his hands locked on the wheel before him. She finally turned around to face forward, but still she did not look at him.
"I.." Her eyes were focused with determination on the glove compartment. "I didn't think it was -" There was a hum, and she seemed to reconsider her words. "I didn't want to worry you." He chanced another glance towards her, and his gaze fell to her lap - her hands had trembling, tightly, her knuckles were pale. "It was an accident. I'm okay. We're both okay." She, too, kept her tone neutral, and a ripple of irritation surged through him. She had dodged him once again, a graceful sidestep as though she were dancing away from him, and he found it harder to control his rising voice.
"Well, you did. Sorry." He huffed, his laugh carrying a slight tone of scorn as he repeated her words. "Just an accident." She shifted uncomfortably. The air in the car felt packed, tight, much like the feelings in his chest.
"Yes." Her voice was flat, to shut down the subject, and his chest rose with a sharp breath.
"s**t, Claire, why the hell didn't you tell me?" He forced himself to look at her fully as both hands left the wheel, but she did not budge, and he kept rolling forward, helplessly, "I just.. I don't get it." Claire's chin tilted upward and her facade was stony, distant.
"It's my problem." She was walling him off again, which only sharpened his anger more. His hands balled into fists on his lap and he leaned forward, intent to make her look at him.
"We're married, we need to deal with this s**t together," he said, voice cracking with suppressed irritation; he paused to rein it back in before he continued, "it's not just you, I'm involved here too, okay?" She stiffened and, as he had wanted, she finally turned to face him, but her cheeks were red and her eyebrows drawn into low hooks, her own hands now unlinked and clenched into fists on her lap.
"You don't know what I went through, okay, Aaron? You never do." He had not heard such a loud, scathing tone from her in a long time, easily not since their dating days, and he reeled back a touch in surprise but tried to hold his ground as she kept on. "Is that what you want to hear from me?! That I don't know everything?" He found his stride and, voice rising to match hers, shot back.
"I don't know because you won't tell me!"
"I don't know how to tell you!" She whipped her head away and slammed her fists on her thighs once, eyes squeezed shut. "I just -" They fluttered open again to gloss over, and a few tears rolled down her cheeks. "- I don't know how to talk about it." She covered her eyes with a hand and all he could focus on were the escaped tears dripping down her chin. "What do you want from me, Aaron?" It was a fair question, and one he did not have an easy answer to. He leaned back in his seat and looked at his hands before the words tumbled out.
"I want to help you." Claire shook her head, defiant.
"No you don't." Her voice was unsteady and her fingers flexed against her temples; she leaned against the car door, head still cradled in her hand, to create more space between them. Aaron's heart was a tightly wound spring and his heart was drumming in his ears, much as it had been when he had found her crying in the shower after her first miscarriage.
"Yes, I do." He reached a tentative, careful hand out to touch her free one, which rested limply on the center console. She flinched away from his touch but, undaunted, he followed its track again and placed it carefully atop hers - there was no firmness to his touch but she did not pull away a second time. "Why would you think that?"
"Because.." She took a shaky breath and uncurled her fingers from around her temple; her eyes were red and her voice thick. "B-because I don't know.. I just don't know how to deal with it. How could I expect you to?" The hand around her temple came down in an slam against the car door, and he readjusted his hand on Claire's to grip her fingers loosely; she did not return the gesture. "I was just sad all the time. I'm still sad all the time. I've never dealt with anything like this before and it's just really scary, okay? And I know it's scary for you too but how could I expect you to help when I don't even know what I want?" She looked at him, her free hand frozen mid-gesture, her eyes reflected helplessness and frustration. "Except that I don't want to be sad anymore, and I think I'm working through it but sometimes it's just not enough and it's hard." She tilted her hand in his and Aaron took that as a positive sign, giving her fingers a small but encouraging squeeze; despite that, his heart felt heavy.
Is this what she had been carrying inside her all this time? How much still lay beneath the surface, bubbling away? He, too, had to admit his own ignorance on such things. He had never lost a close relative aside from his grandparents, and he had been much too young to remember their passing in detail. He was able to lose himself easily in other activities, or friends, or significant others, and not worry much about anything - contrasting heavily with his wife, who seemed to care too much about everything. He had no idea that such things could weigh so heavily on a person.
"Yeah, I.. I guess I don't know much about that, huh? I can't really imagine. I'm sorry, Claire." His guilt flared again, spectacularly, as her tear-stained face met his. "I probably shouldn'tve backed away so easily but like.. I'm not psychic, you've gotta tell me what you want." She made to pull her hand away again, but he was prepared this time - he held fast, not painfully so, but did not let her flinch from him as she had done a beat before.
"I'm so tired, Aaron," she said, pleadingly.
"Claire, we're already here, please." She fixated on their joined hands, catching her lower lip between her teeth as she ordered her thoughts. Aaron could almost see them siphoning into place by the time she began to speak again. He was just as guilty as she was in erecting walls between them, and he braced himself for what she might have to say.
"I guess..." She paused, hesitantly, before rolling onward, "I wish you'd stand up for me more. Feels kind of pathetic to say that out loud." She ran a hand through her choppy bangs with a low, self-deprecating laugh. "Attractive, I'm sure." He tried to speak, but his mouth closed after a moment when no words would come, and instead he wove his fingers into hers. Her hand in her hair clutched at the roots and her voice took on an anxious edge. "Your mom hates me, and I don't know what to do. I'm not crazy about her either. But it kinda bothers me that you just roll over and let her tear me down without a fight. She was mad at me about miscarrying and you stood there and let her do it."
"I -" Aaron's fingers flexed against hers; he swallowed the shame that rose like bile in his throat. "Yeah." A family passed by their vehicle on the way to their own, children laughing, their luggage wheels squeaking and echoing off the walls, and he took the moment of distraction to soak in what she had just said. Claire was not wrong, and he knew it. "That was really shitty of me. I didn't - I guess I didn't realize how serious it was."
"You never really do, and.. and sometimes I can't stand it." Her hand lowered away from her scalp and she turned her head away. Again, she was not wrong, and it stung.
"I'll try to work on that."
"Thank you." This time, it was Claire who squeezed his hand in hers. "I.. liked it, at Thanksgiving? I think Cadi probably gave you a bit of encouragement first but I loved what you did at Thanksgiving. I could have kissed both of you." The heaviness in her voice was lightening at last, and he heard a timid note of happiness behind it. He chuckled softly, still not quite as his usual level of joviality.
"You probably woulda embarrassed the hell out of Cadi." She elicited a soft laugh, and again the two lapsed into silence. The atmosphere of the car had shifted a little since they had first climbed in, as though some of the cobwebs had finally cleared away and they could see a little more clearly into the future now.
"Anything I should, um.. work on?" Claire's voice startled him out of a few minutes of reverie. "I've.. not been very good either. I pushed you away a lot. I can't imagine I've been very pleasant to live with recently. A perpetually gloomy houseguest that haunts your bed each night." Another self-deprecating laugh, and even though he returned it with a tired smile, it ached to hear her talk about herself like that. "So I figure that it's only fair. What should I work on?" Her eyes were dry, thankfully, and he found it a little easier to meet her gaze without the threat of tears.
"Just.. try to clue me in a bit more, alright? I don't know if I can do anything but like, we're in this thing together, so let me help you if I can, okay?" Claire gave him a slow, hesitant nod.
"That's fair I suppose." He smiled genuinely for the first time in what felt like ages.
"I mean we've got a Raevan on the way at some point, what good would it do if we were just moving along at the rate we were before?" He laughed, and her fingers twitched in his.
"Speaking of, though..." His laugh trailed off as her words hit him fully, and when he made to look at her she averted her gaze towards where the luggage was stowed.
"You captured something?" His voice sounded rough after adapting such harsher tones earlier.
"Yeah." She nodded.
"Was it -" His hand left hers and trailed up her arm, touching the bandage there. She nodded once more.
"Yeah." His arm dropped limply as his worst fears were confirmed. The top of his head tingled in panic at the news; her injuries were no accident. He took a long, deep breath and exhaled shakily, leaning back into his seat.
"Jesus." He ran a hand over his forehead, back through his hair, resting it on his neck. "The forest fire didn't miss you after all."
"You knew?" There was only a small note of surprise in her voice; clearly she had expected this on some level, but he did not know how she could regard it in such a blase way. He had almost lost her, how could she be so calm about it?
"I read about it on BBC." His heart resumed its panicked race in his chest. "Why didn't you tell me? Claire, you could have died and I'd be sitting over here without a goddamn clue." Anger was present in his voice but it was not directed at her - if anything, it was directed at his own fears, at the thought of death brushing by Claire too closely for comfort. It was like she had told him before - she did not want to worry him; of that he had no doubt. But to know that he might not be sitting here with her at this moment spread that panicked tingle over his head and chest with an intensity to rival the fire that could have claimed her life.
Her soul capture was this important to her? Their Raevan was this important to her?
"I'm sorry, I'm just -" Her voice was rising defensively again, hands up to illustrate her point, and he sensed the familiar pattern and quelled himself; he did not want to undo what they had done here today. It was enough, for now, and he was the first to back off. He grasped her raised, gesturing hand in his and lowered it.
"Let's just.. let's talk about it later." With a squeeze, he let go. "It's getting late, we should uh, we should hit the road." Claire seemed surprised at the sudden stop in their conversation, yet she did not pursue after it with more questions. This was a different sort of stopping point from the ones they were more familiar with, merely a "to be continued" when the time was right.
"Yeah." Her hand returned to her lap and she nodded numbly. "We should. Yes." Aaron turned the ignition key and the engine hummed to life as both parties settled into their respective silences to marinate on what had just happened. He navigated out of the parking garage with ease and merged onto the main road, and a faint buzzing settled into his skull. This conversation had not been what he had expected when he had decided to surprise Claire at the airport. He was not free of his guilt but he felt the burden lightened, if only a little. One thought, steeped in dread, was ever present, and it followed their travels all the way onto the main thoroughfair. Cars whizzed by in the opposite direction, headlights bright and glaring. They illuminated the cab of the car and just as quickly were gone, and Claire winced at every other car that deigned to use their brights. She lowered a hand over her eyes and leaned against the door to block out the beams. Partway into the ride she settled into a gentle doze if he could judge by the evening out of her breath.
This almost would not have happened, had she been any less lucky.
He swallowed the thought and drove on through the night, eyes eager for the sight of the bridge to their island home.
It was just shy of ten in the evening when Aaron parked the car in front of their home and shook Claire to wakefulness. They dazedly unloaded the luggage from the back and despite her gentle protestations, he offered to carry them for her. He leaned around her and futzed with the keys to unlock the door, and she stepped over the threshold first. Aaron closed the door quietly behind them; the keys jingled limply in his fingers when he pulled them from the lock and he tossed them on the sidetable next to the door, the noise jolting Claire momentarily. He set her suitcase down next to the coat closet with the roll away still at his heels. The air felt strange between them, full of truths revealed and yet that persistent tenseness of what almost could have been remained, and she continued to stare down the hallway, her back turned to him. He pressed his lips together and willed the words from his racing mind to his sluggish mouth, voicing the question that had been on his mind since the end of their talk in the parking garage.
"So.. what now?" Her arms trembled when Claire turned to face him, and he stalled - her eyes had glossed over and her nose crinkled, followed by a soft intake of breath. Her hands flew to her face to hide her coloring cheeks and the tears spilling forth - all it took was two strides for him to be in front of her, arms open. She wriggled against him, shaking her head, refusing to show her face, but he instead squeezed her tighter. Slowly, her hands lowered from her face and she planted it once again in his chest. Her own arms encircled him and clutched at his shirt, digging into the fabric and pulling, grasping, as though she were trying to stay upright as the tears continued to fall.
"I don't -" A loud sniffle and another laugh. "- I don't know - it's just a lot to take in.. it j-just kinda hit.. hit me - all at once -" All the guilt that Aaron had felt earlier roiled inside him and he felt the sharpness of his prior anger fade into a dull pain in his chest. He, too, realized what she had, and just how scared he was of losing her. They had drifted for years around each other, moments of tenderness surfacing amongst others of avoidance and irritation. She had dealt with so much alone and he had not even begun to understand - even now he still could not fully grasp it - but the thought of losing her in that wildfire scared him more than anything in memory. Yet still, no wise words of advice or comfort in her time of need were available to him, and all he could do was fall back on what he knew and hope that they would surface. His hand disengaged from her back and touched her chin, tilting her face up to him. The wetness of her eyes made his chest ache more; death had been too close, and he swallowed shakily as he leaned down to press his lips to her forehead.
"No, no no no, it's okay.. hey.." It had been a long time since they had touched like that; the coldness that had enveloped their lives, their relationship with each other, thawed with every renewed kiss Aaron placed on her brow, the corners of her eyes, her cheeks. They were still wet and in between each light touch peppered on her face, he whispered against her, "I'm sorry, God I've been such a damn idiot," and wiped the tears away with his thumb. They stood there holding onto each other for a few more minutes, each second moving by with the beat of his heart, until her sniffling subsided.
"I'm s-sorry too," she replied, congested, fitfully wiping her eyes. "I'm so bad about talking about these things, and it's.. I didn't even know where to start. And then just coming home and.. it hit me that I might not have come back." She reached for his hand then, squeezed his fingers weakly and entangled them in his, and he obligingly gave her an encouraging squeeze back. He lowered his forehead to hers, which felt feverish with her apparent exhaustion, and placed his other hand atop their linked ones, closing his eyes.
"Just.. don't go charging into forest fires anymore, alright?" Her breath caught in surprise, and he felt her shift against him, could feel her eyebrows rising in befuddlement.
"Alright.. ?" He could only imagine the questioning stare she was giving him, given her tone, but there was a hint of ease behind it as well - some amusement, lighting the moment once again.
"Promise me, Claire; pinky swear, cross-your-heart-and-hope-to-die swear if you have to."
"Aaron -" she laughed, but she did not press on - instead the name stayed on her lips and a thoughtful pause followed. The tension that hung like smoke between them was slowly dissipating. He did not feel relieved of his guilt - far from it - but they had taken the first step together to mend what has been damaged. He had a lot of work to do, and he intended to see it through. "Alright, no more forest fires," she affirmed. A low sigh of relief brushed past his lips and his head dipped as he freed her hand and closed both of his gently around her cheeks, careful of her injuries.
"Thank God," he breathed out as he closed the final distance with gladness in his heart.
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