xp_logs | Delayed Reaction

x-polarisstar.livejournal.com posting in

(delayed due to the naughty-ness of my computer and its stubborn refusal to turn on, that is.)

Set sometime Saturday evening before sun-down because I need that sunset.
Somewhat long, sorry about that. Unnecessarily poetic turns of phrase abound, sorry about that too.

Lorna, like most of those she grew up with, was really only Catholic on Sundays and at births and deaths. The rest of the time religion seemed like too much of a burden. Or too much of a crutch. She sought solace instead in activity. In those actions called works of mercy. She had been silent and watchful these past few days, maintaining her vigil in her own way. Very little in her past had prepared her for the way tragedy continuously and consistently sought out members of this school and so she had little practice in dealing with the fear and grief and horror that routinely battered her heart and had no way to cope. Which is why she was in the kitchen slicing fruit instead of in her room with the pale blue rosary her godmother had given her for Confirmation tangled in her hands while prayers fell like rain from lips that scarcely knew what they framed. It was its own form of prayer, a silent plea that things make sense and that the world be a simple place that could be fixed with a skilled and measured hand.

Setting down the knife, she turned away and washed the sticky fruit juice from her hands then fussily cleared up the mess she’d left behind. She garnished the fruit plate, hearing in her head the supercilious snobbery of her first cooking teacher admonishing her very first cooking class, “Ze plate iz not done until zere is garnish. If you do not garnish, you have left ze plate naked and your food iz shamed. You must be proud of your creation. You must make it feel pretty. Mademoiselle, zat iz not pretty. It is trash. Throw it out. Begin again.” The memory made her smile. She took a dab of lotion from the bottle she kept on the counter and massaged it into her hands. Chef Marcel may have taught her to cook but her dermatologist wouldn’t allow the dry, stripped skin that so often accompanied a chef’s hands.

Finished with the kitchen, she picked up the plate to take down to the two sentinels who guarded fair maiden’s rest. However, even as she started down the corridor, she ducked back again. Doug was no longer in his place by the door. And given his vow to remain until 100 years had passed and the sleeper awakened, Lorna realized her food was no longer needed. She sighed deeply and returned to the kitchen, covering the fruit with plastic wrap then tossing it into the refrigerator. Someone would eat it. Someone always did. There was never any need to worry about food waste around here.

The sky was clouded over when she went outside and she wasn’t sure what time it was. The hanging darkness could have been hiding the midday sun though she doubted it. There would be relief and joy inside the mansion soon enough but with Paige awake, Lorna felt free to tip her face to the forbidding sky and stare at the sullen grey layer of clouds that dared obscure the endless heavens on this occasion.

“I know how you feel.” Lorna stuck her hands in her pockets, not caring that she ruined the line of her khaki slacks doing so, and walked very deliberately away from the lights of the house. She crossed the lawn to the storage shed and casually twisted away the padlock on the door, leaving it hanging as a mangled piece of metal on the door handle. Inside it smelled faintly of gasoline and grass clippings. She settled herself on a tarp covered box and wrapped her arms around legs.

Alone and in a place no one would think to search for her, Lorna rested her forehead on her knees and released a long, shuddering breath. For the first time, she allowed herself to face the thoughts that had been lurking in the back of her mind, constantly beaten back by activity and superseded by duty.

Jono and his mutation could have killed Paige. In fact, if Paige didn’t have the mutation she did, he probably would have killed her. It was luck only that keep her alive. A twist of genetic fact that saved where another could have killed. The thoughts gripped her with a leaden certainly she could not shake and, chilling as they were, they could not compare with the absolutely numbing pain that followed with her next breath. “Next time it might be me.”

Guilt followed immediately on fear. That she would even consider that Alex might harm her seemed worse that betrayal. That she could not dismissed the thought and that there was some part of her screaming to keep her distance, to push him away was so far beyond betrayal she thought cynically of Dante’s lowest level of Hell and the punishment reserved for those whose sins were the most foul.

He must feel awful right now, she thought, he always does. I should go to him. He’ll need me.

She remained seated where she was. The hidden sun dropped away into the clouded night.

Current Mood: guilty
Current Music: Rainy Days and Mondays--The Carpenters