by O. Rose
Holly wasn’t sure what to think of Adam’s observations; she couldn’t say he was wrong, but accepting it was depressing. She’d met people like those he described, people who liked to complain. Nitpickers and worse.
“Isn’t that more of a perversion? That isn’t-”
“Normal? I think it is. In this world that is normal. Being messed up is normal and most of the people you’ll run into have a sense of pride about it. Ever notice how everyone has a black sheep family member? Normal. Accepted. If you don’t, then there’s something off about you. You’d be hard pressed to find someone who isn’t wallowing in some brand of filth.”
Holly recalled a moment in the car with Lori and another foster child. They were in the process of a drop off. Lori said something similar, like it was expected that everyone would have missteps in their past. Kids would drink and smoke. They’d get arrested. It would be strange not to take those risks.
Holly remembered the girl she was with, a quiet girl. Someone she’d been around before who was actually good, down to her core; the kind of girl who wouldn’t do those things. The look in her eyes when Lori said that, it was almost broken. Holly understood why now; her whole existence was invalidated by the adult in charge of them.
‘There’s something strange about someone who doesn’t do this this and this.’
Lori meant it to be comforting, accepting. But it wasn’t.
Holly stood from the table and said, “I need to go somewhere, but I don’t know where.” She turned to Adam, who watched her cautiously. “There’s a girl I need to find.”
His arms folded across his chest. “It’s not exactly safe to go outside the gate right now. Explain.”
“It might not mean anything,” she hedged. “It might be a waste of time, but there was this girl I sort of knew. Another foster kid. I need to tell her something.”
“What?”
She could tell he wouldn’t let up, that he required a solid reason. “I need to tell her that what Lori said is wrong. That girl, she isn’t the weird one. Everyone else is. People putting themselves in danger, doing stupid things and getting hurt. Hurting those around them. She was the one who wouldn’t do that and our case worker, she said what you did, told us that not having problems is a problem. She was wrong, but thinking back makes me wonder if that girl thought Lori might be right. I have to tell her-”
He cut her off again, with a hug and it was still so foreign and wonderful. He rested a hand atop her head and said, “No one around here talks like that. I wonder why you’re so different,” his gaze was curious.
“You mean other immortals?”
“Right. One of the things we all have in common, except you. An extreme lack of caring.”
She considered it, but answered, “I don’t know.”
“We’ll find out someday.”
∞
What she had to remember was to suspend disbelief. Not easy, not when she’d been through the public school system. They had a set way of doing things and maybe that was why she never made progress. Of course, she’d known there was more to life then they taught, but when she tried to tell them they rebuffed her and she let them hold her down. Believed them when they said she couldn’t do better.
“Literally anything and everything is possible,” Adam told her, a whisper in her ear. “That doesn’t mean one person can achieve it all, they can’t. You can’t. But, this is something on your heart?”
She nodded.
“Then it’s something I’ve seen before. Something humanity can do, even though they tend to ignore it. The feeling they should call someone or make an unexpected visit, and then it turns out that person was in a bad situation. Happens all the time, yet is somehow forgotten or glossed over.” He eyed her. “You’re closer to them than we are. I wonder why?”
“I say this a lot, but I don’t know,” she repeated. “Like you said, we’ll find out.”
“Hm,” a small smile, yet she noted paper thin. “Think of that girl and go to her.”
It sounded simple, but believing she could was difficult. She left his company, showered, changed into a new outfit, and walked into the mists of her garden. She remembered seeing the world of her past, how she moved into it. That was easy and this was the same.
As the fog cleared Holly found herself stepping out of a closet and into a bedroom.
A girl sat at a computer, brown hair pulled up and headphones on. As the screen shifted, turned black for a moment before loading the next page, she caught sight of the reflection.
She jumped and whirled in the spinning chair, pulled the headphones off and exclaimed, “Emma?!”
“Um,” she balked. “Yes? Hi.”
A blink. A heartbeat. “Hi?” She looked behind the guest, saw the open door. “You came through the closet?”
“Ah-ha,” could this be any worse? She steeled herself; no, it really couldn’t. “Yeah. Yeah, I did.”
The look she received was confused. “That’s really advanced.”
“I know, you can tell yourself it’s a dream if that makes it easier to accept,” she started talking quickly. “This is probably the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to you, right?”
“Oh yeah,” a definitive nod. She looked beyond the unexpected guest to the closet and back again before asking, “Why are you here?”
“Well, you know how the last time we saw each other was in Lori’s car?” A conformation head jerk. “She said something and I recently had a revelation about that.”
“You mean when she basically degraded my existence?” Sarcasm spilled.
She hesitated and then said. “Yes.” An eye roll from the computer chair. “I just thought I needed to tell you, she’s wrong. First of all, you aren’t the only person staying out of the mud and secondly, there’s nothing wrong with you for doing it.” Holly put her hands on her hips and sucked in a breath. “That was it. Had to tell you, feelings and all that so,” she stepped back.
“Wait a second!” The girl flung herself from the chair, grabbed Holly’s arm. “Do you remember my name?” The cringe said it all. “Right, people usually don’t.”
“Sorry! I was really, always, caught on my own problems.”
“Like how everyone stayed about ten feet away from you?” She let go. “You didn’t notice that I didn’t, did you?”
“I-” she was shocked.
“I didn’t think you did, don’t worry about it, but I know how it feels to be seen through and I did then, too. My name’s Jade. Jade Holland.”
“Jade,” she repeated. “I should tell you my name’s Holly now.”
“That’s a nice name,” the difference between Jade’s smile and Adam’s was breathtaking. “Hey, can you stay awhile?”
Holly glanced over her shoulder toward the closet, but nodded. “Yeah. I can.”
She knew how to get back.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
When Levi returned to the house he felt the loss of Holly’s presence, yet the absence of panic on his brother’s part. That meant she’d left with his permission.
“You know-!”
“Has she ever seen you angry?” Adam didn’t wait for an answer before continuing, “I guess not. She’d have run long ago.”
It took great effort, but Levi set aside the fury in favor of finding pertinent answers. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know that. She wanted to find someone and apparently was successful. She would have returned by now if not.”
There were numerous reasons that might not be the case and they all rolled through his mind. On the edge of control the house shifted with Levi’s mood, twisting and growing darker than ever before. Rooms lost windows, the glass ceiling she’d made disappeared. Wall lights went out.
“Brother,” Adam spoke with force. “She cannot be held captive. We knew that at the outset and it was never our intention.”
“Things were different then,” he spat. “There were fewer immortals, you did not have a half-crazed lover, and she would
have grown up in society. This is a risk she didn’t need to take and she doesn’t know better. You should have stopped her or gone with her.”
Further accusations went unsaid. If anything did happen to Holly, Levi would hold his brother responsible.
∞
They’d been best friends forever, they’d never realized it and distance, time, got in the way. All the things they never said came out in short order. Talk of foster homes, school days, shared emotions.
“She’s going to adopt you?” Holly gasped. “Oh my ga- Jade! That’s seriously amazing!”
“I know,” she looked to the ground, embarrassed. “I thought that would never happen, but she feels like ‘Mom’, you know?”
Holly wanted to say yes, but that wouldn't be the truth. “Well, I’m ecstatic for you, but I haven’t had that. Oh!” She saw the way Jade’s face changed. “It’s not bad, I mean, I have something else now,” she stopped short.
“Something else? Like,” Jade pushed her shoulder with a sly smile. “A boyfriend?”
“Not exactly,” she glanced back to the open door. “And I can’t explain it now. I’m sorry,” she pressed her hands together and bowed her head. “I will tell you,” she spoke deliberately. “I will. Just not yet. To be honest I don’t even know what I’m doing.”
“Most people don’t,” Jade stood and Holly followed her lead. “As long as you’re sure what you’re doing is right, then you’re ahead of the curve. You should go, right? It’s been awhile.”
“Yes, I need to go.” She moved into the closet and then said, “This is weird, isn’t it?”
“Yup,” she popped the ‘p’. “But, you know, it’s kind of not at the same time.”
Jade couldn’t help but check the area once the door stood closed for a moment; as expected it was empty. No black-haired girls stood inside any longer. Emma, Holly, was gone.
She was one of those people Jade wondered about, someone who came to mind at the most random moments. Did she ever have a friend? Was she in a nice place, finally?
One of those people who made her feel distantly guilty, like she should have said something or done something differently. Tried harder to get close.
But, back then, Em-Holly, gave off the ‘stay away’ feeling, too; looking back, Jade thought it was a self-defense mechanism. Much like her own isolation tactics. Staying apart. Eating alone. Sort of wishing she wanted to fit in and realizing that she really didn’t. It was a difficult road, growing up. Bouncing from house to house didn’t help.
Yet now, as she’d told Holly, she was in her forever home. A mom, a brother and sister and those two looked up to her. It was an amazing feeling, being part of a family. Soon her last name would change and she’d hold one of those signs outside the court house, a count of all the days she spent in foster care before being adopted.
They’d already discussed her Gotcha Day and the thought made her eyes water, lower lip tremble. She’d truly thought it would never happen. Years flowed into years, one after another, so quickly.
They were going to have family pictures done. She was going to be homeschooled, her, her mom thought she’d been through enough ‘socialization’.
It wasn’t hard to think of her that way, as Mom, but it didn’t feel real.
Jade knew a little about her birth story, but not much. Her biological mother was young when she had her; walked into a hospital in the late stages of labor, gave birth and disappeared. There was no paperwork, no insurance card. She didn’t wait to answer any questions.
All they had were depositions from professionals who interacted with her, grainy CCTV footage and a short note with a name, ‘Jade Holland’. They guesstimated her bio mom’s age, pegged her between fifteen and twenty; she had brown hair. Eye color was unknown because different nurses recalled different colors. Height around five-seven and weight was also the product of guess work.
A large range that didn’t mean anything; Jade had no way of finding more, she’d tried. She supposed all kids in her situation went through that phase, wanting to know where they came from. But, for her, there was simply no way to find out and she had to give up. Attempts at location searching didn’t help, her assistant was no good either.
At sixteen she accepted it and now, seventeen, she had a family.
She had a family.
∞
The house was in misery, Holly was momentarily concerned she’d gone to the wrong place, and when she realized what was going on determination set in. She couldn’t leave it this way.
If nothing else, this was the role she could play for them. Keeping them out of their own darkness; it would be a big task. Physical shifts in the house were one thing, but she knew there were problems she couldn’t fix. A bandage was temporary.
She needed to know more about what happened after becoming immortal.
When she opened the door from inside her bedroom she was greeted with pitch black. For the first time she recognized the battle the brothers both fought daily. They seemed so composed, so sure of themselves, but what did they lose to gain that and what did they put aside? What didn’t they allow her to see?
This. They didn’t let her see this.
She could feel them both in the darkness, resonating with each other and the black was a manifestation of what they felt. She’d noted the gloominess of the house before, but that had nothing on this.
She was walking into depression, the depression of people who saw things she couldn’t imagine. Who had their hope torn from them when she didn’t live and then had to keep living anyway.
Her saddest days weren’t close to this.
So, she didn’t know exactly what to do, but forcing light was all she could think to try.
It blinded her, and them, when the roof flickered and faded into nothing. Every room was exposed to the icy winter air and Holly didn’t know it, but it was the best surprise the house ever received.
It was very grateful.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
When she found them she didn’t stop to think.
“Which one of you took away the windows?”
Levi.
That meant Adam didn’t try to replace them.
Both issues were serious and a revelation was had. If fate was real, destiny, then this was part of it. She knew it for sure. They were locked in a place she could never go and they might never be able to leave, but she could still be around.
They needed her to be around.
No one ever needed her, wanted her, but these brothers did. Even now, after their initial plans were foiled, she was necessary. That was a responsibility she’d never contended with and it meant she was wrong to leave the way she did. Only informing one.
“I’m sorry.”
Levi spoke, his tone dismissive, “That’s unnecessary.”
“No, it’s not. I should have told you too, that I was going somewhere. I didn’t realize until now, and I still can’t understand all it means for you, but I’m going to try. I want to find out things you didn’t try to know. I think that’s why I’m here.” It was crazy, wasn’t it? The feeling filling her up. Purpose she couldn’t discount. “Don’t say anything about it,” she demanded when Adam looked about to argue. “It’s something I know. You can’t understand...” she trailed off, new thoughts coming to her.
Did they give up their purpose?
∞
Glass covered the ceiling now, every inch of the house and there were windows too. Some of them showed places none of them had ever seen before and couldn’t get to because the panes refused to open.
They didn’t know it, but the house was doing them a favor.
Holly spent a lot of time in the library, pouring over books that offered no help. On the third day she began a list of the things she’d observed between the brothers and humanity. Herself, sometimes included.
People moved forward, so did she; the brothers stayed where they were.
People had hopes and dreams; she had an undefined goal and the brothers di
d once.
Most people didn’t think of death too often; the brothers dwelt on it constantly.
She was trying to figure out why there were such stark differences. When she spoke with Jade she was happy for her, but felt unable to connect. Something was missing.
Jade had spirit, a spark. Lori had it, too. Olwen didn’t, neither did the brothers and Holly wasn’t sure where she fell on the line.
“The difference between hopes, dreams, and goals,” she muttered, tapping her pen to notebook paper. She felt drawn to that one; there was something there, a clue. Hopes for a child’s future, dreams of a bigger home. The goal of making it through college.
Goals were more defined, she decided.
Holly considered herself, what people did and what she did.
“We can kill and give life,” she said in a whisper.
From what Olwen said life did not spring from an immortal. Trying to give life was what Adam and Levi did and it didn’t turn out as planned. She died instead.
But, she was alive now and it was the interference of the queen that turned the course. Or maybe there was more to it? The brothers wouldn’t know, she’d learned that between the two of them they’d not made substantial gains in knowledge. They had little desire to advanced themselves and it seemed the rest of the immortals lacked that drive as well. The bits of conversation she heard in Hazel’s story pointed to that, they centered on the moment or the past.
“Why?” she muttered.
Maybe that was a uniquely human quality? The desire to do better, to look to the future. Was that something they lost without realizing it?
Or gave away.
Wanting to keep living so desperately, but why? She wasn’t sure she should ask, even if she did would they remember?
With a sigh she put down her pen and sat back in the wooden chair, arms folded across her chest.
What she faced with them was a never ending battle; she was sure immortality came with a price long since paid and inescapable. They wouldn’t consider the future and the more she thought about it the more she was sure they couldn’t, even if they wanted to.
