(no subject)
This is where it all begins on the outside looking in
Looking in
At you
I'm just an alien through and through
Tryin' to make believe I'm you
Tryin' to fit
Just a stranger on the outside looking in
The disco makes me sick
I wear the wrong clothes
I say the wrong things
You know I can't dance
My feet are much too wide (I'm on the outside)
You think you set the trends
You wear your hair just right
Your clothes are out-a-sight
Your house is modern really kitch
You get so macho when you're with your bitch
(I'm on the outside)”
-Oingo Boingo, “On the Outside”.'> A/n: Thank you all for the feedback! Really, I appreciate every review I get, this is why I’m pumping out the chapters so fast, I don’t want to lose your interest. Uh, a warning? Things are going to get weird. Not out of character, hopefully, just...really weird. Also, this chapter is hella long. The past four or so were around seven pages? Yeah, this ones a whopping 14 pages. But hey, I guess it’s not a bad thing, right?
Another thing; after this chapter I may take a few days off writing (seriously, I’ve been writing nonstop nine-a.m. till 4 a.m. every day this week) to illustrate the story, after all, there isn’t enough ES fanart out there, and I figure every reader likes reference pictures to what the author is thinking.
Anyways, I hope you enjoy this chapter as much as I enjoyed slaving-er, effortlessly pouring out perfectly formed pearls of brilliance, I mean. Read and Review, please, thank you.
I am swinging I am swinging in the stars and the moon sink in eternal night; look there’s the house where’s Edward? Go down, Go down, I can touch the night flowers, and in through the front door. Oh, everything’s different; I can see people-moving too fast-not very clear-conveyor belts-did I find the electrical outlets yet? There they are; there’s so much power in this place. Look, those wax shards, they’re coming together-hands, I see them, they’re hands-why? Lift up, look at the tables, I see...cookies? Lots of cookies. Endless amounts of cookies.
“Melora”.
Who’s calling me? I don’t want to wake up yet, too tired, let me in peace. Oh, everything is so different here; people rushing round these rooms, the light changing too fast-hey, there’s Edward! He’s standing behind the door; he’s looking at me. You can see me, Edward? No, wait, he’s not standing there anymore; what’s going on? Oh Edward, I never knew it had been like this. Empty room; books, candles, and Edward, lying in pieces. What happened here? Your head, Edward, your head, it stops just at the neck; I cannot make sense of all these ticking wheels below it. Ow, I’ve cut myself on them, I’ve cut myself on your hands.
“Melora.” Edward, you spoke! That’s so amazing, when you’re just a head on a table! And look at this photograph, why, he looks just like you. “Melora!” Why, the man in the photograph, he’s talking! But speak not too loudly, I am close to waking now.
I cannot make sense of what you are saying, man in the picture who looks like Edward. Speak clearly, and don’t move so fast, I can’t see you hardly at all. Oh, you are repeating yourself, how very kind of you to say.
“Melora,” Is Edward’s head talking as well? “Look to the north. Find my books.” Your books? “Look to the north. I ran out of time.” I’m very sorry to hear that. “Time could not save me. Save Edward. Look to the north. Find them. Find it, save my son.”
Melora opened her eyes. Light was filtering through the dust covered window above her head. Slowly her eyes adjusted, her vision growing darker to accommodate the brightness of the room. Melora sat up in her bed, feeling strange. “Look to the north. Find my books,” she murmured. What a bizarre dream.
Melora lifted back the covers and stood before the hearth. Edward did not move from where he sat, his eyes open and unblinking. Melora’s attention was drawn to the old photographs lining the mantle; progressively she eyed each one, noting family resemblances in the stark, mad faces of the women and the sad, shadow filled faces of the men, until she came to the last photograph. This she took with her to sit on the bed, examining it carefully. It was the photograph she’d studied just before she had spoken to Edward for the first time. The man standing in it did not speak, did not move. There was a brightness to his eyes that disturbed Melora somewhat. She looked closer. The first time she’d seen his picture, she’d thought his eyes were dark, but this was not true, she must not have studied them long enough. In fact, they were very light, probably an intense shade of blue or green.
“Melora?”
She looked up, startled. Edward was looking at her now, and for a moment she saw him with light blue eyes. Melora shook her head, and answered, “Good morning, Edward.”
Edward smiled. Melora stood up and knelt down beside him. “Edward, do you recognize this person?” She asked, showing him the photograph. Edward looked closely at it. If he noticed the striking resemblance he had to the man in the photo, he didn’t show it. Finally, he shook his head.
“No, I’m sorry.”
Melora sighed. “Do you think you could tell me a little bit about your creator, Edward?”
Edward looked very sad. “He never woke up.”
“He was very old, then, when you knew him?” Edward nodded. Melora wracked her brains for the right question to ask. Finally, she said, “Was there a reason he made you the way you are, with these-” she touched the bearings where his palms became blades “-instead of regular hands?”
Edward thought hard. It had seemed like what should have been a temporary substitute had become a permanent end to his construction. “Right before he fell asleep on the floor, he showed me the parts for my new hands. It was a gift.”
“What did you do with him when he fell asleep?” Melora asked gently.
Edward shrugged slightly. “I carried him to his bed and shut the door. I thought it was what I should have done. He never came out again.”
Melora gave an involuntary shudder. She remembered going into what looked to be a man’s bedroom on the first night of her arrival-there was dust everywhere, and now Melora recalled that there was a peculiar scent in the air. If this was as long ago as she thought it was, of course there would be nothing left now but a skeleton and some cloth remnants nestled between the sheets. She silently thanked the heavens she’d not decided to sleep there that first night.
Melora debated whether or not to tell Edward about her dream. Melora finally decided it would be against her better judgement, at least for now, to get ahead of herself. Once she moved in, Melora reasoned, she would do some digging around. For now, there were so many things to do in the mean time that she hardly could think of following a dream’s whimsy.
Melora pulled on her pantaloons, and motioned for Edward to follow her downstairs. Reaching the living room, Melora opened her suitcase and took out one of her own dresses.
“Have you any idea the sort of bland clothes the Ashtons have asked me to wear?” Melora complained mildly, slipping the sleeveless dress over her head. It had a grey checked pattern crisscrossing it, and a ruffled black trim on the hem, coming down to her knees. It was very full, and tied in the back to make a bow at her waist. The lace of her bloomers just barely showed. From her suitcase she pulled a pair of soft looking dark grey socks that went all the way to her thighs, but she scrunched them down to her knees, rippling around her calves. Lastly she extracted a flattened pair of kitten heeled pumps and donned them, taking the time to gather all her hair into a loose bun hanging over her shoulder. The effect was a little Amish, but that suited Melora’s tastes just fine.
“So! I’m going to go into town and get some breakfast and some more supplies. I should be gone about an hour or two. Sound ok?”
Edward nodded, smiling. She would return, he knew that now. And no longer did the thought of living with someone else frightened him. Melora was different from everyone else he’d met. They could just be different together.
The town below sped by as Melora cheerfully hummed the tune to a New Order song, waving at the children who stared at her from their lawns. It was just starting to get hot when she parked her scooter near the Safeway, which was located in the main shopping plaza. Going inside, she got a few strange looks for her appearance, but on this day nothing would make Melora feel inferior about herself.
Things are going so smoothly, and I’m very lucky to have someone as extraordinary as Edward as a friend and room mate. I should do something for him, something to thank him for all his generosity. I’ll think of something more special later, but maybe he’ll enjoy one if I buy an extra apple strudel for him. Melora thought, grabbing a shopping basket and putting in two boxes of freshly baked apple turnovers. She proceeded to buy cereal, flour, baking soda and baking powder, vanilla extract, pasta, butter, milk, juice, eggs, all the regular ingredients in most of the recipes she knew. Melora also bought several bags of ice to put in the ice box, otherwise she feared things would spoil. Thinking quickly, Melora bought a super-pack of straws for Edward to use as often as he could. At the checkout line, people stared at her, but Melora wasn’t too sure why. Sure, she was dressed a little differently, but was that really reason enough to stare at somebody? The young boys especially were looking at her in a funny way, but it wasn’t meant to be mean. The young girls, however, were looking at Melora like she was a threat. What on earth have they got to stare at me for? Is being a stranger here really that big of a deal? I’ve been here a month already!
Melora paid and left, but once she was outside she was feeling better. She headed for the post office, where they seemed a little more polite about the looks.
“I’d like to apply for a mailing address, please.” They gave her the necessary forms, which she filled out to the best of her ability. As she handed them in, the woman at the desk asked, “will you be installing your mailbox at the top or at the bottom of the hill?”
Melora raised an eyebrow. How the heck would she know where I live already? “The bottom. Wouldn’t want to inconvenience your mailmen into having to drive all the way up the driveway and have to look at such a ghastly sight as an abandoned house on a hill.” Melora said a bit sharply, and then left.
She made her way to the hardware store, and bought a hammer and a large package of nails. Once at the cash register, the young man behind asked, “So, how’s moving in going?” He sounded a little nervous.
“What, does everybody in this town know each other’s business?” Melora exclaimed.
The man looked embarrassed. “I suppose so. I heard it from my sister first, she works at the library where she met a kid who said he knew you.”
Christ. “Brian got himself to the library, well, good for him. Moving in is going fine. I’ll be out of the Ashton’s hair before they know it, and after that I probably wont leave the house much, save for work and to buy supplies, so I expect I’ll be out of your’s and everyone else’s hair soon enough as well.” Melora ended this on a slightly acid note.
Melora returned to the house on the hill with groceries in tow, looking a bit miffed. Edward greeted her brightly, but his smile faded when he saw the look on her face.
“What’s wrong, Melora?”
“I had no idea privacy didn’t exist anymore!” Melora lamented. “Everybody knows my business these days. It’s intolerable, for the looks they give me. I can’t begin to imagine the way they must have treated you when you went down there!”
Fear gripped Edwards heart. “Then, they know that you’re living with me?” He sounded so afraid.
“Oh, no, Edward, I really doubt it. They just want to know all about the new freak moving into the creepy house on the creepy hill.” Melora sighed, “as if they have nothing better to do with themselves.” Melora remembered the breakfast in her bag, and cheered a little. Pulling a box of the apple turnovers out, she showed them to Edward. “Hungry?”
While it was true that Edward did not need to eat, food did taste wonderful to him, and so he followed Melora into the kitchen to sit down at the table. Holding her own apple strudel in one hand while feeding him his, Melora talked about what she wanted to accomplish that day. Edward chewed slowly, savoring the first food he’d eaten in years, listening contentedly to her. When both apple turn-overs were gone, Melora sat for a moment longer, gazing at Edward. Edward wondered why she was looking at him so long, but then she got up and held a paper towel to his face, daintily wiping away the bits of sugar and crust at the corners of his mouth. She smiled, and said, “I don’t care what those people down there think. I come here, and it’s like they never existed. That’ll never change.”
The morning went by at a leisurely pace, neither of them feeling any need to rush the chores. Together they stocked the pantry and the icebox with Melora’s groceries. Then Melora took one of the larger bed sheets, the step ladder, and her hardware supplies, and went to the corner parallel to the conveyor belts. “Edward, would it be ok if I used this corner as my studio? I’d have to nail these sheets into the wall, as a sort of tarp. The sheets would probably cover this door.” Melora said, motioning to the door that led to the deceased inventor’s bedroom.
Edward didn’t mind at all. He had not the reservations of most people when it came to driving nails into pristine, wallpapered surfaces. Stretching the huge white sheet across the two walls that made up that particular corner, Melora hammered a nail through the fabric into each facing surface. The sheet pooled on the floor, and Melora stretched it out to cover a large portion of it. She nailed another sheet to the wall beside it, pulling this to lie flat against the surface this time. Then she took two more nails and drove them into the wall to make two points coming up to her hips, forming a support for her larger canvases that would not fit on a regular easel. Melora then spread the rest of the sheet over the ground, and took from her suitcase all the small, compact art supplies she’d been able to bring. She lay these on a nearby table, arranging her paints and brushes neatly.
“I’ll have to buy a cheap easel eventually, but honestly I can do really awesome things with just the cardboard I find in the dumpster.” Melora said, eyeballing her work. Edward was mystified by all of it; he’d never seen anyone paint and so did not understand how a studio really worked. “Friend of mine back at school taught me how to go dumpster diving. She was hilarious; she was this tiny stick bug of a girl, who always wore these floppy hats and listened to Neutral Milk Hotel, I’d see her skinny little legs sticking straight up out of the dumpster as I walked by, and I’d have to help her out of one from time to time.” Melora laughed, “she wouldn’t have gotten stuck all the time if once in a while she’d let go of whatever she was trying to pull out. I loved her art, though.”
Edward listened to Melora, and though he didn’t understand a lot of what she was saying, it fascinated him that for the first time she was talking about something from her past. She was quiet for a long time after that, facing away from Edward, her weight shifted to one leg, her arms crossed over her chest, looking at the white and pastel expanse of bedding before her. Eventually she turned around and smiled faintly. “Shall we proceed to the second floor, then?”
They brought up the cleaning supplies in a pail and began with the hallway, and it was then that Melora devised a way to make Edward feel productive. She instructed him to hold out his scissorhands, and around one she wrapped several old pillowcases that she’d found in a closet. “Try not to move your blades too much, and this way you can twirl up the cobwebs and mop up the dust on the bannister.” Edward was overjoyed to finally have something active to do, and began right away to dust every surface, going between the rails of the stairway and ridding them of the spider webs. As for Melora, she speed-mopped up and down the hallway, and polished the tarnish from the mirrors. What a difference it made to have a clear, sparkling like new mirror hanging over one’s hearth!
“Melora?” Edward called from the stairway.
“Yes, Edward?” she responded, poking her head out from her room.
“Thanks for the apple turnover this morning.” He smiled, coming up the stairs to meet her. Melora laughed and said he was welcome, now would he like to dust in there?
“I’m going to have to clean out the fireplace before I mop; probably should get the bed out of here ‘fore I do anything else,” said Melora, and while Edward dusted the mantle with his mitt, she bent low and lifted the bed on its side, grunting with effort, and pushed it out the door and into the hallway. “First thing I’m doing, once I’ve got some free time, is painting this ugly box frame,” Melora panted, “pine boxes are for the recently deceased. I fancy myself a prettier coffin than that!”
Coming back inside with the bucket of cleaning supplies and a pan to sweep the dust and ashes into, Melora knelt beside the fireplace and began to sweep. The houses from back them generally had a fireplace in every room, with no central heating. Melora had been thankful the fireplace in the living room needed no cleaning, having been hardly ever used.
“I can do that, if you want me to.” Edward said, looking down from his dusting.
“You can?” Melora looked up, surprised. He nodded, and held out his mitted scissorhand. Curious, Melora undid the cloth wrapping and handed him the pan and short broom. Grasping the pan and the broom delicately with the blade where his thumb would have been, he knelt down and began to sweep the ashes into the pan. It wasn’t as graceful as Melora’s sweeping, certainly, but he held the objects steadily and took his time getting all the ash out.
“That’s great, Edward!” Melora exclaimed. “Think you can keep that up while I dust this place?” he nodded. Melora stood and continued dusting the walls and behind the tattered, musty drapes. The room was of average size, with a low ceiling and grey walls. There was a curved pan next to the hearth for storing firewood, and there was a small mahogany chest of drawers for clothes and such, which Melora cleaned very thoroughly. Once Edward was done sweeping up all the ashes, Melora took them outside into the garden to spread.
She returned to mop the floor and wash the windows. The room clean, Melora pushed the bed back into the room and stepped back. They admired their handiwork, and then moved to the bathroom.
“Why is it always that the bathrooms prove to be the worst horrors of all?” Melora groaned. It was spare, with a deep claw-foot tub against the wall, a toilet and a sink, and a small little table for soap and shampoo next to the tub. “Whatever sort of person lived here last, they sure liked things spare.” Melora grumbled.
The entire room was filled with spider-webs; Melora could not take a lighted candle into the room without a few going up in a brief spark of flame. This gave her the idea to simply ignite the many cobwebs, it took less time than wiping them away. This she did, particularly in the tub, where the long-dead spiders had made a veritable city.
“Any chance you could dust some?” Melora asked Edward. He nodded, and held out a bladed appendage for a mitt. While he dusted the porcelain, Melora tested the toilet to see if it flushed. There was a rumbling sound, and for a moment Melora feared she’d broken it. The toilet did indeed flush finally, even if the water that came back up was dark orange with rust. The sink was a newer model than the one in the kitchen, with actual knobs and a faucet. Of course, the bathtub only has a drain; no handy-dandy faucet for me to get water from, thought Melora.
They mopped the floors and scrubbed the grime from the bathtub and sink, Melora polished the mirror to sparkling, and put fresh candles in their holders (there was a large supply of white taper candles in the linen closet on that floor).
Melora had not eaten lunch, but found she was not very hungry and so continued to work. The way the house was looking after their care, it really excited her. It was long past lunchtime when they finished the bathroom, and now Melora took the clothes from her suitcase and folded them neatly into the drawers of the mahogany chest in her room. Once she’d accomplished this, Melora asked Edward if he’d like to take a short break with her.
They went downstairs to sit on the couch, tired from it all, but feeling very satisfied with themselves. “It’s too bad I can’t cook anything yet; at some point we should go exploring in the woods behind the house and see if we can make a decent find for fallen logs and such. I noticed there’s a shed out back, I’m guessing for gardening tools and the like-maybe there’s an axe I can use. I also need to start saving up for a sewing machine, a nice mechanical one that’s simple and that wont break any time soon. I’ve got no clothes for the winter, so I’ll have to do some thrifting then, but I would really like to make myself a nice cloak for the outdoors. They’re simple to do; I’d just need a pattern and some fabric, obviously...” Melora rambled idly, opening her suitcase again to take out her old artwork and lay it around her designated studio space.
Edward half-listened, standing to examine her pieces more closely. Most of them were the same size, and completely covered with color and dark forms. Here was one where the paint was applied thickly, coming together to recognizably look like Melora herself, only it was just her head, sewn crudely onto a large white bird’s body. Her eyes were closed, as if peaceably dreaming, a faint smile on her lips. The contrast between her blissful expression and the horrific surgery that had taken place seemed to strike a chord in Edward. Here was one where a girl stood, half realized in very thin paint, her face missing and her skirt gold and in tatters. She appeared to be standing among gold clouds, and flowers fell from beneath her skirt, landing between her ankles. Here was another that had no definite subject, it was haunting and abstract, and Edward found he could relate to it very strongly. There was another one with someone who could have been Melora, but wrapped in a shroud with large red angel’s wings beating at the air. Her shroud was smoking and at her feet lay a fire; it seemed the angel was singing, ignoring the fire that threatened to consume her. There were countless others, golden and luminous, others like a storm cloud, still others like nothing he’d ever seen before. The people in her paintings were almost always female, and were always disfigured in some way-here one had insect wings where her arms should have been; there one had the lower body of a deer, arrows piercing it from all directions, one girl had a gaping hole where her face should have been, revealing only an empty chamber with tiny red flowers nestled in the bottom, cascading out down the front of her dress like a waterfall. Here was one girl who was naked, and instead of a head she had a reindeer skull..
They fascinated Edward. Most of them he could not make any sense of, but he found himself wanting to, desperately. From what sort of soul did these bizarre, fantastical expressions come from? In what earth did these plants grow? Whatever the clime, Edward would that he could walk in that garden. They were so unlike anything he’d seen before, and yet for some reason they so resembled the feelings he’d tried to express in his gardening, in all of his mediums. Here was a frighteningly clear mirror into Melora’s past, for she had made all of these paintings before she came there.
As if to verify what Edward was thinking, Melora said, “These are the strongest link I have to my past. Looking at them now, they are a key to why I seem to have gone insane, why I have ended up where I have. If ever I want to solve that mystery, I need to keep painting; nail down my deepest fears and emotions to the cross of canvas so that my mind can keep free and uncluttered, and I may closer examine that which troubles me so.”
She sighed, turning around to face Edward. “No time to paint now, right Edward? Lots of work to do.” He said nothing, only gazed at her with an unreadable expression. Melora went ahead and began climbing the stairs. After a moment, Edward followed her.
Melora took to exploring the other rooms of the house. Mostly she found dark, cluttered storage rooms, filled to the brim with dusty machinery, or empty laboratories. Melora didn’t think she really needed to devote any energy to cleaning these rooms, after all, she’d never use them. They also, for some reason, made her feel nervous. Finally, Melora came to the last door. Pushing it open, Melora gasped. Within stood what must have been the previous owner’s study; to one wall was a massive book case, lined with row upon row of tomes. Perpendicular to this wall was a large desk, covered in small little things like globes and jars and butterfly display cases, and one or two crumbling candles. The room was illuminated by a single, gothic window. The light filtered into the room, where it was cast against the far wall to rest upon an antique, cast iron sewing machine and table.
“Oh Edward, it’s perfect!” Melora cried, rushing over to the ancient machine and turning the side wheel, watching the needle rise and fall with delight. Edward smiled, but his face was shrouded with nostalgia. He’d never entered this room since his creator had died; the sight of that working table brought on strong the memory of lying half assembled upon it while the inventor read to him.
“Edward, do you like to read?” Melora asked, brushing the dust off the spines of the books as she studied them.
“I can’t.”
“You were never taught?” Melora asked, surprised.
“I just...can’t.” He held out his arms, hoping this would be enough explanation.
“Oh, I see. I’m sorry, that never occurred to me.” Melora said, “would you like sometime to be read to?”
“Yes, very much.” Edward said softly.
Dusting, washing, brooming, mopping, Melora and Edward at last cleaned the single remaining useful room in the house. When they were done, Melora couldn’t help but do a little victory dance. There were so many things she still had to do, and so many things she wanted to do, like paint and sew and cook delicious meals for Edward and herself.
They opted to celebrate the house’s renewal by spending an hour in the grass of the front lawn. Melora suddenly felt very giddy and began to roll around, laughing. Edward watched, amused, as she spent her energy turning over and over again on the lawn, seeing how far across it she could get by this method. When finally Melora lay flat on her back, a little bruised and euphoric, she exclaimed, “I never thought finishing to clean a house could feel so orgasmic!” and began to laugh again. Catching her breath after a few moments, she looked over to Edward, who was lying on his stomach, his upper half propped by his elbows, only a few feet away. She said, “Edward, in an hour, wake me up, and we’ll go into the woods and see if we can find some wood for burning.” She then closed her eyes, nestled herself a bit into the grass, her arms spread out at her sides, her hair loosened from its bun to spill over the green. A moment later she opened her eyes and said to Edward, “by the way, an hour is three thousand six hundred seconds. So just...wake me up when you get bored and want to go do something.” She closed her eyes and did not open them.
Edward got up and attended to his flower beds and hedge sculptures, always keeping an eye on the monochromatic human draped so artistically on his grass. It gave him time to reflect. With the house clean, it would not be long before Melora set up her permanent residence there. Was he still nervous? Edward had to admit it-he was. Mainly because it was so very different from all he’d ever known. He could not possibly prepare himself for what lay ahead. Nothing would feel familiar to him. Certainly, he’d lived with humans before. But never had one expressed such openness to what he could and could not do in life. Never had Kim or the Avon Lady spoken to him with such sincerity and frankness about the way of things. How could Melora acknowledge his uniqueness one moment and then treat him as her total equal the next? How could she do this so effortlessly, so that with her he forgot that he’d ever spent so many years in isolation, he forgot how very different he was?
The answer came to him, quite suddenly, while snipping at a bush. Kim, the Avon Lady, all their neighbors, had belonged to a society, which was defined in Edward’s mind as a sort of group or tribe that worked best when in total harmony and conformity, when every member of it followed the same rules. Melora, like Edward, did not belong to any society. They were not part of any tribe, and so on their own they could make their own rules. It was a Boschian garden of delights, while outside of society-one could do anything, commit any crime, indulge in any fantasy, with a total lack of guilt as long as they did not go against their own morals. They could not break any rules, for there were none. But once outside society, it is very hard to get into it. You can only pretend that you really were always part of it, and try your best to adopt their rules for the time you are there. Two separate worlds, and never the twain shall meet.
Of course, these thoughts did not present them in so articulated a manner to Edward. Words like Boschian and twain were not in his vocabulary, neither were concepts like garden of earthly delights, and the conformism within a tribe. Their underlying meanings were there, and they came together in Edward’s mind much to the same effect, but in a subtler, slower way. The more he studied Melora, the more he understood his situation. Yet Melora had an advantage-somehow, she managed to live amongst them in relative peace. She went about them as a lion might go about a herd of wildebeest, as long as she kept her weirdness to herself, the herd would not disperse.
Melora seemed to be doing fine, and so Edward moved to the side of the house, trimming the hedges here and there, sometimes stopping to take simple delight in watching a ladybug climb a leaf. He liked Melora’s company, that was for certain. She had so many dreams for the future, and she was so confident about achieving them. It didn’t matter that she would always be poor; and it didn’t even seem to matter to her if she was crazy or not. And she made Edward feel important, not because he could give her a beautiful haircut, or because he could make beautiful sculptures, and it certainly wasn’t because he was some perverse fascination for her. He was important because he was her friend, and she could talk about anything with him. If only Edward had the articulation to voice his thoughts like Melora did. All he could do was hint at them through his very limited forms of self-expression.
An hour must have passed this way before Edward heard Melora’s urgent call: “Edward!” Quickly he ran around to the front of the lawn, hoping nothing was wrong. He stopped short when he saw Melora.
She lay before him, looking at him calmly, yet at the same time she wore an amazed, almost panicked expression. She was resting on what looked to be a roman couch, made entirely of vines, twigs, and foliage. The couch floated on four thick, braided stalks sprouting from the ground. Melora was at eye level with Edward. He came closer, looking frightened and hoping that she would say something to explain it.
“I don’t know how it happened, Edward...” she whispered, afraid that if she spoke too loudly the couch would crumble beneath her and she would fall. As it was, the leafy thing was swaying a little in the breeze. “I was asleep, I was dreaming, and then I woke up to find myself like this!” Her hands were gripping the couch, and she was being as still as she could..
Edward bent closer to examine the bizarre plant-couch. Little pink buds showed on the vines. It all looked very eerie, unnatural and impossible. Melora gave a little shriek as the couch’s stalks withdrew sharply into the ground, but then they stopped a few feet from the ground. “How did this couch get here?” Melora panted. “Don’t touch it, Edward.”
The pair were still for a few moments, neither of them daring to say or do anything. Then a look of resolve came over Melora’s face, and slowly she sat up on the couch. Her hair had flowers and branches tangled in it, and it came about her face wildly. She carefully angled her legs to dangle over the edge, and closed her eyes.
Edward waited, anxiously hoping nothing worse would happen. Was this some sort of extreme hallucination?
As Melora sat, concentrating, the couch dropped jerkily a few inches, the vines that supported it were shrinking. Sweat broke out on her face. Slowly, carefully, the couch lowered itself to the ground, and then unbraided itself to disappear into the grass. Melora now sat flat on the grass, her legs outstretched before her. She opened her eyes.
“Did you see that?” Melora said breathlessly, “It was a hallucination, and I controlled it!” She climbed shakily to her feet. “I can make things happen!”
She looked up as she saw Edward move to try and help her, to maybe touch her reassuringly, but then he stopped, lowering his arms. Instead he said, “Are you ok?”
Melora nodded. She was pale, and her hair looked a mess but she said, “yes. I think so.”
“I was afraid.” Edward simply said.
Again Melora nodded. “I’m sorry. It’s like every time I get relaxed something weird happens. I’m sorry I scared you like that.” She pulled her hair tie from her wrist and tried to get her hair into a bun.
“Did you dream of a couch?” Edward asked.
“Actually, yeah, at one point. It was so brief, though, I didn’t even remember till you asked.” Melora said.
“Do you still want to go into the woods?” Edward said, snipping his scissorhands in nervous anticipation.
“We need to, anyways.” said Melora, “and we need to go often, at least until we can have a good supply in store.
And this they did, though both seemed on guard for anything else that could spring from the ground and ensnare them. Melora especially felt nervous; the last time she’d walked in the woods, she had been swept deep into it, never to return to her former life.
Edward followed very close to Melora, holding the fallen logs she found in his arms. Melora had stressed the importance of having kindling on hand at all times, and so she cut large amounts of golden-rod and milkweed where she found it growing, and smaller twigs besides. Often Melora would come to a large fallen branch from the full grown trees, and this she would laboriously chop into segments with the axe she’d found in the shed. There was no path, of course. It seemed like no one had walked these woods in a very long time; often Edward would have to snip the brambles that would seek to trap Melora by her dress. At first the going was quiet, but this unnerved her. Normally it wouldn’t, but it seemed so awkward after the affair of the floating plant-couch.
“Edward, do you think I’m crazy?” Melora asked as she bent down to pick up a large piece of wood.
“No. You just see things.” Edward said, “and I see them too.”
Melora looked back at him; his studded leather suit absorbed all the sunlight around him, and yet Edward did not perspire. Melora suddenly wondered if Edward did not have skin below his neck, that the suit was all that kept his insides together. It seemed likely, the way it was so tightly belted everywhere.
“That’s a very sagacious observation, Edward.,” Melora said, placing the log into her basket, “and I think I should take it to heart-that is, no longer should I let my fear reign over my control of the situation. I see things, and while I may not be able to turn this condition off, I may learn to control it one day.” Suddenly Melora set her basket down and declared: “No, I say! I will not let my fear of being crazy drive me insane! From this day forth I shall welcome all hallucinations as guests in the house of my head and eyes, and we shall live in harmony forever after!”
Edward was at first afraid, and then the absurdness of her little speech caught up with him and it was then he wished he could clap and cheer. Instead he just grinned and Melora laughed and cheered for herself.
Deeper into the woods they trekked, till they had filled their arms with firewood and had to turn back. Melora was reminded of an old song she knew, and so began to sing softly as they walked. “...when Friday comes, we’ll all call rats fish...” The walk was mostly uphill, and it seemed the woods stretched on forever in all directions. How bizarre that only a mile or so away was a perfectly manicured suburbia!
Halfway back to the mansion, and just as Melora’s song finished, she looked up and noticed the sky was awfully dark for the time of day.
“Uh...” Melora stopped abruptly, and Edward bumped into her, he’d been listening so intently on her song he hadn’t realized she’d stopped walking.
“Melora?” he asked. He looked up then as well. The sky seemed swollen to bursting, dark like an overripe plum. Thunder began to roll within those low threatening clouds, and in just a moment they would pierce themselves open upon the branches of the trees...
Melora dropped her basket and ripped her dress off, throwing it over the wood just as the sky fell in a torrent down upon their heads. It was too late for Edward’s drenched firewood, but still he held it cradled in his arms as they ran for the house.
They arrived, thunder and lightning clashing in the heavens above, and Melora quickly pushed open the front doors. Once inside, they looked to each other. Edward’s hair was hanging down around his face, trickling rain onto his already drenched suit. Everywhere he dripped water onto the floor. Melora wasn’t in much better shape; her hair was like a wet mop down her back, and her underclothes were sopping wet. Her shoes made squelching sounds as she wiggled her toes inside them.
The house was dark, so Melora made quick work of lighting a few candles to see by. “It sure is pouring out there,” Melora said, “that’s not going to let up any time soon. Thank goodness I saved at least one batch of firewood; though yours isn’t lost, Edward, it’ll dry after a day or two. You can set it in the basin next to the fireplace if you want.”
Edward was glad to hear this, though he was a little embarrassed that his suit made squelching noises as he walked. Melora just giggled and draped her soggy dress over the edge of the sink to dry. The firewood in her basket was mostly dry, the dress had absorbed the worst of it. She took a log and some kindling and arranged it on the grate of the fireplace. Taking a candle, she lit the milkweed, which in turn ignited the goldenrod, which after a moment caught the small twigs, and then in a while there was a cheerful fire blazing. Melora smiled at the sight; the first hearth fire in her new home, and completely the result of her and Edward’s labor.
Granted, it was still pretty early to be lighting fires, it was August after all, but Melora figured it would help them dry off, and would add extra light.
“Edward, I’m going to take off these wet clothes and dry off with one of those bed sheets. Sorry I haven’t bought any towels yet, I’ll make sure to do that soon.” Melora said, still feeling a little weird to be saying it. “I’ll put on a long shirt and then I’ll help you dry off, what do you say?”
“Ok, Melora.” Edward said. He didn’t seem embarrassed or shy about it at all, though something inside him told Edward he probably should have been. However, his lack of protestation convinced Melora, and soon all her clothes were either draped over the edge of the sink, or on the railing that crossed the top of the fireplace. She was pale all over, and totally at ease with herself as she walked naked to the pile of bed sheets behind the couch. Picking one, she briskly rubbed herself down. She wrapped it around herself once and then unwrapped it to wind around her head into a sort of turban, the end of the sheet hanging down to trail at the backs of her knees. As she did this, Edward watched, curious about the construction of her body. She had hair elsewhere besides her head-two light, barely noticeable tufts under her arms, and a triangle of it between her legs. A fine down of hair covered her calves. She was rounder than Edward, her thighs were long and thicker than his. Her hips were wider than his, and her waist came in more. Upon her chest were two small globes of flesh (these he’d seen in abundance when he’d lived in the village below, but never this pale nor this revealed), with little pink circles on them, the size of pennies maybe. He studied how her skin in some places had a good layer of fat on it, and in others it stuck to her bones-this intrigued him, for he had no skeleton to speak of. Her feet fascinated him, so close in build to her hands but longer and lacking opposable thumbs. Her toes did little else but help her keep balance, he noticed; they could not do any of the complicated tasks she put to her hands so often.
Understand, he did not-could not-feel any erotic desire for her body, now so vulnerable to his gaze. A baser man may not believe this, but it was true. Edward lacked the pith and part to tint his vision so; and so his observations remained innocent. He was still aware of the secrets other women guarded jealously, the supposed modesty required of all women. It seemed a silly convention, perhaps even a dangerous one-for is modesty not often confused with pride, and pride the blade that hurt those in the village who wished to peer beneath his suit for their own selfish motives? Was it not pride that led the rumor to be circulated, that Edward was a predator among the young attractive ladies of suburbia? Of course such a rumor was laughable in the face of the truth; one cannot attack with the sword one does not even have in the first place.
Melora ascended the stairs to go find a shirt; a few minutes later she came back down wearing a simple white night-shirt reaching to her knees. She reached into her suitcase and pulled out a brush and a wide-toothed comb, and gathered a dry sheet into her arms before she sat down beside Edward. The fire seemed to be slowly drying Edward’s soggy leather, but Melora feared for his shears and so took each hand in turn to her lap to carefully dab the water off each blade. Once this was done, she asked Edward if he would allow her to dry and comb his hair. At this his eyes lit up, and he readily agreed to sit for this.
“After all,” Melora giggled as she knelt behind him, facing the fire, “you’ve got the rest of your life to let it get back to the rat’s nest it was before.” At first Edward sat straight, his neck stiff as Melora took the bed sheet to it, squeezing out all the water (and there was a lot), but gradually he relaxed more and more to lean back against her. After his hair had been tousled into mere dampness, Melora did what she’d always been taught to do to avoid damaging hair: first she combed her fingers through it, taking out the small tangles easily. His hair was thick and felt somehow stronger than normal hair, like it was spun from a combination of silk and steel. After she’d run her fingers through as much as she could, Melora took the wide toothed comb and combed away from his scalp, starting at the ends and working her way up. She met some resistance here, and asked frequently if she was hurting him, but he simply said not to worry about it. She worked through the tangles steadily, patiently, until she could run the comb through his hair without a problem. Melora then took the boar-bristled brush and worked in the same fashion, spending a long time on the matted clumps that the comb had missed, and working from the bottom of the hair up to the root. After all the tangles were out, Melora figured what was good for a girl’s hair was good for a man’s, and so spent the next twenty minutes giving Edward’s hair a good hundred strokes of the brush, idly talking about random things that would enter her mind. Edward was too relaxed to respond, usually. Once the hundredth stroke was up, all the dampness had left his hair, and Melora brushed his long hair into its natural side part, coming down to curl behind his ears.
“All done.” Melora said, setting aside the brush. After a moment, Edward slowly rose to go look in the bathroom mirror upstairs. When he came back, Melora was struck by the eerie semblance he had to the man in the photograph. “Do you like it, Edward? If not I can always back comb it to all hell.”
“Would you brush it again afterwards if you did?” Edward asked. Melora burst into laughter at this-he’d looked so sincere when he said it.
“I like it.” Edward added after a moment. “I look like I did when he was still my creator. Thank you.”
“Edward, did your creator...did you ever know his name?” Melora asked.
Edward thought hard about this. Finally he said, “I think once he said his name was...Vincent.”
“Vincent.” Melora repeated, memorizing it, “I think Vincent must have been a wonderful man if he had the heart to create a person like you, Edward.”
Melora resolved that for nights like these, she’d buy several down comforters for the rugs, get some pillows and blankets, and maybe a good book to read to Edward. Edward seemed very happy at the mention of this plan.
“Fore I do that, though, I’ll make some super strong, super soft mittens for you, yeah? That way we can share the blankets.” Melora said, and then Edward was very excited to think of the possibility that he could be close to someone without hurting them.
“I think I would like that very much, if you could make something like that.” Edward said softly, as Melora got a fire going for the stove. She herself was thrilled to be cooking for the first time for just the two of them, and re-located the drying clothes to the banister.
“I hope the Ashtons aren’t worried; I had meant to have supper with them and stay the rest of the weekend, including Monday. I’m going to need the next two days to plan and set up the vegetable garden,” Melora held a large can of vegetable beef soup for Edward to swiftly pierce with a sharp blade, “I guess they’ll have to assume I got stuck in the rain and am doing fine here on my own.”
For dinner, Melora had no place-mats, but she set a table for two, placing a candle between them, and poured fruit juice in both their glasses, positioning a straw both in Edward’s glass and in his bowl. Melora was thankful she’d thought to buy those jumbo straws, else Edward would have trouble getting to the vegetables in his soup.
They ate mostly in silence, Melora admiring Edward’s new hairdo from across the table while it rained and thundered outside, and Edward reveling in the taste of hot food at last. After supper, Melora cleared the table and washed the dishes in the sink, scrubbing the pot that she’d boiled the soup in. Once the kitchen was clean and the fire put out, Melora went upstairs to brush her teeth and wash her face. Edward again sat on a pillow by the hearth and dozed while Melora slept peacefully not a few feet away, a peaceful rest filled only with dreams of the bright future.