Shadow of the Day - a fic about Lynda
Title: “Shadow Of The Day”
Author: Shaitanah
Rating: G
Summary: In a few months the Wammy’s House chapter of her life would officially be over. She gives away the last portrait of him she has and moves on. [Lynda reflects on Mello’s and Matt’s death] Please R&R!
Disclaimer: Death Note belongs to Ohba Tsugumi and Obata Takeshi.
A/N: Lynda only appears for one panel in Volume 7 and is later mentioned in Volume 8. All we know about her is that she drew the portraits of Near and Mello and “is now a rather well-known artist”. Yet somehow I thought she deserved a story to conclude her relation to the Wammy’s House. Also, I saw her name being spelled as 'Linda' and 'Lynda'. I chose the second version.
SHADOW OF THE DAY
She woke up late in the evening and raised her head wearily from the desk. The maid left a couple of hours ago. The lights in the gallery went out, soft pinkish shine of street torches poured in through the windows.
She vaguely remembered having argued with Tom about that week-end visit to his parents. Tom’s folks were nice - and too conventional to her taste.
“I really hate it that they regard me as a freak just because I was brought up in an orphanage for advanced children,” she had complained.
Lynda rubbed her eyes and walked towards the exit across the big empty hall. The paintings stared at her solemnly from the walls, faces she had only seen once or twice in the crowd, yet she’d memorized them and perpetuated them in wood and oil. Eyes and smiles that she would never come across again remained frozen in time on the walls of her gallery. She was very young, but sometimes she felt like she had gone through ages in order to find perfect faces.
She paused before one of the portraits. A boy of about fourteen with a cloud of white hair around his head and sad blue eyes. Lynda smiled. No, it wasn’t him, just a look-alike.
Tom knocked on the door. Lynda turned her head and grinned at him, a moment of light melancholy blown away like smoke on the wind. Snow whirled cheerfully around them. Tom threw his arm around Lynda’s shoulder and they walked along the boulevard glazed with sparkling ice and strewn with gleaming garlands.
“Still can’t believe the exhibition was such a huge success!” Lynda exclaimed.
“You’re probably the only one who’s surprised about it,” Tom snorted. “Gee, I’m going to marry a world famous artist who doesn’t even know she is world famous!”
He planted a teasing kiss in the corner of her mouse. Lynda’s eyes sparkled. She should have been happy and excited about the upcoming wedding, or at least somewhat nervous. But she felt nothing. Just some dull unrecognizable longing for something.
Lynda stood stock-still in front of a newspapers booth. A photo on the front page caught her attention.
“Lyn?” Tom called. “Lyn, what’s the matter?”
She dashed to the booth a grabbed the newspaper. The salesman eyed her suspiciously.
“I hope you’re going to pay for this, Miss,” he grumbled.
Lynda barely heard him. She smoothed out the picture of a young man’s face in a close-up, streaks of bright reddish hair running down his forehead, half of his face obscured by huge goggles, a cigarette compressed between his lips. He was lying on the asphalt in a pool of blood. Lynda shivered.
She staggered towards the street torch and leaned heavily against it. She vaguely saw Tom pay for the paper and run up to her.
“Lyn! Everything all right?”
A nameless terrorist, they called him. Lynda clenched her fists hard enough for the knuckles to turn white. Barely controlling herself, she looked at Tom and forced a smile.
“I’m fine. Just thought I saw a familiar face.”
Tom frowned, but let it slip. Lynda never told him much about the place she had come from, some big old manor house in England the location of which remained a mystery to anyone but its former residents. She was smart and extremely talented, and that indicated the ‘big old manor house’ must have been some special institution for gifted children. And that was all Tom needed to know.
Once at home, she locked the bedroom door and wept bitterly. Her tears fell on the newspaper, leaving wet dark stains on the photo. She had never been close with that boy. He had always played his videogames indoors whereas Lynda preferred drawing outside. But she remembered him bright-eyed and cheerful in the presence of the other one, smug and fair-haired, always munching tons of chocolate. Lynda smiled through a series of uncontrollable sobs. Those boys used to be part of something more than just the orphanage routine. As the resident of the regular group Lynda didn’t know much about the mysterious L that appeared from time to time in the Wammy’s House accompanied by the old Mr Wammy himself, but she knew that those boys were different from the other gifted children. True geniuses. Unique, and powerful enough to change the world.
In two weeks she finally braced herself and found the card that carried the direct number of Roger Ruvie, the caretaker of the orphanage.
“Hey, it’s me,” she whispered into the receiver. A quiet cracked voice greeted her warmly. “Do you think I can come?”
After a pause, the old man said: “Please do.”
She arrived in Winchester late at night and took a taxi to the Wammy’s House. It should have bothered her that she hadn’t told Tom a word about this trip, but it didn’t. For once, she was at peace with her feelings. It seemed to be the very right thing to do.
“I always loved this garden,” she said thoughtfully, walking along a small path amidst the snow.
“You always said it was a bit unkempt,” Roger chuckled. She held his dry warm hand and smiled heartily. “Much like the boys. You saw Matt, didn’t you?” Lynda’s eyes darkened. “They have no graves, you know. Mello and him.”
She gritted her teeth. So Mello too… “Do you mind if I?..”
Roger patted her shoulder and gave her a soft nudge as they halted by the mausoleum. It was a small stone building that always reminded her of a picture gallery, its walls lined with neat rectangular tablets bearing the names of the children that died in the orphanage as well as inmates that had no one to mark their demise.
She dusted off the yellowish tablet that said ‘Mello’. No given name, no dates, no inscriptions ‘in memoriam’. Just ‘Mello’, the alias everyone knew him by. And next to it, one more, labelled ‘Matt’.
“I thought I’d find you here,” a quiet voice said behind her back. She spun around and faced a fragile-looking young man in plain white clothes. His gaze drifted slowly over here and to the far corner of the building.
Lynda came closer and reached out to him. But he never liked to be touched. Her hand froze in mid-motion and fell, careful not to disturb him. She was surprised to see him: he left a long time ago, shortly after Mello’s departure. The two had never been close; yet something told her Mello’s death had affected him deeply.
She closed her eyes. For many years she drew their portraits and burned them, because nobody was supposed to see their faces. They had always been special, these boys. She’d come to love them, yet she never really knew them.
She thought about Tom. Her sweet, caring Tom who would never set foot inside this beautiful mysterious place. When she imagined Mello, she felt like she was like a heroine of Cry Baby, dating an all-around wonderful guy from the fifties, and harbouring a timid liking for a smug, handsome hooligan.
“I’m surprised to see you here,” Lynda whispered.
Near brushed past her towards the tablets. He raised his hand to sweep his fingers over Mello’s one, and couldn’t bring himself to do it, and stroked the air instead. Tears welled up in Lynda’s eyes.
“It was Kira, wasn’t it?” she asked. “Did Kira kill them?”
“Mello would have been happy to know Lynda was here.”
She smirked bitterly. “Mello wouldn’t have cared.”
She felt him staring at her. His unblinking eyes unnerved her. Near reached out to curl one of his soft locks around his finger. He hardly changed at all. The same Near she remembered. The same Near she drew, and drew, and drew and strove so hard to catch the essence, the ice that went so well with Mello’s fire. She loved them. She knew that now. To marry Tom was necessary to close that chapter of her past. In a few months she would become Mrs Thomas Farrow and the Wammy’s House would be shut before her. She’d never come here again.
“Mello once said that Lynda was the only girl who liked me, not him,” Near remarked.
Lynda blushed. A fierce warm feeling built up in her chest and she scolded herself strictly and cut it off abruptly.
“You look like you could use some sleep,” Near said.
She gave him a warm smile and then, acting on some weird, but not entirely unexpected impulse, leaned into him and kissed him on the forehead. He tensed and stood motionless before her. Suddenly she could see his huge pale blue eyes so close, closer than she had ever seen them before. And what she saw there astounded her. The same yearning that gnawed her own heart.
“Thank you,” she drew out slowly. “Indeed, the road was tiresome.”
She made for the main building without turning to look at him. As she passed the spacious living room, the memories of many joyful evenings came alive. Next to the fireplace set alight the boys had played tag; Near fumbling with his puzzles, Mello biting off of another bar of chocolate, Matt pushing the buttons of his gameboy frantically… She ran up the stairs like a princess hurrying away from the fancy ball as her brocade dress transformed into rags, and burst into her room.
That night she drew the last portrait. For him, to fill the emptiness in his heart and in his eyes. She wanted those eyes to reflect the face on the portrait for he was now a jigsaw puzzle with a missing piece, and the piece was Mello.
She left early in the morning without saying goodbye. Her tears spent, she moved on.
Near found a parcel by his door a few hours later. He carried it into his room and proceeded to unwrap the paper.
“Who brought this?” he asked nonchalantly, already knowing the answer.
“Lynda left it for you,” Roger replied.
The youth lowered his head. The face on the painting was flawless. It radiated the same vivacious hostility, the same vigorous self-assuredness its owner had been known for.
“Did she now?..” Near murmured softly.
January 2-3, 2008