Final Gift for finding_jay!
Hi there, finding_jay, I'm memorysdaughter and I'll be your Secret Santa this year. Irony, right?
Since you did such a bang-up job with my gift last year, I felt totally compelled to give you a kick-ass gift. (Can I say kick-ass?) I hope you like it.
Title: Postcards
Summary: Some people love items - River loves cue cards.
Words: 6,725
Images: 12
Note: This posting includes the teaser gift. (It makes more sense this way, I promise.)
Postcards
People treasure things. Books. Pipes. Animals. River once knew a wealthy gentleman, a friend of her parents, who had sixty racing horses. He knew their measurements and vital statistics the way some people know the touch and caress of a lover. He spent hours overseeing their care, directing the veritable army of stable boys, jockeys, and grooms who took care of his stables, his horses. He was a dull gentleman by anyone’s standards, since all he ever wanted to talk about were his horses - which ones were running in a race, which ones had to be put down, which ones were foaling. River had been to see the horses only once, right after a colt had been born, born blind. She would never forget the warm, halting breath of the colt on her hand, the way it slurped a sugar cube out of her hand, the way it leaned in towards her like it was depending on her for life. It died an hour later. The gentleman was heartbroken; people said he was never the same after that.
That’s the way of things, of people who love things. River knows these things. People who put their trust in objects, in things, eventually end up disappointed. Things break, they grow or shift or change inexplicably, and their original state can never be found again.
There is another option, of course, and that is to treasure memories. It is the more dangerous option, since memories are completely open and unbound, free to ravage your mind if they decide you’ve got the idea wrong. River knows this. She has experienced it. Memories can be tainted, can be twisted up, turned black-and-white, with all the beauty sucked out, everything turned sour. A memory that was once candied peach can turn into a mouthful of pulpy lemon.
But there is one good thing about having memory treasures, instead of putting your stock into breathless blind horses or the yellowed pages of books that crumble at the touch - memories belong in you. In the holes that Jayne insinuates have been carved in her brain, that’s where they are. Imprinted in her like sheet music. No matter how her brain twists them, she still has them at their base level. She knows them exactly as they were when she first knew them, and she can play them over again at will.
Sometimes it takes a little more effort, effort to fight past drugs and anger and confusion… but they are hers, and she will remember.
She stores them up inside, her treasures, until she feels them flowing through her, lifting her hands, making her feet light.
Of course, no one is perfect. It’s impossible for people to store everything inside their minds without the comforting security of a few cue cards.
For River, these are actual cards. A few pieces of slick cardboard, a few images and words that are capable of calling up thousands of words and images, scents and sights and memories. Some of the cards recall places she has never been, things she has never seen - but when she touches them, she can see hesitant colors, images and sounds, things rushing past her. Her mouth fills with the taste of curry, or lemons; the scent of incense twitches past her nostrils. With a sweep of her hand across the card she’s standing in a church, an auditorium, a crowded room, all alone on the seaside.
Wherever she is, she’s safe.
She finds that safety is more important on dark, dark nights, when Simon’s drugs flow like a forest fire through the leafy branches of her venous system. Her hands shaking, her teeth chattering, sweat dripping down her back, she rocks back and forth on her bed, keening silently, the unscreamed scream pushing up against her teeth - she grips the little wooden box with her paltry sum of postcards until the little decorative lines are imprinted on her palms. Once it passes, once it passes, onceitpasses...
… then she opens the box, breathing as though she’s never tasted air, and a sudden wave of peace sweeps over her.
She picks a card out of the box at random, and she’s somewhere else, and everything else doesn’t matter.
“Oh, come on, Doc!” Mal said, slamming his mug onto the table. “Y’ said yerself, you’ve never seen the sights of New Iowa!”
“Are there sights of New Iowa, sir?” Zoë asked from her end of the table, where she was drinking a mug of strong-brew.
“Well, sure!” Mal said. He turned to Kaylee, who was fiddling with a condenser at the far end of the table. “You’ve been here ‘fore, li’l Kaylee - what’s there t’ do?”
Kaylee looked up. “Hmm. I always liked the corn shuckin’ contests.”
“The what?” Simon asked.
“Corn shuckin’,” Kaylee said. “Y’ know, y’ take the corn an’…”
She set the condenser on the table and raised both hands in the air, miming a peeling motion.
“We came all the way to New Iowa to watch people peel corn?” Simon looked confused.
“No, we came ‘cause we had a job,” Mal said. “The corn shuckin’ is just a side benefit.”
“Oh,” Simon said. “Well, I’ll… um… to tell the truth, what’s the point?”
“Popcorn,” River said. She was curled up under the table, waiting for the world to stop spinning around her.
“Well, sure!” Kaylee said. “That, an’ when they’re done, there’s a dance at the city center.”
“Dance?” River asked from under the table.
“Mm-hmm,” Kaylee said. “A traditional one, where the guys haveta lead an’ the girls braid their hair.”
“Can we go?” River held her breath under the table, hoping against hope that the mention of either popcorn or a social event would convince her brother they deserved a night away from Serenity.
She could feel Simon weakening, maybe just a little - he was thinking of Kaylee in her flower-print dress, the heady smell of that shampoo she liked to use, the bright lights of some country pavilion with the sounds of a few cheap accordions and maybe a dobro-fiddle or two. It was intoxicating, even to River in her under-the-table position, and suddenly she wanted nothing more than to be in that pavilion breathing in the scents of buttery popcorn and musky cologne.
Of course, it wasn’t like her thoughts - nothing ever really was. The popcorn was soggy, the local boys mostly pockmarked and unhappy, the musicians sweaty and panting. The local wine tasted like cough syrup and the pavilion, the pavilion on the whole nothing like she’d expected.
But the lights were bright and the music was loud and spirits were high - and that was what really mattered. Kaylee and Simon danced with each other to the exclusion of all others, their cheeks growing redder and redder and their smiles broader and broader as they stepped on each other’s toes, spinning round and round on the rough-hewn boards of the pavilion. Their happiness was contagious, and River drank it in like Jayne drank the local wine.
At the end of the night one of the local boys shoved a picture postcard in her hand. It was a sweaty cardboard reminder of the bright and sweaty night, sepia-toned, featuring a top-hatted boy and a girl with braided hair spinning on the dance floor, their eyes closed in exclusion of all other. They looked nothing like Simon or Kaylee, but River named them that immediately, and tucked the card away into her sketchbook. The card said “Wish You Were Here,” and it was ironic because every time River looked at it, that was exactly what she could do - she wished she was back in that light-bright high-music red-cheeked pavilion, with the stamping feet and the men calling out the dance numbers - and seconds later, she was.
And every time her hand brushed the card, there she was again. And when she could take the real world no longer, sometimes she held her breath in anticipation, waiting for the moment she could slip away, brush the card, fall back into a world where the lights were bright and everything else was, too.
She lets the card drop to her bed, smiling at the memory of Kaylee and Simon dancing, the taste of the local wine still syrupy in her mouth. Her heart has slowed its racing pace, and the world seems to have stopped turning. She doesn’t feel normal, she never feels “normal” anymore, but she feels almost level.
With more resolve River picks up the New Iowa card and gently sets it back in the little wooden box. She flips through her stash of postcards without really looking at the pictures. She’ll pick the right one. She always does.
“Got you somethin’,” Jayne grunted as he entered the galley.
River looked up. “Something?”
“They were givin’ ‘em out. Don’t get all soft on me, ain’t like I picked it up special. Ain’t like I got any use fer it, either, so that’s why I’m givin’ it t’ you.” He rummaged around in one of the cabinets and came out with a packet of crackers. He ripped the top off and tilted the packet up towards his mouth.
River tried to think of all the things Jayne had professed no need for - hand soap, hair brushes, socks, belts, blankets, pillow cases, tooth powder, cups (well, when liquor was being served), forks, napkins - but she couldn’t fathom how or why Jayne would have been able to acquire any of those items for free. Or why he would be giving them away.
Jayne chomped on the crackers noisily. He picked up a mug of some foreign liquid and swigged it down. He wiped his mouth on a napkin and strode across the galley to the kitchen.
With one massive hand he wiggled something out of the back pocket of his khaki pants. With the other, he raised the mug and took another long swig. “Got kinda crushed,” he said once he’d swallowed, “but I figure it ain’t changin’ it any.”
River pulled it towards her, smoothing out the crumpled paper. Jayne stomped out of the galley, swigging lustily from his mug and humming some tuneless song, leaving her to examine his “gift” in relative peace. It was a postcard, a little crumpled around the edges.
Her fingers brushed over the picture and a series of bright images, sights, and sounds assailed her, but not unpleasantly.
She heard the sound of a lone fiddle, trilling high and sweet, the smell of slightly seared meat, the heat of bodies and the crush of hands on waists. The room was old-fashioned with heavy beams overhead, the walls closer because of the cloud of smoke making the room seem blue. It was a loud place, a raucous place, a place where men were men and women were trophies and everyone was all right with the arrangement.
Bold printing at the top announced the location: “Gibbon County Steak House.” Most of the front of the card was taken up by whirling white shapes; though the faces were blurred, River could tell they were smiling. These were people who were having a good time.
And though someone else - namely Jayne - had obviously enjoyed a good time at Gibbon County Steak House, he had also obviously put some thought into his “gift” for River.
In the lower right hand corner, in a sprawling sloppy hand, was the message: “they call this round dancing guess you probly knew that some cute girls ther - Jayne.”
She smiled, not because it was an imperfect gift whose ramifications she could not even begin to discern, but because it was absolutely perfect. It was another place, another bright starry hall for her to fall into when the real world sloshed up around her.
Somehow Jayne had known exactly what she was looking for. It was odd, but some things just weren’t made for making sense. She laughed as she thought about it - “some things just weren’t made for making sense” could have been Jayne’s motto. If he started having a motto.
She keeps her fingertips on the card, savoring the tang of savory meat and the smell of too many hand-rolled cigarettes. It’s the only present Jayne has ever given her, a strange way of saying that he acknowledges the spaces between the lines that she tends to fall into. And she loves every single crumpled inch of that damn card. She knows it as well as she knows each line on her palm, and she’ll know them all until she dies.
But of course she won’t die, even though sometimes it feels that way. There are small mercies, little things that keep her hovering over the border into “sane” territory. She can see their lights but she can’t quite touch it. Little bit by little bit she inches towards it, then pulls back, savoring every step, every reach and bob - just like the cards, they make her whole.
She puts Jayne’s gift back into the box, flips through the images, watches them blur with her eyes closed, and then holds her next choice up to her mouth, breathing in its memories, letting it grab onto her.
“Put on your red dress,” Inara said to River.
River tilted her head towards the door. The Companion rarely ventured below decks, and she had never visited River’s bunk, ever. It had all the markings of a hallucination - how could River be sure?
“River? Did you hear me?” Inara asked.
“Trying to make sure you’re the real one,” River said distantly.
“As real as can be,” Inara said with a small smile. “Now come on, put on your red dress.”
“Going places?” River asked.
“Yes, we are, sweetheart,” Inara said. “Have you ever heard of flamenco?”
“A style of dancing characteristic of the Andalusian Gypsies on Earth-That-Was that is strongly rhythmic and involves vigorous actions such as clapping the hands and stamping the feet,” River rattled off. The words felt meaningless in her mouth, they were just patter that someone had programmed her to remember.
“That’s right,” Inara said, sweeping into the bunk. She opened one of River’s drawers and rummaged through the dresses. “And every year the ‘verse championships are held here in Espana-Madrid. I thought you might like to go.”
River turned her head for the first time, realizing that the Inara in the room was the true Inara. “Dancing? You want to take her to a dancing?”
“Yes, of course,” Inara said, laughing. “I can’t imagine anyone else I’d like to take. Here.”
She held out a bright red dress that River had never seen before. “Put this on.”
“She doesn’t wear red,” River said, a little apologetically.
“What? Why not?”
River reached out one hand to touch the dress. It was silk or something like it, and impossibly smooth between her fingers. Wearing it, she would have felt like a princess, a butterfly, impossibly pretty. “Red is passion. Red is love. Red is… red is twisty.”
“Twisty?” Inara held out the dress. “It’s just a dress.”
“Things are never just a dress,” River said.
“You have to wear red to the flamenco championships,” Inara said. “It’s a tradition. And expected.”
“Traditions mostly are,” River said. The red dress hung big in her vision, almost like a beating heart.
She was right about the feel of the dress - it slipped onto her like a second skin. And the long red ribbon Inara tied into her hair was silky too. River felt odd, somewhere between naked and asleep, but she also felt unaccountably beautiful.
The auditorium was beautiful, too - all sorts of modern architectural details like crown molding and gold fixtures, and it was full of all sorts of people in red - red blouses, red suits, red ties, red bowler hats. They were all handsome people with dark hair and dark eyes. Inara fit right in, gold jewelry flashing, eyes sparkling. She was clearly in her element.
A man in a pair of shiny red loafers informed them that the first round of dancing wouldn’t start for another twenty minutes. Would the lovely ladies like to get a drink at the café?
Inara smiled gamely, wrapping her red-and-gold shawl around her. She ordered two drinks at the bar, and turned to chat with the barman.
River heard music from the other room. She padded across the plush red carpet, following its siren song. Everything in her vision was red, pulsing and spinning around her.
Her footsteps were hesitant but the music grew up around her. Her hands came up, red in her line of sight too.
The music grabbed her, her hands snapping up, her foot stomping the floor like she was angry. But it wasn’t anger, it was passion. It was all the red, the red clothes and carpet, the red ribbon in her hair, the red energy pulsing through her hands and feet. It swallowed her up, it ate her like she was some sort of juicy fruit -
- and she loved it.
She spun, twisting, her hands flying up into the air. Some part of her registered that she was stomping in time with the music, as though the music was responding to her. It was her song, and she was going to own it.
Feet and hands, feet and hands, a twirl, her hair flying out behind her, that beautiful second-skin dress flowing around her like a cloud. Red, red, red.
Red was no longer twisty, no longer angry, it was whole and perfect and beautiful. It was River, and she was red.
The music stopped suddenly and River fell out of the twirl. Her hands became just hands again, her dress just a dress. Sometimes things really were what they appeared to be.
A wave of sound rushed over her as she waited for the world to stop spinning. Her ears couldn’t process it for a moment, and then she realized exactly what it was - applause. They were clapping for her. Clapping for her dance, her red, red dance.
She was red again, but this time it was just a blush that spread across her cheeks.
“Give that girl a medal!” someone called, a man with small red spectacles.
“Is she one of the dancers on the program?” someone else yelled out.
And there was Inara, the true Inara, standing among them, shining bright in that sea of red, clapping as hard as she could.
Pride was red, too, but the fortunate, rich kind - the kind River could believe in.
They couldn’t give her a medal, of course, because she wasn’t entered in the championships. A postcard would have to suffice.
River touches it fondly, remembering the swirl of music that had surrounded her. She had been safe in that music, as safe as she is when surrounded by the images of her postcards.
She puts the flamenco dancing card back into the box. The touch of it still remains on her palms, like she was cupping a red rubber ball.
And she picks another one, cupping another memory, another place, another time.
River got lost. It wasn’t like usual, though, since she was actually physically lost, instead of swimming endlessly through the twisted pathways of her mind.
But if she was going to be fair, it was one of the best places in the entire ‘verse to get lost. After all, not everyone could claim that they’d been stranded in Madame Murein’s Costume Shop.
It was almost an entire city block, hidden in the back streets of Ariel, filled with the best dancing costumes credits could buy. There were tutus and long tulle skirts, leotards, satin slippers, wings, wigs, makeup, and all the velvet, satin, tulle, and ribbon that the eye could take in. Walking into Madame Murein’s was almost like falling asleep - a big beautiful soft dream in a pleasing palette of pastels.
Madame Murein was almost as picturesque as her shop, a short woman with a dark pageboy and thick glasses. There were big plywood boxes scattered around the huge shop for Madame Murein to leap up onto, so she could be in the best position to measure a dancer or fit a pointe shoe. Her voice was rich and sonorous, and accented in a comforting way. And though River could never quite figure out how she knew this, she knew that Madame Murein would have been a fabulous hugger.
They had been to Ariel a few times before, and River had somehow managed to find her way to Madame Murein’s every single time. The first time she had entered quietly, softly, trying not to make much of an entrance. Madame Murein was in the corner with a dancer and her mother, measuring the length of a tulle skirt. River thought she could slip in unnoticed, but Madame Murein had other plans.
The costumer looked up with pins in her mouth, an old-fashioned yellow measuring tape around her neck. “Beautiful dancer, the Madame will be with you momentarily.”
Then, as though she had not spoken, she went back to measuring the skirt.
Every time River entered, Madame Murein knew. River didn’t have a lot of credit to spend in the store, but every time she went in, she always came out with something beautiful. A satin ribbon, a length of dark blue velvet that felt almost like knowing what safety felt like, and once, a pair of pointe shoes that Madame Murein swore up and down were “imperfect.” She claimed they needed “a home.”
The last time that River came in, the time that she got lost, Madame Murein was nowhere in sight. This wasn’t unusual, since the store was huge and Madame Murein seemed to be the only person who worked there, but River was a little unnerved. The store didn’t feel like it usually did. There was an emptiness about it, a strangeness that felt off-balance.
She wandered, not knowing where she was going. Her fingers trailed over a row of tulle skirts, and then ran up and down the bodices of several satin dresses. They were prettier than anything she had ever remembered seeing in the store before, doubtlessly handmade by Madame Murein. River drank in the artistry; somehow she knew she would never see Madame Murein’s shop in the same way again.
She passed the service counter, where Madame Murein’s pins and measuring tape sat alone. There was a small pile of glossy postcards there, advertising Madame Murein’s shop. River picked one up and held onto it tightly.
Later Simon would be there, and there would be a local officer with him. They would find River with Madame Murein in the costumer’s office, both occupants of the room sitting so quietly and passively that for a moment Simon was sure both of them were dead. River remembered none of it, nothing about the officer or the office, the coroner’s men who came to take the older woman’s body away, the long walk back to Serenity.
But she had the postcard clenched in her hand. And when she brushed her fingers across it later that night, she still couldn’t remember the empty-still version of Madame Murein’s costume shop… just the one she loved, the bright and full rows of satin and tulle, the aisles of beauty created by a woman who understood movement and light better than anyone River had ever had the pleasure of spending even a heartbeat with.
River puts Madame Murein’s card away. It is beautiful, but sometimes if River holds it for too long, she gets sad. Not because Madame Murein is dead, not because River has never found another store in the entire verse that understood her as well as Madame Murein’s did, but because the beauty that Madame Murein created is just too ethereal to acknowledge for a long period of time. It reminds River of a snow globe - fragile and unbelievable, prone to shattering if held the wrong way.
It’s good to pull back, to find a little bit of distance. And River has just the card for that. She pulls out Zoë’s card, and immediately the scent of incense fills her nostrils. A sweet calm passes over her, and the grief she felt from holding onto Madame Murein falls away.
River never went to the Holy Shrine of Blessed Saint Catherine. She spent the entirety of that trip in her bunk, somewhere between consciousness and not, watching as colors bled out of her mind and her world, pleading with Simon to let her go, just let her go, despite the fact that Simon was not even there. Later she would remember very little of it, another blessing.
But Zoë went to the Holy Shrine, along with the captain and Jayne and Simon. It was on a remote point of Klassmann, surrounded by crashing seas, the home of a hidden holy relic that had been guarded for centuries. It was a place untouched by time.
Well, maybe not completely untouched by time. There was still crime, which surprised Zoë. An angry villager had stormed into the Holy Shrine and shot the caretaker. The caretaker had managed to hang on for two days, which was as soon as the crew from Serenity were able to get there. They were heading to the Shrine to finish up some business with the caretaker; Simon had been added to the travel docket after they’d learned of the caretaker’s injuries.
They were met at the door of the Shrine by a teenage girl with short brown hair and almond-shaped eyes. She looked only slightly distrustful. “You here to help my daddy?” she asked. Her voice was thick and slow.
Mal looked a little taken aback by the girl’s presence. Zoë stepped up to the door. “Yeah, sweetie, we are,” she said.
“Good.”
The caretaker’s wounds were dealt with, and he thanked them repeatedly. “I would have died if not for you,” he said. “Please, come in. There’s not much to eat, but you are welcome to whatever there is.”
They protested, saying they didn’t need anything, but he served them some weak tea and a few jam-filled cakes. When they finished, the caretaker said, “Have you seen her?”
Zoë assumed he meant his daughter. “She’s in the viewing room.”
“Oh, not Ann-Sonia. I know where she is. I meant the Blessed Catherine.”
“No,” Mal said.
“You must see her before you leave,” the caretaker said. “Please, come with me.”
He led them down the long stone hallway that connected the caretaker’s residence to the Shrine itself. The whole place glowed softly from the candle lanterns hanging at small intervals; the light was soft and holy.
Ann-Sonia was in the viewing room, a bright red standout, a variation from the soft grays and iron browns of the Shrine. She stood before the icon of Blessed Catherine, the stone face that sealed the tomb where, it was believed, the Blessed Catherine was buried.
Zoë was stunned by the look on Ann-Sonia’s face. When she met them at the door, Ann-Sonia had seemed thick, heavy; her mental handicap had been apparent. But in the light of the Shrine, in this close proximity to the Blessed Catherine, Ann-Sonia was transformed.
Her face was lit with the soft holy light of the lanterns, her eyes closed, her hands raised. Her face was peaceful and calm, and she seemed to be lit from within. As Zoë watched, she began to dance.
Ann-Sonia’s dance was simple but beautiful - her feet knew their places, her hands remained raised, her red dress flowed around her like a river. She was praising, praising, always praising. She seemed to be grabbing the candlelight out of the air and pulling it, thinning it, twisting it into tubes. The light became a rope, a wire, a handful of shooting stars, a comet’s tail.
Zoë raised the still camera. She had brought it to take a picture of the Shrine for Shepherd Book, who had expressed his interest in viewing such a holy relic. But now Zoë wanted to capture Ann-Sonia’s beauty as she twirled with the light.
After the shutter clicked closed, Ann-Sonia turned to Zoë and smiled. It was one of the most beatific, beautiful smiles Zoë had ever seen. Ann-Sonia was at peace.
River touches the photograph carefully. She cannot see Ann-Sonia’s face in the picture, but she knows that the girl is smiling. There is no trace of the miraculous light trails in the picture, of course, but neither is there any trace of Ann-Sonia’s mental handicap.
In white pen Zoë wrote: “Met this girl at the Holy Shrine of Blessed Saint Catherine. She was the caretaker’s daughter, mentally handicapped, but she danced like she was quicksilver, like she was free. She had the sweetest smile. Thought of you for some reason. - Zoë.”
River loves to spend time with Ann-Sonia, viewing the Shrine through her eyes. Ann-Sonia knows all of the secrets, all of the hidden places, and she’s more than happy to share them with River.
It feels almost like a let down to put Ann-Sonia’s card away. It has so many beautiful memories attached to it, so many wonderful places to explore, but River has other things on her mind. She wants to go somewhere else, to hear other melodies.
She puts Ann-Sonia’s dancing figure back into the box and picks out another card.
“Say it again, mei-mei,” Simon said gently. “Try one more time.”
River forced herself to shove through the mental block holding her thoughts back. “Hello… it is… very nice to…”
“To meet you,” Simon prompted
“To meet you,” River parroted.
Simon looked at her, giving her a nudge. “And?”
“She can’t remember,” River said.
“Miss Montrova,” Simon said.
“She doesn’t want to go,” River said. “She can’t remember. She’s going to look like a fool!”
“You’re not going to look like a fool,” Simon said. “And the tickets are non-refundable.”
“Take Kaylee.”
“Kaylee doesn’t want to go,” Simon reminded her. “You’re going. You’re already dressed.”
River looked down at her light pink dress. “She looks like a stupid.”
“She looks beautiful,” Simon said. “Come on.”
River was torn. She did want to see the ballet, to see the famous ballet dancer whose name she could not remember. She had been looking forward to it since Simon had mentioned it a week ago.
Simon combed his hair one last time.
“What if she can’t remember? What if… Ekater… Montr…” River looked at him, still confused. “She can’t remember!”
“Ekaterina Montrova will love you,” Simon said.
“No conversation!”
“She’ll give you an autograph,” Simon said, tucking his comb into his pocket. “And things will be just fine.”
River tried to protest, to say something else, but Simon cut her off. “Don’t worry, mei-mei. Hasn’t anyone ever told you what’s special about Ekaterina Montrova?”
“No,” River said slowly.
“She’s mute,” Simon said.
River tilted her head. “She dances… because… she cannot talk?”
“Mm-hmm,” Simon said.
“Why can’t… why can’t I talk?”
“I don’t know,” Simon said. “Have you tried dancing?”
Ekaterina Motrova’s autograph is beautiful, just like the dancer herself. River traces the imprint the pen made.
It’s odd to her that she pulled out the card of the famous ballet dancer after Ann-Sonia’s card. The two will never meet, never know each other, but they are both beautiful, both dancers… they stay in their two separate orbits.
River likes the idea of bringing them together, even if it’s only in this little box.
Shepherd Book handed River a postcard. “I got this for you,” he said.
River took the card. “What is it?”
“It’s from the congregation meeting I went to,” he answered. “These are women from one of the sects that was present.”
“What are they doing?”
“They’re dancing,” the Shepherd said.
River gave him her best “I got that” look.
The Shepherd seemed to be preparing his thoughts, getting ready to expand on the picture, but Mal called to him from the hallway, and he hurried out.
River put the card on the table in front of her. The Shepherd had written something in the corner: “River - these women dance with their scarves over their faces so they can see God.”
The movement in the picture was almost intoxicating. River rocked forward in her seat without realizing it, taking in a deep breath like she was going underwater. Color and music rose up around her, swallowing her. She closed her eyes and surrendered to the swirling vortex.
Movement swept past her, a warm hand grabbed her. River smelled cinnamon and curry; she heard the jangle of gold jewelry. She stumbled forward, reaching out for something she could not define.
And then hands pulled her back, out of the warmth and movement. She heard the Shepherd’s voice, distantly, above her: “River?”
She blinked a few times, and realized she was flat on her back in the galley. “She fell,” she said unnecessarily, looking up at the Shepherd.
“Are you all right?”
“What do you think they see?” she asked.
“Who?” Shepherd Book asked.
“When they see God. What do you think they see?”
It pleases River that out of all of her cards, the Shepherd’s card gives her the fewest answers. For all his religious training, he could not tell her what the women saw. And it’s because of that ambiguity, that mystery, that River returns to the Shepherd’s card again and again. The Shepherd’s card is the gift that keeps on giving - until she figures it out, she’ll have a reason to go there as many times as she wants.
Sometimes she stays for a very long time, but this visit is a short one. There are other places she needs to go.
Her fingers linger on a black-and-white card, an odd gift from Wash. He had given it to her as a joke, but as she remembers, it turned out to be anything but.
“I bought a picture frame, Lieutenant Lamby-Toes,” Wash said to Zoë, setting the item in question on the table. “Now you’ll be able to look at me all day.”
“We live on a spaceship,” Zoë said. “I already look at you all day.”
“What ‘bout that time I was with Niska? Y’ couldn’t look at me then,” Wash pointed out.
“Wasn’t like I had a whole lot o’ time t’ be moonin’ over ya, either,” Zoë said. She grabbed the rag she’d been using to clean her gun and stuffed it in her pocket. “Gotta go check with Jayne ‘bout th’ arsenal he’s takin’ on this run.”
She left, and Wash sat down at the table huffily. He looked over at River. “D’ you want a picture of me?”
“She doesn’t have anywhere to put it.”
“I could make you a shelf,” Wash said. He pulled the picture frame to him and undid the small screws holding the back on. He took off the cardboard back. “What’s this?”
He pulled up a small card that had been wedged between the back and the edge of the frame. “Look, I got a prize with my frame.”
Wash sighed and flipped the card to the table. “Guess I gotta go find a picture of me an’ my Lieutenant Lamby-Toes t’ prove how much I love her. You can keep my prize, ‘kay?”
River ignored it for a moment, keeping her hands and thoughts busy with her colored pencils. At last, though, she finished the caricature she was drawing of Jayne, and remembered the card on the table.
At first she didn’t understand what she was seeing, but her brain and her mouth did. Without a further thought she was screaming, but the card was still in her hand. She couldn’t drop it.
Then finally she saw it, somewhere through the haze of screams and terror that had gripped her. It was her, her on that card, except that it wasn’t - it was a girl with dark hair and angry, animal teeth, aggression on her face. She wore what would have been a normal girl’s dress had it been on a normal girl, but on this girl it looked like a parody. There was a bracelet on her wrist, her hair was in two braids, there was a black Mary Jane shoe on her one foot - but she was not a normal girl. Her other leg ended in what looked like a claw, though the picture was blurry and River was too busy trying to get away from the card that was stuck in her hand. The doll in her lap even looked deformed, just like the girl.
The words on the card burned into River’s mind as though put there by a hot branding iron: “Sihnon Home for Disturbed Children. Anna - 7, Feral Schizophrenia.” And with the words were memories - shrieking and flinging about, something biting at her leg, kicking and pinching, screaming without breath for hours and hours.
At last someone ripped the card from her hand and River was able to look up into Kaylee’s worried eyes. There was a weight pressing down on River’s belly, and it was hard for her to breathe. It took her a moment to realize what the weight was.
“You’re sitting on me,” River managed to say.
“Y’ bit me,” Kaylee said.
“Sorry,” River said.
Kaylee sat back with her knees bent, trying not to crush River beneath her. She looked down at the card. “Who’s this?” Kaylee asked.
From her position on the floor, pinned beneath Kaylee, River was able to see the card with different eyes. Her own eyes. “A friend,” she said at last. “She’s a friend.”
River gently puts Anna’s card back into the box. She’s never told anyone, but she donates a portion of every single pay to the Sihnon Home for Disturbed Children. She puts it in an envelope marked for Anna. She’s never had factual evidence to suggest that Anna is still at the home. She’s never received a letter back, just receipts.
But that’s good enough. River knows it, and Anna knows it.
“Take Kaylee somewhere nice for New Year’s,” River said to Simon as he came out of the shower.
Simon swore, dropping his shampoo bottle. “What are you doing here?” he yelped, yanking his robe closed.
“Take Kaylee somewhere nice for New Year’s,” River repeated.
“Where am I going to take her?” Simon asked, looking a little miffed. “It’s not like Prentiss Hall has a lot of fancy attractions.”
“The captain said you could take the other shuttle.”
“He did?”
“He will.”
“Did you ask him?”
“Not yet.”
“Then how do you know…”
“Simon,” River interrupted. “I just know. Take her somewhere pretty, and buy her something pretty. She’ll love it.”
“You think so?”
“Yes,” River said definitively.
“Well, I guess… I guess I could.”
“Good.” River gave him a quick grin and then sprinted off to find Kaylee, to tell her the good news.
From the picture Kaylee slipped under her door later the next day, River knows it was a success. Simon got over himself long enough to consider what Kaylee might actually want, and River has to hand it to him - he chose brilliantly. It was the kind of date that River envied. At New Year’s Kaylee and Simon had been out at End-of-the-World, the prettiest northern point on Prentiss Hall. And Simon had bought Kaylee a beautiful lace shawl. They had a picnic, and strolled along the beach, and danced at midnight.
“He can be a prince among men,” River says softly, smiling as she looks at the picture of Kaylee and her shawl, windswept on the End-of-the-World beach.
There are two more cards in her box, and she’s feeling so calm that it’s hard to believe that only an hour or two ago River was panicked, laying in the dark feeling like she was going to die. Now she feels like she’s free, like she’s floating, like she’s anchored firmly in this world. And sleepy. Very sleepy.
So she takes out the two last cards, and sets them on her pillow. She closes the box and tucks it away under her bed.
And she falls asleep with Simon’s handwriting and her own, albeit younger, smile looking up at her, she remembers what she likes best about cue cards:
They teach you the lines until you have them memorized, until they’re imprinted on your soul, and then they fall away, letting you improvise -
- setting you free.
Since you did such a bang-up job with my gift last year, I felt totally compelled to give you a kick-ass gift. (Can I say kick-ass?) I hope you like it.
Title: Postcards
Summary: Some people love items - River loves cue cards.
Words: 6,725
Images: 12
Note: This posting includes the teaser gift. (It makes more sense this way, I promise.)
Postcards
People treasure things. Books. Pipes. Animals. River once knew a wealthy gentleman, a friend of her parents, who had sixty racing horses. He knew their measurements and vital statistics the way some people know the touch and caress of a lover. He spent hours overseeing their care, directing the veritable army of stable boys, jockeys, and grooms who took care of his stables, his horses. He was a dull gentleman by anyone’s standards, since all he ever wanted to talk about were his horses - which ones were running in a race, which ones had to be put down, which ones were foaling. River had been to see the horses only once, right after a colt had been born, born blind. She would never forget the warm, halting breath of the colt on her hand, the way it slurped a sugar cube out of her hand, the way it leaned in towards her like it was depending on her for life. It died an hour later. The gentleman was heartbroken; people said he was never the same after that.
That’s the way of things, of people who love things. River knows these things. People who put their trust in objects, in things, eventually end up disappointed. Things break, they grow or shift or change inexplicably, and their original state can never be found again.
There is another option, of course, and that is to treasure memories. It is the more dangerous option, since memories are completely open and unbound, free to ravage your mind if they decide you’ve got the idea wrong. River knows this. She has experienced it. Memories can be tainted, can be twisted up, turned black-and-white, with all the beauty sucked out, everything turned sour. A memory that was once candied peach can turn into a mouthful of pulpy lemon.
But there is one good thing about having memory treasures, instead of putting your stock into breathless blind horses or the yellowed pages of books that crumble at the touch - memories belong in you. In the holes that Jayne insinuates have been carved in her brain, that’s where they are. Imprinted in her like sheet music. No matter how her brain twists them, she still has them at their base level. She knows them exactly as they were when she first knew them, and she can play them over again at will.
Sometimes it takes a little more effort, effort to fight past drugs and anger and confusion… but they are hers, and she will remember.
She stores them up inside, her treasures, until she feels them flowing through her, lifting her hands, making her feet light.
Of course, no one is perfect. It’s impossible for people to store everything inside their minds without the comforting security of a few cue cards.
For River, these are actual cards. A few pieces of slick cardboard, a few images and words that are capable of calling up thousands of words and images, scents and sights and memories. Some of the cards recall places she has never been, things she has never seen - but when she touches them, she can see hesitant colors, images and sounds, things rushing past her. Her mouth fills with the taste of curry, or lemons; the scent of incense twitches past her nostrils. With a sweep of her hand across the card she’s standing in a church, an auditorium, a crowded room, all alone on the seaside.
Wherever she is, she’s safe.
She finds that safety is more important on dark, dark nights, when Simon’s drugs flow like a forest fire through the leafy branches of her venous system. Her hands shaking, her teeth chattering, sweat dripping down her back, she rocks back and forth on her bed, keening silently, the unscreamed scream pushing up against her teeth - she grips the little wooden box with her paltry sum of postcards until the little decorative lines are imprinted on her palms. Once it passes, once it passes, onceitpasses...
… then she opens the box, breathing as though she’s never tasted air, and a sudden wave of peace sweeps over her.
She picks a card out of the box at random, and she’s somewhere else, and everything else doesn’t matter.
“Oh, come on, Doc!” Mal said, slamming his mug onto the table. “Y’ said yerself, you’ve never seen the sights of New Iowa!”
“Are there sights of New Iowa, sir?” Zoë asked from her end of the table, where she was drinking a mug of strong-brew.
“Well, sure!” Mal said. He turned to Kaylee, who was fiddling with a condenser at the far end of the table. “You’ve been here ‘fore, li’l Kaylee - what’s there t’ do?”
Kaylee looked up. “Hmm. I always liked the corn shuckin’ contests.”
“The what?” Simon asked.
“Corn shuckin’,” Kaylee said. “Y’ know, y’ take the corn an’…”
She set the condenser on the table and raised both hands in the air, miming a peeling motion.
“We came all the way to New Iowa to watch people peel corn?” Simon looked confused.
“No, we came ‘cause we had a job,” Mal said. “The corn shuckin’ is just a side benefit.”
“Oh,” Simon said. “Well, I’ll… um… to tell the truth, what’s the point?”
“Popcorn,” River said. She was curled up under the table, waiting for the world to stop spinning around her.
“Well, sure!” Kaylee said. “That, an’ when they’re done, there’s a dance at the city center.”
“Dance?” River asked from under the table.
“Mm-hmm,” Kaylee said. “A traditional one, where the guys haveta lead an’ the girls braid their hair.”
“Can we go?” River held her breath under the table, hoping against hope that the mention of either popcorn or a social event would convince her brother they deserved a night away from Serenity.
She could feel Simon weakening, maybe just a little - he was thinking of Kaylee in her flower-print dress, the heady smell of that shampoo she liked to use, the bright lights of some country pavilion with the sounds of a few cheap accordions and maybe a dobro-fiddle or two. It was intoxicating, even to River in her under-the-table position, and suddenly she wanted nothing more than to be in that pavilion breathing in the scents of buttery popcorn and musky cologne.
Of course, it wasn’t like her thoughts - nothing ever really was. The popcorn was soggy, the local boys mostly pockmarked and unhappy, the musicians sweaty and panting. The local wine tasted like cough syrup and the pavilion, the pavilion on the whole nothing like she’d expected.
But the lights were bright and the music was loud and spirits were high - and that was what really mattered. Kaylee and Simon danced with each other to the exclusion of all others, their cheeks growing redder and redder and their smiles broader and broader as they stepped on each other’s toes, spinning round and round on the rough-hewn boards of the pavilion. Their happiness was contagious, and River drank it in like Jayne drank the local wine.
At the end of the night one of the local boys shoved a picture postcard in her hand. It was a sweaty cardboard reminder of the bright and sweaty night, sepia-toned, featuring a top-hatted boy and a girl with braided hair spinning on the dance floor, their eyes closed in exclusion of all other. They looked nothing like Simon or Kaylee, but River named them that immediately, and tucked the card away into her sketchbook. The card said “Wish You Were Here,” and it was ironic because every time River looked at it, that was exactly what she could do - she wished she was back in that light-bright high-music red-cheeked pavilion, with the stamping feet and the men calling out the dance numbers - and seconds later, she was.
And every time her hand brushed the card, there she was again. And when she could take the real world no longer, sometimes she held her breath in anticipation, waiting for the moment she could slip away, brush the card, fall back into a world where the lights were bright and everything else was, too.
She lets the card drop to her bed, smiling at the memory of Kaylee and Simon dancing, the taste of the local wine still syrupy in her mouth. Her heart has slowed its racing pace, and the world seems to have stopped turning. She doesn’t feel normal, she never feels “normal” anymore, but she feels almost level.
With more resolve River picks up the New Iowa card and gently sets it back in the little wooden box. She flips through her stash of postcards without really looking at the pictures. She’ll pick the right one. She always does.
“Got you somethin’,” Jayne grunted as he entered the galley.
River looked up. “Something?”
“They were givin’ ‘em out. Don’t get all soft on me, ain’t like I picked it up special. Ain’t like I got any use fer it, either, so that’s why I’m givin’ it t’ you.” He rummaged around in one of the cabinets and came out with a packet of crackers. He ripped the top off and tilted the packet up towards his mouth.
River tried to think of all the things Jayne had professed no need for - hand soap, hair brushes, socks, belts, blankets, pillow cases, tooth powder, cups (well, when liquor was being served), forks, napkins - but she couldn’t fathom how or why Jayne would have been able to acquire any of those items for free. Or why he would be giving them away.
Jayne chomped on the crackers noisily. He picked up a mug of some foreign liquid and swigged it down. He wiped his mouth on a napkin and strode across the galley to the kitchen.
With one massive hand he wiggled something out of the back pocket of his khaki pants. With the other, he raised the mug and took another long swig. “Got kinda crushed,” he said once he’d swallowed, “but I figure it ain’t changin’ it any.”
River pulled it towards her, smoothing out the crumpled paper. Jayne stomped out of the galley, swigging lustily from his mug and humming some tuneless song, leaving her to examine his “gift” in relative peace. It was a postcard, a little crumpled around the edges.
Her fingers brushed over the picture and a series of bright images, sights, and sounds assailed her, but not unpleasantly.
She heard the sound of a lone fiddle, trilling high and sweet, the smell of slightly seared meat, the heat of bodies and the crush of hands on waists. The room was old-fashioned with heavy beams overhead, the walls closer because of the cloud of smoke making the room seem blue. It was a loud place, a raucous place, a place where men were men and women were trophies and everyone was all right with the arrangement.
Bold printing at the top announced the location: “Gibbon County Steak House.” Most of the front of the card was taken up by whirling white shapes; though the faces were blurred, River could tell they were smiling. These were people who were having a good time.
And though someone else - namely Jayne - had obviously enjoyed a good time at Gibbon County Steak House, he had also obviously put some thought into his “gift” for River.
In the lower right hand corner, in a sprawling sloppy hand, was the message: “they call this round dancing guess you probly knew that some cute girls ther - Jayne.”
She smiled, not because it was an imperfect gift whose ramifications she could not even begin to discern, but because it was absolutely perfect. It was another place, another bright starry hall for her to fall into when the real world sloshed up around her.
Somehow Jayne had known exactly what she was looking for. It was odd, but some things just weren’t made for making sense. She laughed as she thought about it - “some things just weren’t made for making sense” could have been Jayne’s motto. If he started having a motto.
She keeps her fingertips on the card, savoring the tang of savory meat and the smell of too many hand-rolled cigarettes. It’s the only present Jayne has ever given her, a strange way of saying that he acknowledges the spaces between the lines that she tends to fall into. And she loves every single crumpled inch of that damn card. She knows it as well as she knows each line on her palm, and she’ll know them all until she dies.
But of course she won’t die, even though sometimes it feels that way. There are small mercies, little things that keep her hovering over the border into “sane” territory. She can see their lights but she can’t quite touch it. Little bit by little bit she inches towards it, then pulls back, savoring every step, every reach and bob - just like the cards, they make her whole.
She puts Jayne’s gift back into the box, flips through the images, watches them blur with her eyes closed, and then holds her next choice up to her mouth, breathing in its memories, letting it grab onto her.
“Put on your red dress,” Inara said to River.
River tilted her head towards the door. The Companion rarely ventured below decks, and she had never visited River’s bunk, ever. It had all the markings of a hallucination - how could River be sure?
“River? Did you hear me?” Inara asked.
“Trying to make sure you’re the real one,” River said distantly.
“As real as can be,” Inara said with a small smile. “Now come on, put on your red dress.”
“Going places?” River asked.
“Yes, we are, sweetheart,” Inara said. “Have you ever heard of flamenco?”
“A style of dancing characteristic of the Andalusian Gypsies on Earth-That-Was that is strongly rhythmic and involves vigorous actions such as clapping the hands and stamping the feet,” River rattled off. The words felt meaningless in her mouth, they were just patter that someone had programmed her to remember.
“That’s right,” Inara said, sweeping into the bunk. She opened one of River’s drawers and rummaged through the dresses. “And every year the ‘verse championships are held here in Espana-Madrid. I thought you might like to go.”
River turned her head for the first time, realizing that the Inara in the room was the true Inara. “Dancing? You want to take her to a dancing?”
“Yes, of course,” Inara said, laughing. “I can’t imagine anyone else I’d like to take. Here.”
She held out a bright red dress that River had never seen before. “Put this on.”
“She doesn’t wear red,” River said, a little apologetically.
“What? Why not?”
River reached out one hand to touch the dress. It was silk or something like it, and impossibly smooth between her fingers. Wearing it, she would have felt like a princess, a butterfly, impossibly pretty. “Red is passion. Red is love. Red is… red is twisty.”
“Twisty?” Inara held out the dress. “It’s just a dress.”
“Things are never just a dress,” River said.
“You have to wear red to the flamenco championships,” Inara said. “It’s a tradition. And expected.”
“Traditions mostly are,” River said. The red dress hung big in her vision, almost like a beating heart.
She was right about the feel of the dress - it slipped onto her like a second skin. And the long red ribbon Inara tied into her hair was silky too. River felt odd, somewhere between naked and asleep, but she also felt unaccountably beautiful.
The auditorium was beautiful, too - all sorts of modern architectural details like crown molding and gold fixtures, and it was full of all sorts of people in red - red blouses, red suits, red ties, red bowler hats. They were all handsome people with dark hair and dark eyes. Inara fit right in, gold jewelry flashing, eyes sparkling. She was clearly in her element.
A man in a pair of shiny red loafers informed them that the first round of dancing wouldn’t start for another twenty minutes. Would the lovely ladies like to get a drink at the café?
Inara smiled gamely, wrapping her red-and-gold shawl around her. She ordered two drinks at the bar, and turned to chat with the barman.
River heard music from the other room. She padded across the plush red carpet, following its siren song. Everything in her vision was red, pulsing and spinning around her.
Her footsteps were hesitant but the music grew up around her. Her hands came up, red in her line of sight too.
The music grabbed her, her hands snapping up, her foot stomping the floor like she was angry. But it wasn’t anger, it was passion. It was all the red, the red clothes and carpet, the red ribbon in her hair, the red energy pulsing through her hands and feet. It swallowed her up, it ate her like she was some sort of juicy fruit -
- and she loved it.
She spun, twisting, her hands flying up into the air. Some part of her registered that she was stomping in time with the music, as though the music was responding to her. It was her song, and she was going to own it.
Feet and hands, feet and hands, a twirl, her hair flying out behind her, that beautiful second-skin dress flowing around her like a cloud. Red, red, red.
Red was no longer twisty, no longer angry, it was whole and perfect and beautiful. It was River, and she was red.
The music stopped suddenly and River fell out of the twirl. Her hands became just hands again, her dress just a dress. Sometimes things really were what they appeared to be.
A wave of sound rushed over her as she waited for the world to stop spinning. Her ears couldn’t process it for a moment, and then she realized exactly what it was - applause. They were clapping for her. Clapping for her dance, her red, red dance.
She was red again, but this time it was just a blush that spread across her cheeks.
“Give that girl a medal!” someone called, a man with small red spectacles.
“Is she one of the dancers on the program?” someone else yelled out.
And there was Inara, the true Inara, standing among them, shining bright in that sea of red, clapping as hard as she could.
Pride was red, too, but the fortunate, rich kind - the kind River could believe in.
They couldn’t give her a medal, of course, because she wasn’t entered in the championships. A postcard would have to suffice.
River touches it fondly, remembering the swirl of music that had surrounded her. She had been safe in that music, as safe as she is when surrounded by the images of her postcards.
She puts the flamenco dancing card back into the box. The touch of it still remains on her palms, like she was cupping a red rubber ball.
And she picks another one, cupping another memory, another place, another time.
River got lost. It wasn’t like usual, though, since she was actually physically lost, instead of swimming endlessly through the twisted pathways of her mind.
But if she was going to be fair, it was one of the best places in the entire ‘verse to get lost. After all, not everyone could claim that they’d been stranded in Madame Murein’s Costume Shop.
It was almost an entire city block, hidden in the back streets of Ariel, filled with the best dancing costumes credits could buy. There were tutus and long tulle skirts, leotards, satin slippers, wings, wigs, makeup, and all the velvet, satin, tulle, and ribbon that the eye could take in. Walking into Madame Murein’s was almost like falling asleep - a big beautiful soft dream in a pleasing palette of pastels.
Madame Murein was almost as picturesque as her shop, a short woman with a dark pageboy and thick glasses. There were big plywood boxes scattered around the huge shop for Madame Murein to leap up onto, so she could be in the best position to measure a dancer or fit a pointe shoe. Her voice was rich and sonorous, and accented in a comforting way. And though River could never quite figure out how she knew this, she knew that Madame Murein would have been a fabulous hugger.
They had been to Ariel a few times before, and River had somehow managed to find her way to Madame Murein’s every single time. The first time she had entered quietly, softly, trying not to make much of an entrance. Madame Murein was in the corner with a dancer and her mother, measuring the length of a tulle skirt. River thought she could slip in unnoticed, but Madame Murein had other plans.
The costumer looked up with pins in her mouth, an old-fashioned yellow measuring tape around her neck. “Beautiful dancer, the Madame will be with you momentarily.”
Then, as though she had not spoken, she went back to measuring the skirt.
Every time River entered, Madame Murein knew. River didn’t have a lot of credit to spend in the store, but every time she went in, she always came out with something beautiful. A satin ribbon, a length of dark blue velvet that felt almost like knowing what safety felt like, and once, a pair of pointe shoes that Madame Murein swore up and down were “imperfect.” She claimed they needed “a home.”
The last time that River came in, the time that she got lost, Madame Murein was nowhere in sight. This wasn’t unusual, since the store was huge and Madame Murein seemed to be the only person who worked there, but River was a little unnerved. The store didn’t feel like it usually did. There was an emptiness about it, a strangeness that felt off-balance.
She wandered, not knowing where she was going. Her fingers trailed over a row of tulle skirts, and then ran up and down the bodices of several satin dresses. They were prettier than anything she had ever remembered seeing in the store before, doubtlessly handmade by Madame Murein. River drank in the artistry; somehow she knew she would never see Madame Murein’s shop in the same way again.
She passed the service counter, where Madame Murein’s pins and measuring tape sat alone. There was a small pile of glossy postcards there, advertising Madame Murein’s shop. River picked one up and held onto it tightly.
Later Simon would be there, and there would be a local officer with him. They would find River with Madame Murein in the costumer’s office, both occupants of the room sitting so quietly and passively that for a moment Simon was sure both of them were dead. River remembered none of it, nothing about the officer or the office, the coroner’s men who came to take the older woman’s body away, the long walk back to Serenity.
But she had the postcard clenched in her hand. And when she brushed her fingers across it later that night, she still couldn’t remember the empty-still version of Madame Murein’s costume shop… just the one she loved, the bright and full rows of satin and tulle, the aisles of beauty created by a woman who understood movement and light better than anyone River had ever had the pleasure of spending even a heartbeat with.
River puts Madame Murein’s card away. It is beautiful, but sometimes if River holds it for too long, she gets sad. Not because Madame Murein is dead, not because River has never found another store in the entire verse that understood her as well as Madame Murein’s did, but because the beauty that Madame Murein created is just too ethereal to acknowledge for a long period of time. It reminds River of a snow globe - fragile and unbelievable, prone to shattering if held the wrong way.
It’s good to pull back, to find a little bit of distance. And River has just the card for that. She pulls out Zoë’s card, and immediately the scent of incense fills her nostrils. A sweet calm passes over her, and the grief she felt from holding onto Madame Murein falls away.
River never went to the Holy Shrine of Blessed Saint Catherine. She spent the entirety of that trip in her bunk, somewhere between consciousness and not, watching as colors bled out of her mind and her world, pleading with Simon to let her go, just let her go, despite the fact that Simon was not even there. Later she would remember very little of it, another blessing.
But Zoë went to the Holy Shrine, along with the captain and Jayne and Simon. It was on a remote point of Klassmann, surrounded by crashing seas, the home of a hidden holy relic that had been guarded for centuries. It was a place untouched by time.
Well, maybe not completely untouched by time. There was still crime, which surprised Zoë. An angry villager had stormed into the Holy Shrine and shot the caretaker. The caretaker had managed to hang on for two days, which was as soon as the crew from Serenity were able to get there. They were heading to the Shrine to finish up some business with the caretaker; Simon had been added to the travel docket after they’d learned of the caretaker’s injuries.
They were met at the door of the Shrine by a teenage girl with short brown hair and almond-shaped eyes. She looked only slightly distrustful. “You here to help my daddy?” she asked. Her voice was thick and slow.
Mal looked a little taken aback by the girl’s presence. Zoë stepped up to the door. “Yeah, sweetie, we are,” she said.
“Good.”
The caretaker’s wounds were dealt with, and he thanked them repeatedly. “I would have died if not for you,” he said. “Please, come in. There’s not much to eat, but you are welcome to whatever there is.”
They protested, saying they didn’t need anything, but he served them some weak tea and a few jam-filled cakes. When they finished, the caretaker said, “Have you seen her?”
Zoë assumed he meant his daughter. “She’s in the viewing room.”
“Oh, not Ann-Sonia. I know where she is. I meant the Blessed Catherine.”
“No,” Mal said.
“You must see her before you leave,” the caretaker said. “Please, come with me.”
He led them down the long stone hallway that connected the caretaker’s residence to the Shrine itself. The whole place glowed softly from the candle lanterns hanging at small intervals; the light was soft and holy.
Ann-Sonia was in the viewing room, a bright red standout, a variation from the soft grays and iron browns of the Shrine. She stood before the icon of Blessed Catherine, the stone face that sealed the tomb where, it was believed, the Blessed Catherine was buried.
Zoë was stunned by the look on Ann-Sonia’s face. When she met them at the door, Ann-Sonia had seemed thick, heavy; her mental handicap had been apparent. But in the light of the Shrine, in this close proximity to the Blessed Catherine, Ann-Sonia was transformed.
Her face was lit with the soft holy light of the lanterns, her eyes closed, her hands raised. Her face was peaceful and calm, and she seemed to be lit from within. As Zoë watched, she began to dance.
Ann-Sonia’s dance was simple but beautiful - her feet knew their places, her hands remained raised, her red dress flowed around her like a river. She was praising, praising, always praising. She seemed to be grabbing the candlelight out of the air and pulling it, thinning it, twisting it into tubes. The light became a rope, a wire, a handful of shooting stars, a comet’s tail.
Zoë raised the still camera. She had brought it to take a picture of the Shrine for Shepherd Book, who had expressed his interest in viewing such a holy relic. But now Zoë wanted to capture Ann-Sonia’s beauty as she twirled with the light.
After the shutter clicked closed, Ann-Sonia turned to Zoë and smiled. It was one of the most beatific, beautiful smiles Zoë had ever seen. Ann-Sonia was at peace.
River touches the photograph carefully. She cannot see Ann-Sonia’s face in the picture, but she knows that the girl is smiling. There is no trace of the miraculous light trails in the picture, of course, but neither is there any trace of Ann-Sonia’s mental handicap.
In white pen Zoë wrote: “Met this girl at the Holy Shrine of Blessed Saint Catherine. She was the caretaker’s daughter, mentally handicapped, but she danced like she was quicksilver, like she was free. She had the sweetest smile. Thought of you for some reason. - Zoë.”
River loves to spend time with Ann-Sonia, viewing the Shrine through her eyes. Ann-Sonia knows all of the secrets, all of the hidden places, and she’s more than happy to share them with River.
It feels almost like a let down to put Ann-Sonia’s card away. It has so many beautiful memories attached to it, so many wonderful places to explore, but River has other things on her mind. She wants to go somewhere else, to hear other melodies.
She puts Ann-Sonia’s dancing figure back into the box and picks out another card.
“Say it again, mei-mei,” Simon said gently. “Try one more time.”
River forced herself to shove through the mental block holding her thoughts back. “Hello… it is… very nice to…”
“To meet you,” Simon prompted
“To meet you,” River parroted.
Simon looked at her, giving her a nudge. “And?”
“She can’t remember,” River said.
“Miss Montrova,” Simon said.
“She doesn’t want to go,” River said. “She can’t remember. She’s going to look like a fool!”
“You’re not going to look like a fool,” Simon said. “And the tickets are non-refundable.”
“Take Kaylee.”
“Kaylee doesn’t want to go,” Simon reminded her. “You’re going. You’re already dressed.”
River looked down at her light pink dress. “She looks like a stupid.”
“She looks beautiful,” Simon said. “Come on.”
River was torn. She did want to see the ballet, to see the famous ballet dancer whose name she could not remember. She had been looking forward to it since Simon had mentioned it a week ago.
Simon combed his hair one last time.
“What if she can’t remember? What if… Ekater… Montr…” River looked at him, still confused. “She can’t remember!”
“Ekaterina Montrova will love you,” Simon said.
“No conversation!”
“She’ll give you an autograph,” Simon said, tucking his comb into his pocket. “And things will be just fine.”
River tried to protest, to say something else, but Simon cut her off. “Don’t worry, mei-mei. Hasn’t anyone ever told you what’s special about Ekaterina Montrova?”
“No,” River said slowly.
“She’s mute,” Simon said.
River tilted her head. “She dances… because… she cannot talk?”
“Mm-hmm,” Simon said.
“Why can’t… why can’t I talk?”
“I don’t know,” Simon said. “Have you tried dancing?”
Ekaterina Motrova’s autograph is beautiful, just like the dancer herself. River traces the imprint the pen made.
It’s odd to her that she pulled out the card of the famous ballet dancer after Ann-Sonia’s card. The two will never meet, never know each other, but they are both beautiful, both dancers… they stay in their two separate orbits.
River likes the idea of bringing them together, even if it’s only in this little box.
Shepherd Book handed River a postcard. “I got this for you,” he said.
River took the card. “What is it?”
“It’s from the congregation meeting I went to,” he answered. “These are women from one of the sects that was present.”
“What are they doing?”
“They’re dancing,” the Shepherd said.
River gave him her best “I got that” look.
The Shepherd seemed to be preparing his thoughts, getting ready to expand on the picture, but Mal called to him from the hallway, and he hurried out.
River put the card on the table in front of her. The Shepherd had written something in the corner: “River - these women dance with their scarves over their faces so they can see God.”
The movement in the picture was almost intoxicating. River rocked forward in her seat without realizing it, taking in a deep breath like she was going underwater. Color and music rose up around her, swallowing her. She closed her eyes and surrendered to the swirling vortex.
Movement swept past her, a warm hand grabbed her. River smelled cinnamon and curry; she heard the jangle of gold jewelry. She stumbled forward, reaching out for something she could not define.
And then hands pulled her back, out of the warmth and movement. She heard the Shepherd’s voice, distantly, above her: “River?”
She blinked a few times, and realized she was flat on her back in the galley. “She fell,” she said unnecessarily, looking up at the Shepherd.
“Are you all right?”
“What do you think they see?” she asked.
“Who?” Shepherd Book asked.
“When they see God. What do you think they see?”
It pleases River that out of all of her cards, the Shepherd’s card gives her the fewest answers. For all his religious training, he could not tell her what the women saw. And it’s because of that ambiguity, that mystery, that River returns to the Shepherd’s card again and again. The Shepherd’s card is the gift that keeps on giving - until she figures it out, she’ll have a reason to go there as many times as she wants.
Sometimes she stays for a very long time, but this visit is a short one. There are other places she needs to go.
Her fingers linger on a black-and-white card, an odd gift from Wash. He had given it to her as a joke, but as she remembers, it turned out to be anything but.
“I bought a picture frame, Lieutenant Lamby-Toes,” Wash said to Zoë, setting the item in question on the table. “Now you’ll be able to look at me all day.”
“We live on a spaceship,” Zoë said. “I already look at you all day.”
“What ‘bout that time I was with Niska? Y’ couldn’t look at me then,” Wash pointed out.
“Wasn’t like I had a whole lot o’ time t’ be moonin’ over ya, either,” Zoë said. She grabbed the rag she’d been using to clean her gun and stuffed it in her pocket. “Gotta go check with Jayne ‘bout th’ arsenal he’s takin’ on this run.”
She left, and Wash sat down at the table huffily. He looked over at River. “D’ you want a picture of me?”
“She doesn’t have anywhere to put it.”
“I could make you a shelf,” Wash said. He pulled the picture frame to him and undid the small screws holding the back on. He took off the cardboard back. “What’s this?”
He pulled up a small card that had been wedged between the back and the edge of the frame. “Look, I got a prize with my frame.”
Wash sighed and flipped the card to the table. “Guess I gotta go find a picture of me an’ my Lieutenant Lamby-Toes t’ prove how much I love her. You can keep my prize, ‘kay?”
River ignored it for a moment, keeping her hands and thoughts busy with her colored pencils. At last, though, she finished the caricature she was drawing of Jayne, and remembered the card on the table.
At first she didn’t understand what she was seeing, but her brain and her mouth did. Without a further thought she was screaming, but the card was still in her hand. She couldn’t drop it.
Then finally she saw it, somewhere through the haze of screams and terror that had gripped her. It was her, her on that card, except that it wasn’t - it was a girl with dark hair and angry, animal teeth, aggression on her face. She wore what would have been a normal girl’s dress had it been on a normal girl, but on this girl it looked like a parody. There was a bracelet on her wrist, her hair was in two braids, there was a black Mary Jane shoe on her one foot - but she was not a normal girl. Her other leg ended in what looked like a claw, though the picture was blurry and River was too busy trying to get away from the card that was stuck in her hand. The doll in her lap even looked deformed, just like the girl.
The words on the card burned into River’s mind as though put there by a hot branding iron: “Sihnon Home for Disturbed Children. Anna - 7, Feral Schizophrenia.” And with the words were memories - shrieking and flinging about, something biting at her leg, kicking and pinching, screaming without breath for hours and hours.
At last someone ripped the card from her hand and River was able to look up into Kaylee’s worried eyes. There was a weight pressing down on River’s belly, and it was hard for her to breathe. It took her a moment to realize what the weight was.
“You’re sitting on me,” River managed to say.
“Y’ bit me,” Kaylee said.
“Sorry,” River said.
Kaylee sat back with her knees bent, trying not to crush River beneath her. She looked down at the card. “Who’s this?” Kaylee asked.
From her position on the floor, pinned beneath Kaylee, River was able to see the card with different eyes. Her own eyes. “A friend,” she said at last. “She’s a friend.”
River gently puts Anna’s card back into the box. She’s never told anyone, but she donates a portion of every single pay to the Sihnon Home for Disturbed Children. She puts it in an envelope marked for Anna. She’s never had factual evidence to suggest that Anna is still at the home. She’s never received a letter back, just receipts.
But that’s good enough. River knows it, and Anna knows it.
“Take Kaylee somewhere nice for New Year’s,” River said to Simon as he came out of the shower.
Simon swore, dropping his shampoo bottle. “What are you doing here?” he yelped, yanking his robe closed.
“Take Kaylee somewhere nice for New Year’s,” River repeated.
“Where am I going to take her?” Simon asked, looking a little miffed. “It’s not like Prentiss Hall has a lot of fancy attractions.”
“The captain said you could take the other shuttle.”
“He did?”
“He will.”
“Did you ask him?”
“Not yet.”
“Then how do you know…”
“Simon,” River interrupted. “I just know. Take her somewhere pretty, and buy her something pretty. She’ll love it.”
“You think so?”
“Yes,” River said definitively.
“Well, I guess… I guess I could.”
“Good.” River gave him a quick grin and then sprinted off to find Kaylee, to tell her the good news.
From the picture Kaylee slipped under her door later the next day, River knows it was a success. Simon got over himself long enough to consider what Kaylee might actually want, and River has to hand it to him - he chose brilliantly. It was the kind of date that River envied. At New Year’s Kaylee and Simon had been out at End-of-the-World, the prettiest northern point on Prentiss Hall. And Simon had bought Kaylee a beautiful lace shawl. They had a picnic, and strolled along the beach, and danced at midnight.
“He can be a prince among men,” River says softly, smiling as she looks at the picture of Kaylee and her shawl, windswept on the End-of-the-World beach.
There are two more cards in her box, and she’s feeling so calm that it’s hard to believe that only an hour or two ago River was panicked, laying in the dark feeling like she was going to die. Now she feels like she’s free, like she’s floating, like she’s anchored firmly in this world. And sleepy. Very sleepy.
So she takes out the two last cards, and sets them on her pillow. She closes the box and tucks it away under her bed.
And she falls asleep with Simon’s handwriting and her own, albeit younger, smile looking up at her, she remembers what she likes best about cue cards:
They teach you the lines until you have them memorized, until they’re imprinted on your soul, and then they fall away, letting you improvise -
- setting you free.