Fic: Everything at Once 3
Title: Everything at Once
Author: Virginia Dare
Rating: K-M
Disclaimer: These characters and the basic framework of Carnivale and this story are property of Dan Knauf and HBO, no profit or infringement is intended.
Author's Note: These events are set in the mythical time between the end of Season 2 and the never aired pilot of Season 3
Spoilers: The entire series
Ch.3
The door opened with a long low creak. Justin turned to look at Iris, his eyes red rimmed and soft for a flickering second before his jaw clenched slightly, and he narrowed in on her standing there in the doorway. The sheet around her was a stark white compared to her ruddy freckled skin, her plump upper arms were pressed flat to hold the sheet up over her modest breasts. The look on her face one of bewilderment and determination wrought together in a slight lift of her eyebrow.
"Are you alright then?" She said, her voice a smooth piece of amber.
Justin quickly wiped at his face and stood up straight to face her. "I'm fine, just a little overwhelmed thats all." He voice was softer than his affect. He smiled for a brief moment, dropping his eyes to the floor.
She walked over to him the sheet dragging behind her on the floor like the train of a makeshift wedding gown. She stopped within inches of him, "I couldn't sleep." She dropped her head down so that her forehead was almost resting on his chest. "I can't stop thinking about," her voice was stopped.
He wrapped his arms around her, sliding his fingers slowly across her shoulderblades and pulling her closer so her head rested on his shoulder. "Stop thinking about what Iris?" He asked tenderly. Allowing himself to feel comfort in the feeling of her body pressed to his, reliving flashes of her breasts through a cracked door, the image of the rise and fall of her belly in the afternoon sun as he buried his head between her legs, even the splay of her fingers on his stomach as she kneeled before him at the dinner table back in Mintern. Justin had felt such unbelievable freedom in Iris's arms those few months ago, when he'd let himself forget about any kind of past or future, and focused only how wonderful her kisses felt. Even now he could feel the spectacular warmth of her prayers in his ear as he pushed into her while the world slept quietly outside her bedroom window.
"Norman." She said, cutting through the image of their interlocking bodies in Justin's memory.
Justin pushed her down to the ground, away from him. The sheet puffed around her as she landed on the ground, like the hoop skirt of a procelein doll.
"Please don't be mad at me." She said, her features beginning the mosaic of movements that always preceeded her tears. "I know he tried to kill you," she cried, "but he was our father." She dropped her head into her hands and part of the sheet fell away from her exposing a knee. A badly cut and scabbed knee. He dropped down before her, ripping away the sheet. She instantly recoiled trying to hide herself, but he grabbed her calves and pulled at her to better examine the massive injuries across both her knees. He remembered the faint stains across the front hem of her slip, her constant movements away from him earlier in the livingroom. He ran a finger across the weeping cuts. They were deep, some had scabbed over already, others healed into pink hash marks, others wet gashes, like the kerf marks left behind by the helve of an axe.
"What is this Iris!" He yelled at her.
She grabbed at the sheet trying to cover herself, but he fought her trying to keep her exposed, unable to see beyond her mutilated flesh.
"Its nothing Justin." She yelled back. "I had an accident...I don't know." Her voice was growing more desperate and she was making less sense.
"Don't lie to me!" He yelled, yanking the sheet completely away with one last motion. He grabbed her legs in both hands so she couldn't pull them away. "What is this." She just looked at him for a long moment, her eyes welling up. He focused on her hard, trying to see something, but he felt blocked. He could see only the faintest of images of her praying for something alone in her room in the lamp light. Something was glittering on the floor but he couldn't make it out. It was as if he was watching what she had done through the keyhole of her door. "How are you able to keep secrets from me!" He said, releasing her legs and grabbing her shoulders to pull her close to him. Her eyes flinched as her knees hit the floor to accomodate this new kneeling position.
"Please, Justin." She whimpered. "I'm not keeping any secrets." Her head dropped and her body jerked in half sobs. Justin released her shoulders and instead pulled her face to him, forcing her eyes to meet his. He kissed her hard, forcing her mouth open. He pushed her back down to the ground with his body, forcing her legs open. She resisted as he pressed her flat onto the floor. He released her mouth, burying his head in her neck and hair instead, and trailed a hand over her forehead, seemingly oblivious to her struggling.
"Then tell me Iris," he whispered, moving his other hand down between her legs "that you want me."
Iris flinched at the roughness of his hand charging between their bodies. The clumsy press of his legs across her scabbed and weeping knees. "I want you." She let out weakly.
Justin lifted his head to look into her eyes again. "Touch me Iris."
Iris reached up her hand, trembling slightly. Justin's gaze remained fixed on her underneath him. When her hand made contact with his cheek he closed his eyes and exhaled, turning his face into the familiar warmth of her cupped hand. A wave of disgust rolled through her. Justin's head fell back down into her neck and he began softly kissing along her collarbone, his body settling in more comfortably between her legs as she let them give way to him. She let her hand fall to his back, not quite embracing him, but no longer fighting. She stared up at the ceiling, tears rolling genty down her cheeks without the benefit of expression. Pain is an unavoidable side-effect, she thought to herself as she prepared for what she knew was coming next.
Iris stood on the river bank where she'd prepared to set sail with Eleanor just days before and looked out across the water. Its serenity belied its history. Iris slipped off her shoes again, then her stalkings, wondering why she'd bothered in the first place. Decorum made her so tired sometimes. She began to wade into the water squeezing her toes into the sand as she went. The water was cold and clear on her feet, which unlike the rest of her were smooth and pale. She pushed in further letting the water sooth away the inflamed bitemarks, and numb the dark bruises that mingled with her heavy veins. She looked about and could see no one around her, so she hitched up her dress and waded further into the water until her knees were hidden in the current, letting the cold flush out the wounds.
She closed her eyes and swayed slightly with the trees in the breeze, shadows undulated overhead and she lost herself in a memory of the water from years ago. Wading into a creek that ran behind Norman's house with the maid's son Evelyn. She'd fallen in love with him the day he stood poised over some rocks to help her across in her dress and heeled shoes. She forgot herself as she swayed in the water now and dropped the hem of her dress letting it float on the surface of the river around her knees, she began to wade in further letting the water take her up to the waist. She remembered laying in the grass with Evelyn the way she used to with her brother. Evelyn's hair was dark though, his eyes too, like his complexion. That's what she had liked about him, neither one of them was worth much by other people's standards, but they each saw the quiet beauty in one another. She bent her knees slightly in the water and leaned back carefully before releasing her legs and letting herself begin to float in the slow current, wanting the water and the sun to purify her while she remembered Evelyn's heavy muscled body, weighing on her like her waterlogged dress.
They used to make love out in the field, under the burning sun without even the benefit of a blanket. Listening for the footsteps of Norman or Evelyn's mother or a passerby, until their bodies pulled all the resources of thier senses into what was between them there under their little patch of sky. They used to meet in the afternoons while Justin was still in school, knowing they always had to be done by the time the bell struck three in the afternoon and crowds of boys and girls flooded into the streets and mercantile shops all the way home. The only secret I ever tried to keep, she thought to herself as she opened her eyes and stared up into the clouds overhead. A cloud moved over creating a large shadow that chilled her for a moment and she recalled the winter day when she'd been laying in the fields with Justin and he'd rolled over on top of her and pinned her the same way that Evelyn used to. The moment she'd realized that he'd spied on them at least once, that he knew the awful things that she'd been up to while he was in school reading his grammar books and debating philosophy.
He'd looked her right in the eye, hovering expectantly, waiting for her to do something. After a few moments he seemed to have resolved something in the dark reaches of his mind and bent down to kiss her. As he'd pressed his mouth to hers she'd felt his arousal grinding into her. Too horrified and confused to make a scene, she'd pushed him off of her and walked back to the house quietly. To have yelled at him would have been to acknowledge that she knew what he was trying to do. Even if they both knew the truth, speaking it was something entirely different. She'd hoped that rebuffing him while she was still stronger than him might prevent it from happening later when, when he was, like he is now, she thought. She'd monitered his growth with a mother's care, the way her mother had instructed her too, watching for any signs of his abilities. Her heart seized up again realizing that she meant nothing to her brother anymore, that he simply didn't care for her anymore the way he used to. Perhaps I should have just let him make love to me that day she thought to herself, maybe now things would be different. She was so full of regret. Iris closed her eyes and contemplated weighing herself down with stones. Wondering if she had the will to let herself suffocate slowly under the water.
A bird broke into flight across the distance.
"Iris." The voice seemed to echo across the water. "I have something for you."
Iris recalled when she'd heard those same words come out of her brother's mouth not five years ago. She'd been in the kitchen and he'd handed her a parcel from Evelyn. "Wasn't that the maid's son?" Justin had asked nonchalantly, though she sensed that he knew that's exactly who the parcel was from.
"Yes." She responded cooly, "I wonder what he wants." She'd set the letter down on the counter and went back to doing dishes.
"Well, aren't you going to open it?" He'd said, grabbing the letter.
"Later." She'd said snatching it back and putting in the front pocket of her apron.
"I didn't know you were still in contact with him." He'd said as he sat at the dining room table to watch her while she finished the dishes.
"I'm not, I haven't spoken to him since, well, since you were in highschool." She'd said, recalling the sensation of his mouth against her neck in the tall grass.
"Well, aren't you curious?" Justin had said with a hint of harshness in his voice.
"Not particularly." She'd said with frustration before dropping the pan she was washing into the sink. "Justin, why don't you leave me alone."
"I am leaving you alone."
"No, no you're not, you know exactly what you're doing," she'd said, "and I wish you'd knock it off." And with that she'd returned to her dishes. "And quit watching me!" She'd said without looking up.
"You just look so cute there, with your little love letter in your pocket." He teased her.
"Justin, I swear," she'd started before throwing the dishtowel at him, and storming upstairs, tossing her apron on the banister as she went, holding the letter in her damp hands.
Alone in her room she'd opened it carefully and found a poem scrawled neatly onto a single sheet of paper. The poem itself asking a question that she'd memorized:
it may not always be so;and i say
that if your lips,which i have loved,should touch
another's,and your dear strong fingers clutch
his heart,as mine in time not far away;
if on another's face your sweet hair lay
in such a silence as i know,or such
great writhing words as,uttering overmuch,
stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;
if this should be,i say if this should be--
you of my heart,send me a little word;
that i may go unto him,and take his hands,
saying, Accept all happiness from me.
Then shall i turn my face,and hear one bird
sing terribly afar in the lost lands.
Evelyn had scrawled a single character, a question mark underneath the sonnet along with his name. Tears were the only answer she could offer alone in her room as she stared into her vanity, taking in all that time had done to her. I suppose I have the face I deserve she'd thought to herself before carefully tucking the letter under her mattress, knowing that Justin would most likely find it anyway.
"Iris." The voice came again. "I have something for you. Look there," The voice was becoming more sibilent "on the shore."
Iris turned her head in the water and she saw a lone figure standing on the bank watching her. Sofie.
Justin sat at the desk in his study waiting for Iris to come home from where ever she'd wandered. He knew she wasn't far, he could smell her even now, if he lifted his nose to the air near the open window. He needed to write the eulogy for Norman's funeral service tomorrow, needed to write a sermon to sooth the frayed nerves of the migrants down below. Justin needed to tend to his flock.
A loud smack snapped Justin's head to attention, a book lay on the floor. He looked up at the case behind it, there was a gap in the tight row of books on the top shelf, and no other evidence to indicate why it'd fallen out of its stack. He walked over and picked it up, it was a thin volume of poems. He recognized it immediately, he'd bought it for Iris's birthday five years ago. He smiled to himself at his own cleverness. He'd meant it merely as a joke, giving her the book of poems that contained the love sonnet her old lover had sent to her that same year.
Justin knew that it used to be a code between the two of them, sending each other love poems that reminded them of each other. It was rather smart of her he'd thought when he'd first figured it out. If they were ever caught they were merely exchanging poems after all, they weren't actual love letters. Justin hated to admit it, but he'd been driven crazy with jealousy over Evelyn. Perhaps what had driven him most mad was the idea that Iris preferred the maid's son to him. That he would lose her to some low class rube who could never afford to buy her an actual book.
The first time he'd spied on them he'd been sent home early with a stomach ache. He'd cut through the field to get home faster when he'd heard the unmistakable sound of Iris's laughter. He followed the sound across the sea of waving grass until his eyes fell on the flashes of color showing through the interstices of yellow grass leaves. He'd edged in closer, and before he knew it he was crawling through the weeds on his belly like a snake, and that's when he saw it. Evelyn's large frame on top of Iris, his shirt hanging uncermoniosly across a tumble weed. His back was broad and much more muscular than his own, one of the first pangs of vanity. His biceps were large too, holding himself up over Iris, while she caressed them with her small pale hands. Justin's eyes had moved down and he'd realized Iris's skirt was hitched up around her waist and Evelyn's pants were down around his ankles.
"Stop." Iris had whispered.
"What, did I hurt you?" Evelyn had said back with a tenderness that pushed into Justin's heart.
"No, no. Did you hear something?" She'd said and he could tell from the strain of her voice that she was lifting her head up and trying to survey around them.
Justin had become stock still with terror. His face burned red and he could barely breath.
"There's no one there Iris." He could hear Evelyn punctuate this with a kiss.
He sat and listened to his sister coo and moan under Evelyn, until he felt them distracted enough to miss the sound of his getaway. That night he couldn't stop the image of Iris's legs spread out, the sound of exhiliration at every touch and thurst, from overpowering his thoughts. That was the first time he'd experienced the feeling. The sexual desire for his sister. Couldn't stop wondering what she felt like, how she would look underneath him, how his name would sound coming out of her mouth in loud gasps.
Justin had known for years that Iris was his when that sonnet came in the mail for her, Justin knew this because that's what he kept repeating to himself over and over again as he overturned every last piece of furntiture in the house looking for it the next day while she was running errands. He'd finally found it under her mattress, and promptly took it to every librarian and bookseller in the county until Norman told him it was written by e.e. cummings.
"Who?" Justin had asked.
"e.e. cummings Justin, he's very popular lately, part of a new renaissance movement in poetry." Norman had said, emphasizing the last part of the sentence as though he was explaining what a movie theater was. "You know, you can read other books besides the Bible Justin, there is poetry beyond the Psalms." He'd laughed.
"I suppose I just get busy." Justin had responded already half way to the door.
"Well, not with housework or cooking." Norman had offered in a gentle counterpoint. Justin was already out the door when he heard Norman mutter, "She did always love poems."
Justin recalled the conversation he'd had with Norman after the day out in the field with Iris, when she'd run away from him. How he'd told him that Evelyn had become infatuated with Iris.
"That maid's son has got eyes for my sister Norman." He'd said as they walked together after dinner.
"She has a name Justin," Norman had chastized him "it's Elizabeth, and it wouldn't hurt you to use it."
"Well Elizabeth's son has become infatuated with Iris, and I think she's become taken with him as well." Justin had continued.
"I see." Norman had said, more to himself, bringing his hand up to his chin. "And what makes you think this?"
"I caught him spying on her the other day." He'd lied. "He made up some story," Justin had looked at Norman to see if he was buying the story he was spinning. He appeared to, so Justin had continued on, "but eventually he confessed to the whole thing."
"Oh my," Norman had said looking truly troubled, "that's no good at all."
It was unspoken between them, two men of God, but it was obvious such a pairing would be, to say the least scandalous, and to be honest quite impractical.
"And the truth is Norman, I think that Iris may be taken with him too." Justin continued, "She's not getting any younger, and she might be easily swayed by someone hanging around whispering in her ear."
"Oh, Iris is a strong willed girl Justin, you know that." Norman had countered only half chuckling. That's when Justin had known he had Norman.
"I don't want to see my sister led down a path of sin Norman, she deserves better than that." He'd tried as hard as possible to channel his jealousy and anger into an emotion more suitable to a brother, and had hoped he'd produced a convincing approximation of concern.
Justin had relished the red rimmed eyes that greeted him the next morning at breakfast as Iris quietly cleared the table. When Norman had left the room and they were alone he brought his plate to her in the kitchen.
"What a day to lose the maid." He'd said sharply as he placed his plate on the counter next to the sink.
The thought of Norman brought him back to the present and he walked back to his desk, book in hand and made a note on the blank page before him poetry, laughter. He had enjoyed using that line on her again in more recent months, enjoyed cutting through her pride to the quick of her soul. He opened up the book of poems and a thin slip of paper fell out. He ran his finger over the peculiar curves of Iris's flourishes and seraphs as he read.
Tomorrow when I wake up I'm finding my brother and making him take me back down to the water. That river where we nearly drowned, where we buried our mother. I will not desert him. No matter how I may wish for a coffin so clean, or these trees to undress all their leaves onto me. I started this letter and my brother will probably find it, and it will be blessed by his eyes, he will recite this prayer of my pen: "Time take us forward. Relief from this longing. The warmth of a whisper in the freezing darkness of my room."
Justin looked out the window and lifted his nose to the air, he could smell Iris's wet hair, the unique metallic smell of her blood issuing even now in faint streams from the cuts on her knees. He conjured the flickering image of Iris's body moving in time with Evelyn's, his dark skin against her pale freckled figure, until the image gave way to his own tattooed frame moving between Iris scabbed knees, he shook his head to rid it of the fantasy. What kind of magic is this? he thought to himself as he squeezed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, unable to concentrate on anything but the smell of the grass behind Norman's house, the exquisite softness of her bottom lip as he'd pressed his mouth into hers that afternoon so many years ago. The delicate blades of grass that fell from her hair as she walked away from him, leaving him alone, his whole body aching with desire.
Author: Virginia Dare
Rating: K-M
Disclaimer: These characters and the basic framework of Carnivale and this story are property of Dan Knauf and HBO, no profit or infringement is intended.
Author's Note: These events are set in the mythical time between the end of Season 2 and the never aired pilot of Season 3
Spoilers: The entire series
Ch.3
The door opened with a long low creak. Justin turned to look at Iris, his eyes red rimmed and soft for a flickering second before his jaw clenched slightly, and he narrowed in on her standing there in the doorway. The sheet around her was a stark white compared to her ruddy freckled skin, her plump upper arms were pressed flat to hold the sheet up over her modest breasts. The look on her face one of bewilderment and determination wrought together in a slight lift of her eyebrow.
"Are you alright then?" She said, her voice a smooth piece of amber.
Justin quickly wiped at his face and stood up straight to face her. "I'm fine, just a little overwhelmed thats all." He voice was softer than his affect. He smiled for a brief moment, dropping his eyes to the floor.
She walked over to him the sheet dragging behind her on the floor like the train of a makeshift wedding gown. She stopped within inches of him, "I couldn't sleep." She dropped her head down so that her forehead was almost resting on his chest. "I can't stop thinking about," her voice was stopped.
He wrapped his arms around her, sliding his fingers slowly across her shoulderblades and pulling her closer so her head rested on his shoulder. "Stop thinking about what Iris?" He asked tenderly. Allowing himself to feel comfort in the feeling of her body pressed to his, reliving flashes of her breasts through a cracked door, the image of the rise and fall of her belly in the afternoon sun as he buried his head between her legs, even the splay of her fingers on his stomach as she kneeled before him at the dinner table back in Mintern. Justin had felt such unbelievable freedom in Iris's arms those few months ago, when he'd let himself forget about any kind of past or future, and focused only how wonderful her kisses felt. Even now he could feel the spectacular warmth of her prayers in his ear as he pushed into her while the world slept quietly outside her bedroom window.
"Norman." She said, cutting through the image of their interlocking bodies in Justin's memory.
Justin pushed her down to the ground, away from him. The sheet puffed around her as she landed on the ground, like the hoop skirt of a procelein doll.
"Please don't be mad at me." She said, her features beginning the mosaic of movements that always preceeded her tears. "I know he tried to kill you," she cried, "but he was our father." She dropped her head into her hands and part of the sheet fell away from her exposing a knee. A badly cut and scabbed knee. He dropped down before her, ripping away the sheet. She instantly recoiled trying to hide herself, but he grabbed her calves and pulled at her to better examine the massive injuries across both her knees. He remembered the faint stains across the front hem of her slip, her constant movements away from him earlier in the livingroom. He ran a finger across the weeping cuts. They were deep, some had scabbed over already, others healed into pink hash marks, others wet gashes, like the kerf marks left behind by the helve of an axe.
"What is this Iris!" He yelled at her.
She grabbed at the sheet trying to cover herself, but he fought her trying to keep her exposed, unable to see beyond her mutilated flesh.
"Its nothing Justin." She yelled back. "I had an accident...I don't know." Her voice was growing more desperate and she was making less sense.
"Don't lie to me!" He yelled, yanking the sheet completely away with one last motion. He grabbed her legs in both hands so she couldn't pull them away. "What is this." She just looked at him for a long moment, her eyes welling up. He focused on her hard, trying to see something, but he felt blocked. He could see only the faintest of images of her praying for something alone in her room in the lamp light. Something was glittering on the floor but he couldn't make it out. It was as if he was watching what she had done through the keyhole of her door. "How are you able to keep secrets from me!" He said, releasing her legs and grabbing her shoulders to pull her close to him. Her eyes flinched as her knees hit the floor to accomodate this new kneeling position.
"Please, Justin." She whimpered. "I'm not keeping any secrets." Her head dropped and her body jerked in half sobs. Justin released her shoulders and instead pulled her face to him, forcing her eyes to meet his. He kissed her hard, forcing her mouth open. He pushed her back down to the ground with his body, forcing her legs open. She resisted as he pressed her flat onto the floor. He released her mouth, burying his head in her neck and hair instead, and trailed a hand over her forehead, seemingly oblivious to her struggling.
"Then tell me Iris," he whispered, moving his other hand down between her legs "that you want me."
Iris flinched at the roughness of his hand charging between their bodies. The clumsy press of his legs across her scabbed and weeping knees. "I want you." She let out weakly.
Justin lifted his head to look into her eyes again. "Touch me Iris."
Iris reached up her hand, trembling slightly. Justin's gaze remained fixed on her underneath him. When her hand made contact with his cheek he closed his eyes and exhaled, turning his face into the familiar warmth of her cupped hand. A wave of disgust rolled through her. Justin's head fell back down into her neck and he began softly kissing along her collarbone, his body settling in more comfortably between her legs as she let them give way to him. She let her hand fall to his back, not quite embracing him, but no longer fighting. She stared up at the ceiling, tears rolling genty down her cheeks without the benefit of expression. Pain is an unavoidable side-effect, she thought to herself as she prepared for what she knew was coming next.
Iris stood on the river bank where she'd prepared to set sail with Eleanor just days before and looked out across the water. Its serenity belied its history. Iris slipped off her shoes again, then her stalkings, wondering why she'd bothered in the first place. Decorum made her so tired sometimes. She began to wade into the water squeezing her toes into the sand as she went. The water was cold and clear on her feet, which unlike the rest of her were smooth and pale. She pushed in further letting the water sooth away the inflamed bitemarks, and numb the dark bruises that mingled with her heavy veins. She looked about and could see no one around her, so she hitched up her dress and waded further into the water until her knees were hidden in the current, letting the cold flush out the wounds.
She closed her eyes and swayed slightly with the trees in the breeze, shadows undulated overhead and she lost herself in a memory of the water from years ago. Wading into a creek that ran behind Norman's house with the maid's son Evelyn. She'd fallen in love with him the day he stood poised over some rocks to help her across in her dress and heeled shoes. She forgot herself as she swayed in the water now and dropped the hem of her dress letting it float on the surface of the river around her knees, she began to wade in further letting the water take her up to the waist. She remembered laying in the grass with Evelyn the way she used to with her brother. Evelyn's hair was dark though, his eyes too, like his complexion. That's what she had liked about him, neither one of them was worth much by other people's standards, but they each saw the quiet beauty in one another. She bent her knees slightly in the water and leaned back carefully before releasing her legs and letting herself begin to float in the slow current, wanting the water and the sun to purify her while she remembered Evelyn's heavy muscled body, weighing on her like her waterlogged dress.
They used to make love out in the field, under the burning sun without even the benefit of a blanket. Listening for the footsteps of Norman or Evelyn's mother or a passerby, until their bodies pulled all the resources of thier senses into what was between them there under their little patch of sky. They used to meet in the afternoons while Justin was still in school, knowing they always had to be done by the time the bell struck three in the afternoon and crowds of boys and girls flooded into the streets and mercantile shops all the way home. The only secret I ever tried to keep, she thought to herself as she opened her eyes and stared up into the clouds overhead. A cloud moved over creating a large shadow that chilled her for a moment and she recalled the winter day when she'd been laying in the fields with Justin and he'd rolled over on top of her and pinned her the same way that Evelyn used to. The moment she'd realized that he'd spied on them at least once, that he knew the awful things that she'd been up to while he was in school reading his grammar books and debating philosophy.
He'd looked her right in the eye, hovering expectantly, waiting for her to do something. After a few moments he seemed to have resolved something in the dark reaches of his mind and bent down to kiss her. As he'd pressed his mouth to hers she'd felt his arousal grinding into her. Too horrified and confused to make a scene, she'd pushed him off of her and walked back to the house quietly. To have yelled at him would have been to acknowledge that she knew what he was trying to do. Even if they both knew the truth, speaking it was something entirely different. She'd hoped that rebuffing him while she was still stronger than him might prevent it from happening later when, when he was, like he is now, she thought. She'd monitered his growth with a mother's care, the way her mother had instructed her too, watching for any signs of his abilities. Her heart seized up again realizing that she meant nothing to her brother anymore, that he simply didn't care for her anymore the way he used to. Perhaps I should have just let him make love to me that day she thought to herself, maybe now things would be different. She was so full of regret. Iris closed her eyes and contemplated weighing herself down with stones. Wondering if she had the will to let herself suffocate slowly under the water.
A bird broke into flight across the distance.
"Iris." The voice seemed to echo across the water. "I have something for you."
Iris recalled when she'd heard those same words come out of her brother's mouth not five years ago. She'd been in the kitchen and he'd handed her a parcel from Evelyn. "Wasn't that the maid's son?" Justin had asked nonchalantly, though she sensed that he knew that's exactly who the parcel was from.
"Yes." She responded cooly, "I wonder what he wants." She'd set the letter down on the counter and went back to doing dishes.
"Well, aren't you going to open it?" He'd said, grabbing the letter.
"Later." She'd said snatching it back and putting in the front pocket of her apron.
"I didn't know you were still in contact with him." He'd said as he sat at the dining room table to watch her while she finished the dishes.
"I'm not, I haven't spoken to him since, well, since you were in highschool." She'd said, recalling the sensation of his mouth against her neck in the tall grass.
"Well, aren't you curious?" Justin had said with a hint of harshness in his voice.
"Not particularly." She'd said with frustration before dropping the pan she was washing into the sink. "Justin, why don't you leave me alone."
"I am leaving you alone."
"No, no you're not, you know exactly what you're doing," she'd said, "and I wish you'd knock it off." And with that she'd returned to her dishes. "And quit watching me!" She'd said without looking up.
"You just look so cute there, with your little love letter in your pocket." He teased her.
"Justin, I swear," she'd started before throwing the dishtowel at him, and storming upstairs, tossing her apron on the banister as she went, holding the letter in her damp hands.
Alone in her room she'd opened it carefully and found a poem scrawled neatly onto a single sheet of paper. The poem itself asking a question that she'd memorized:
it may not always be so;and i say
that if your lips,which i have loved,should touch
another's,and your dear strong fingers clutch
his heart,as mine in time not far away;
if on another's face your sweet hair lay
in such a silence as i know,or such
great writhing words as,uttering overmuch,
stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;
if this should be,i say if this should be--
you of my heart,send me a little word;
that i may go unto him,and take his hands,
saying, Accept all happiness from me.
Then shall i turn my face,and hear one bird
sing terribly afar in the lost lands.
Evelyn had scrawled a single character, a question mark underneath the sonnet along with his name. Tears were the only answer she could offer alone in her room as she stared into her vanity, taking in all that time had done to her. I suppose I have the face I deserve she'd thought to herself before carefully tucking the letter under her mattress, knowing that Justin would most likely find it anyway.
"Iris." The voice came again. "I have something for you. Look there," The voice was becoming more sibilent "on the shore."
Iris turned her head in the water and she saw a lone figure standing on the bank watching her. Sofie.
Justin sat at the desk in his study waiting for Iris to come home from where ever she'd wandered. He knew she wasn't far, he could smell her even now, if he lifted his nose to the air near the open window. He needed to write the eulogy for Norman's funeral service tomorrow, needed to write a sermon to sooth the frayed nerves of the migrants down below. Justin needed to tend to his flock.
A loud smack snapped Justin's head to attention, a book lay on the floor. He looked up at the case behind it, there was a gap in the tight row of books on the top shelf, and no other evidence to indicate why it'd fallen out of its stack. He walked over and picked it up, it was a thin volume of poems. He recognized it immediately, he'd bought it for Iris's birthday five years ago. He smiled to himself at his own cleverness. He'd meant it merely as a joke, giving her the book of poems that contained the love sonnet her old lover had sent to her that same year.
Justin knew that it used to be a code between the two of them, sending each other love poems that reminded them of each other. It was rather smart of her he'd thought when he'd first figured it out. If they were ever caught they were merely exchanging poems after all, they weren't actual love letters. Justin hated to admit it, but he'd been driven crazy with jealousy over Evelyn. Perhaps what had driven him most mad was the idea that Iris preferred the maid's son to him. That he would lose her to some low class rube who could never afford to buy her an actual book.
The first time he'd spied on them he'd been sent home early with a stomach ache. He'd cut through the field to get home faster when he'd heard the unmistakable sound of Iris's laughter. He followed the sound across the sea of waving grass until his eyes fell on the flashes of color showing through the interstices of yellow grass leaves. He'd edged in closer, and before he knew it he was crawling through the weeds on his belly like a snake, and that's when he saw it. Evelyn's large frame on top of Iris, his shirt hanging uncermoniosly across a tumble weed. His back was broad and much more muscular than his own, one of the first pangs of vanity. His biceps were large too, holding himself up over Iris, while she caressed them with her small pale hands. Justin's eyes had moved down and he'd realized Iris's skirt was hitched up around her waist and Evelyn's pants were down around his ankles.
"Stop." Iris had whispered.
"What, did I hurt you?" Evelyn had said back with a tenderness that pushed into Justin's heart.
"No, no. Did you hear something?" She'd said and he could tell from the strain of her voice that she was lifting her head up and trying to survey around them.
Justin had become stock still with terror. His face burned red and he could barely breath.
"There's no one there Iris." He could hear Evelyn punctuate this with a kiss.
He sat and listened to his sister coo and moan under Evelyn, until he felt them distracted enough to miss the sound of his getaway. That night he couldn't stop the image of Iris's legs spread out, the sound of exhiliration at every touch and thurst, from overpowering his thoughts. That was the first time he'd experienced the feeling. The sexual desire for his sister. Couldn't stop wondering what she felt like, how she would look underneath him, how his name would sound coming out of her mouth in loud gasps.
Justin had known for years that Iris was his when that sonnet came in the mail for her, Justin knew this because that's what he kept repeating to himself over and over again as he overturned every last piece of furntiture in the house looking for it the next day while she was running errands. He'd finally found it under her mattress, and promptly took it to every librarian and bookseller in the county until Norman told him it was written by e.e. cummings.
"Who?" Justin had asked.
"e.e. cummings Justin, he's very popular lately, part of a new renaissance movement in poetry." Norman had said, emphasizing the last part of the sentence as though he was explaining what a movie theater was. "You know, you can read other books besides the Bible Justin, there is poetry beyond the Psalms." He'd laughed.
"I suppose I just get busy." Justin had responded already half way to the door.
"Well, not with housework or cooking." Norman had offered in a gentle counterpoint. Justin was already out the door when he heard Norman mutter, "She did always love poems."
Justin recalled the conversation he'd had with Norman after the day out in the field with Iris, when she'd run away from him. How he'd told him that Evelyn had become infatuated with Iris.
"That maid's son has got eyes for my sister Norman." He'd said as they walked together after dinner.
"She has a name Justin," Norman had chastized him "it's Elizabeth, and it wouldn't hurt you to use it."
"Well Elizabeth's son has become infatuated with Iris, and I think she's become taken with him as well." Justin had continued.
"I see." Norman had said, more to himself, bringing his hand up to his chin. "And what makes you think this?"
"I caught him spying on her the other day." He'd lied. "He made up some story," Justin had looked at Norman to see if he was buying the story he was spinning. He appeared to, so Justin had continued on, "but eventually he confessed to the whole thing."
"Oh my," Norman had said looking truly troubled, "that's no good at all."
It was unspoken between them, two men of God, but it was obvious such a pairing would be, to say the least scandalous, and to be honest quite impractical.
"And the truth is Norman, I think that Iris may be taken with him too." Justin continued, "She's not getting any younger, and she might be easily swayed by someone hanging around whispering in her ear."
"Oh, Iris is a strong willed girl Justin, you know that." Norman had countered only half chuckling. That's when Justin had known he had Norman.
"I don't want to see my sister led down a path of sin Norman, she deserves better than that." He'd tried as hard as possible to channel his jealousy and anger into an emotion more suitable to a brother, and had hoped he'd produced a convincing approximation of concern.
Justin had relished the red rimmed eyes that greeted him the next morning at breakfast as Iris quietly cleared the table. When Norman had left the room and they were alone he brought his plate to her in the kitchen.
"What a day to lose the maid." He'd said sharply as he placed his plate on the counter next to the sink.
The thought of Norman brought him back to the present and he walked back to his desk, book in hand and made a note on the blank page before him poetry, laughter. He had enjoyed using that line on her again in more recent months, enjoyed cutting through her pride to the quick of her soul. He opened up the book of poems and a thin slip of paper fell out. He ran his finger over the peculiar curves of Iris's flourishes and seraphs as he read.
Tomorrow when I wake up I'm finding my brother and making him take me back down to the water. That river where we nearly drowned, where we buried our mother. I will not desert him. No matter how I may wish for a coffin so clean, or these trees to undress all their leaves onto me. I started this letter and my brother will probably find it, and it will be blessed by his eyes, he will recite this prayer of my pen: "Time take us forward. Relief from this longing. The warmth of a whisper in the freezing darkness of my room."
Justin looked out the window and lifted his nose to the air, he could smell Iris's wet hair, the unique metallic smell of her blood issuing even now in faint streams from the cuts on her knees. He conjured the flickering image of Iris's body moving in time with Evelyn's, his dark skin against her pale freckled figure, until the image gave way to his own tattooed frame moving between Iris scabbed knees, he shook his head to rid it of the fantasy. What kind of magic is this? he thought to himself as he squeezed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, unable to concentrate on anything but the smell of the grass behind Norman's house, the exquisite softness of her bottom lip as he'd pressed his mouth into hers that afternoon so many years ago. The delicate blades of grass that fell from her hair as she walked away from him, leaving him alone, his whole body aching with desire.