Surely Someday: Story 5, Part 1
Name: Nichole
Story: Surely Someday
Piece Title: Everything Has Changed: Story 5, Part 1
Colors: Faded Blue: 12. Bells to be rung and a wonderful spring to be sprung; Heart Gold:
19. It is best to love wisely, no doubt; but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all. - William Thackeray
Supplies and Materials: Novelty Beads from
shipwreck_light
Word Count: 2,764
Rating: PG
Warnings: Possible trigger: violence; if you see anything - let me know
Summary: Maggie makes Warren promise to tell no one about her spitting up blood. She confesses that Andrews had been gone a lot the past month and she’s feeling weaker. Simon rents a moving van to bring Maggie on the family trip
Author's Note: Comments are lovely and I'm always grateful for them.
1855
Charlie said they were stars, the messy yellow blobs that he had painted on the bedroom ceiling. In actuality Magdalena - Lennie - she thought they looked like large dots or splashes of paint, but she wouldn’t say anything. When she had told him that she had wanted to see stars, Charlie had gotten right on it, buying a ladder and paint. He had spent a whole day locked in his bedroom, only coming out for a wine bottle around noon. Anything for his Lennie. He wanted to give her the moon, but he’d settle for giving her the stars.
They sat on his bed, under their stars, and he read to her notes for his latest novel. “Angelica flings herself from the cliff in despair.”
“Because Daniel marries another?”
“Yes,” Charlie nodded happily,. “they have a true and pure love. Without him she’s nothing.” He made a flipping motion with his wrist. “Nothing.”
She considered it for a moment before shaking her head. “It doesn’t sound very fair. Daniel gets to marry Adela and Angelica has to die? Where is his pure and true love?”
Sighing deeply, Charlie knew he was beat. For someone who had only ever meet three people, his Lennie was remarkably well attuned to the ways of things. She understood right from wrong very well, much more than the two before him had given her credit for. Sometimes she spoke of murders, angels, and demons with freakish clarity; almost as if she had met them. “Angelica lives. Perhaps she goes off to find her fortune and meets a new love.”
*
2012
Warren stayed as still as possible, his arms mere inches from Maggie’s waist. For several minutes now Maggie had been resting her head against his chest; her arms tightly around his waist. Her breathing had slowed, but she was no closer to falling asleep then she had been the day before. She was still, quietly whispering to him;
“Douglas sees me as a child. Simon’s my very own brother or puppy, though sometimes I scare him. But you, you see me as the odd woman who tried to save you. I think I could like you so much. I do like you.” A small cough escaped her throat. “Warren? I feel funny.”
Gingerly Warren pushed Maggie away from him. Her face was even paler than usual. Normally Warren would have dismissed it as an effect of the sedatives, except there was a small bit of blood in the right corner of her mouth. Her eyes were glued to his chest, where a splash of red blood stained his black tee-shirt.
“I don’t . . .that doesn’t. . .” Maggie swallowed her voice tiny; scared. “Warren?” Frantically her hands moved to her mouth, smearing the blood across her right cheek. “It has to come off. Take off your shirt, they can’t see. They can’t.,” Maggie grabbed hold of his tee-shirt, pulling at it in a fury of nerves. “Please.”
Maggie was bleeding, an impossible thing. The impossible woman was doing an impossible thing. Every part of Warren’s brain registered the whole thing as false, yet it was as true as his feelings for her. She had coughed the blood onto his shirt; she had spent the whole day slowly losing her mind.
Grabbing Maggie’s hands, he held them firmly against his chest. He focused his eyes on hers, his voice as calm as he could manage. “It’s going to be okay, Maggie. We’ll all take care of this. You’ve just got a little blood trying to get out. We’ll fix it.”
Biting her lower lip, Maggie shook her head. “What if I kill you with my blood?”
With a light scoff, Warren smiled. “Kill me deader? Doubtful.”
She considered this for a moment. Werewolf blood hurt vampires, but there was no record of her blood hurting them. The vampire that had drunk from her had survived, and this was only a little blood on Warren’s shirt. There was a chance that it could all work out in the end; just as long as no one else knew of her little incident. “No telling Douglas and Simon, though. They’ll cancel everything.”
“Maggie, Maggie, you’ve got me in a tight spot. We’ll tell them after we come home. Unless it happens again, then all promises are off. Agreed?”
Maggie smiled. He had thought the smile would be weak. Warren had thought he would see her as an ill person now. Oddly tiny and pale; her long and curly brown locks seemed perfectly welcoming against her pale neck. When she smiled, her eyes shone; she still looked like perfection personified.
“I agree to your terms, James Warren. I promise it’ll be better once we’re all in the countryside.”
*
It was such a simple idea that Simon was surprised no one - especially Andrews - had thought of it before. They had moved Maggie around in coffins and now Andrews was trying sedatives; sedatives that were making her ill. But, not one had thought of a moving lorry. It was a tightly secure place for her - no openings. There were two issues, though. One: it would be very similar to her stone prison and two: there was still the problem of getting her the ten feet from the house to the lorry. He wouldn’t try the sedatives again, that much Simon knew. He had thought of putting a pillowcase over Maggie head, but the neighbors might talk; and, he wasn’t sure if a pillowcase was thick enough to stop her pain.
Getting the moving lorry had been the easiest part of his plan. Simon had rented one for a week, something that had cost him half his bank account. It was worth it, if it meant that Maggie could see the country side.
*
At Maggie’s insistence Warren had gotten rid of the evidence. He had changed and put his shirt in the wash while she washed her face with warm water. Watching her scrub her face - even after the blood was long gone - made Warren shift uncomfortably. He wanted to turn from the bathroom doorway and give her some privacy, but he just couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her alone. Not with the dark thoughts he knew were filling her head.
Her words from earlier kept echoing in his own mind: she didn’t bleed. It was impossible. And when impossible girls starting doing impossible things, that was cause for worry. Warren was nearly sure the sedatives were to blame; they had made her act oddly. But, there was more to it, Warren was sure of it. Maggie’s body wasn’t acting normal; he just wasn’t sure what her ailment was.
“And you’re sure nothing like this has ever happened before?”
Maggie dropped her hands from her now red cheeks. Glancing at Warren she frowned slightly. “No. Yes. Stick a sword into my belly and the exit point is healed as you pull the sword from the entry point, with no blood. Shoot me in the head with a bullet: no blood and the entry point healed even as the bullet exits my head.”
“Yes,” Warren spoke gently, “but those are injuries. This was internal. Have you ever been ill?”
Biting her lower lip, Maggie nodded. “Before, with some of the other Keepers, things would happen. If they were gone for long periods of time, even just two weeks, I would get very weak and go away a lot. It only happened sometimes. And,” she went on quickly, seeing Warren’s lips start to part. “Douglas is with me every day. He just goes to work. He’s been leaving early lately and taking more hours, but he’s still here at night.”
To go from being with someone for fifteen hours of the day, for twelve years, to barely seeing them could be a reason. Yes, that had to be it. Warren wasn’t quite sure how it all worked, but he did know that there were rules and privileges to being Maggie’s human care taker. For one, Andrews was never ill and, according to Simon, Andrews couldn’t be hurt. In exchange - in theory - Maggie took bits of his energy, maybe even his life force. To go from full meals to snacks, that was enough to mess with anyone’s systems. Then, there were the sedatives. While a good idea, the damn things hadn’t helped.
“Maggie,” Warren swallowed. He shifted uncomfortably under her gaze, feeling like a little boy who’d been caught in a lie. “maybe you should ask Andrews if you can move to the country?”
“Pardon?”
“It’s farther away, so he and Simon would have to stock up on supplies. But, it’s so far from people that you could go outside anytime you like. And Simon could transform in the wilderness instead of a basement; less chance he’ll be found out. I told you before, didn’t I? That I asked a vampire about werewolves and even you. That might have tipped someone off. It was stupid of me, I see that now. You’d all be safe and Andrews would spend more time with you. You’d like to have Simon and Andrews around more, wouldn’t you?”
She stared at him for a long moment, seriously giving it some thought. There was a large part of her that liked that idea - and yet, Maggie knew it would never work. Things were better off the way they were, even if she didn’t always like them. “It’s a nice fantasy, but it would never work. I can’t have them living just for me. I would hate myself if I made them be that far away from society. It’s maddening never seeing anyone. Humans need interaction. We should stay as we are.”
There so much more that Warren wanted to say, but any moment that he and Maggie might have shared was ruined by the vibration of his phone. With a frown, Warren slipped his hand into his jeans pocket and pulled it out. A little envelope alerted him to the fact that he had a new text message from Simon. The message read: ’Come outside. Tell Maggie to pack. We’re leaving tonight.’
A soft smile began to form on Warren’s face. “We’re leaving tonight. Simon’s got a surprise. Go get your things. I’ll go see what it is.”
Maggie took a step forward, before stopping herself. “What about Douglas?”
“I’m sure he’s coming.” Warren reassured her with another smile. “He wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
*
At last count, Andrews had noticed five voice messages from Simon. He knew that he should check them, maybe even call the younger man back, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not after the way Simon had acted earlier. Andrews didn’t much like the idea of Simon accusing him of wanting out of his responsibilities toward Maggie. Nor was he very fond of Simon trying to suggest that the sedatives wouldn’t work properly. As far as Andrews had been able to figure out, the only way to get Maggie out of their home was by sedation or coffin, and he had promised her long ago that he would never put her in another coffin.
Andrews still remembered when he had taken Maggie out of her old apartment. The way she had stiffened when she was focused to enter the coffin; the way she had rocked back and forth still stayed with him. He had never seen more fear than he had that night. When he had unlocked the lid, Andrews had found claw marks. He had asked her about it, then, and she had told him of her hundred years in the stone prison and of the fear of being forgotten and abandoned.
Andrews wanted to go straight home and tell Simon everything. He wanted to tell Maggie he was sorry for what was happening to her, but that it was the only way. Sadly his car wouldn’t start, which meant he was stuck. No one was answering their mobiles; no matter how many times Andrews called.
He was about to just walk home when a tapping interrupted Andrews’ thoughts. Glancing to his right, he noticed Henry standing at the passage side door, gently knocking on the window. With a small smile, Andrews got out of the car.
“Fancy meeting you here,” Henry said with a grin. “I thought you’d be gone by now.”
“My car. . .is, there’s a problem with it. I need to get home.” He sighed hopelessly. “You wouldn’t-“
“Bring you home? Of course, yes! I’ll bring you. Could you wait an hour or so? I have some things to finish up in my office.”
Of course he did. It would give him more time to figure out just what he wanted to say to Simon and Maggie.
*
It was the silliest thing Warren had seen,; and, he had seen some silly things. Simon stood on the curve of the street, leaning lazily against a medium sized moving lorry. The lorry’s white cab door said ‘Cooper’s Movin’. Smiling broadly, Simon tapped the metal of the hold. Wordlessly Warren walked over and to the back of the moving lorry; the wide door was up.
“What did you do?” Warren questioned, his nose wrinkled in confusion. Simon had put a mattress, hurricane lamp, radio, and walkie-talkie in the back. It looked like a kidnappers’ van.
Joining him, Simon continued to smile. “I rented it for a week. It’s how we’ll get Maggie to the country. “It’s a great idea. The metal is three inches thick - just like the curtains inside. We just have to get her from the house to the back. We lock her in, and go. Easy.”
“Ah,” Warren raised an eyebrow, glanced back at the house, and back to Simon. “and what does Andrews say about all this? Leaving tonight, using a moving lorry, it’s a bit fast.”
“I doubt he cares much.” Simon didn’t even bother to hide the annoyance in his voice. Andrews had been acting weirder and weirder; forgetting his promises and responsibility. “He’s probably drinking tea and kissing a girl nearly a decade his junior. Do you know what would happen if I did that?”
Warren laughed under his breath. “You’d be jailed.” Glancing back at the house, Warren thought of Maggie. She was so excited about the country. But, there was a bit of a problem with going this routine. “Doesn’t this thing,” he pointed to the back of the moving lorry,. “remind you of anything?” Simon raised a confused eyebrow, his smile slowly fading. “Like a big cement box that a certain beautiful girl was trapped inside?”
“Oh,” Simon ran a hand through his dark hair. “But, it’s different. There’s light and she can
talk to us on the walkie-talkie. Anything is better than those damn sedatives. I want to go tonight. I’ve called Andrews and told him. Let’s ask Maggie. She has a right to decide.”
*
What was happening to her? It was a question that Maggie couldn’t get out her mind, even as she packed a few belongings into her favorite black leather suitcase. She didn’t bleed, or get sick. But, the sedatives were doing this to her, that couldn’t be denied. Maybe it really was like Warren had suggested. For twelve years she had spent most of her day - everyday - with Andrews. But lately he had been spending more and more time away from home. Maggie wasn’t completely sure how it worked, but she knew that her Keepers being around kept her healthy, and when they weren’t around, bad things happened.
“Maggie,” Knocked out of her thoughts, Maggie turned to see Simon leaning against the frame of her attic door. “I have a surprise for you: a moving lorry instead of sedatives as a way to get you to the country. Not bad, right? There’s just one thing - how do you feel about putting one of the curtains over your head?”
“Pardon?” Maggie raised an eyebrow in confusion.
“In theory it should work.” Simon went on quickly. “And it’s just a few feet from the door to the back of the lorry.”
Maggie had to agree that in theory it sounded about right. But, she still wasn’t quite sure. “What if it hurts?”
"I won't hurt you, my sweet Twinkle."
“What?”
Waving a dismissive hand, Simon shrugged. “I just heard it from a film. Anyway, I promise it wouldn’t hurt. And if it does, you can hit me.”
There could be pain, but anything was better than the sedatives. Nodding, Maggie picked up her suitcase. “Let’s try it.”
TBC in Part 2
Story: Surely Someday
Piece Title: Everything Has Changed: Story 5, Part 1
Colors: Faded Blue: 12. Bells to be rung and a wonderful spring to be sprung; Heart Gold:
19. It is best to love wisely, no doubt; but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all. - William Thackeray
Supplies and Materials: Novelty Beads from
shipwreck_light
Word Count: 2,764
Rating: PG
Warnings: Possible trigger: violence; if you see anything - let me know
Summary: Maggie makes Warren promise to tell no one about her spitting up blood. She confesses that Andrews had been gone a lot the past month and she’s feeling weaker. Simon rents a moving van to bring Maggie on the family trip
Author's Note: Comments are lovely and I'm always grateful for them.
1855
Charlie said they were stars, the messy yellow blobs that he had painted on the bedroom ceiling. In actuality Magdalena - Lennie - she thought they looked like large dots or splashes of paint, but she wouldn’t say anything. When she had told him that she had wanted to see stars, Charlie had gotten right on it, buying a ladder and paint. He had spent a whole day locked in his bedroom, only coming out for a wine bottle around noon. Anything for his Lennie. He wanted to give her the moon, but he’d settle for giving her the stars.
They sat on his bed, under their stars, and he read to her notes for his latest novel. “Angelica flings herself from the cliff in despair.”
“Because Daniel marries another?”
“Yes,” Charlie nodded happily,. “they have a true and pure love. Without him she’s nothing.” He made a flipping motion with his wrist. “Nothing.”
She considered it for a moment before shaking her head. “It doesn’t sound very fair. Daniel gets to marry Adela and Angelica has to die? Where is his pure and true love?”
Sighing deeply, Charlie knew he was beat. For someone who had only ever meet three people, his Lennie was remarkably well attuned to the ways of things. She understood right from wrong very well, much more than the two before him had given her credit for. Sometimes she spoke of murders, angels, and demons with freakish clarity; almost as if she had met them. “Angelica lives. Perhaps she goes off to find her fortune and meets a new love.”
*
2012
Warren stayed as still as possible, his arms mere inches from Maggie’s waist. For several minutes now Maggie had been resting her head against his chest; her arms tightly around his waist. Her breathing had slowed, but she was no closer to falling asleep then she had been the day before. She was still, quietly whispering to him;
“Douglas sees me as a child. Simon’s my very own brother or puppy, though sometimes I scare him. But you, you see me as the odd woman who tried to save you. I think I could like you so much. I do like you.” A small cough escaped her throat. “Warren? I feel funny.”
Gingerly Warren pushed Maggie away from him. Her face was even paler than usual. Normally Warren would have dismissed it as an effect of the sedatives, except there was a small bit of blood in the right corner of her mouth. Her eyes were glued to his chest, where a splash of red blood stained his black tee-shirt.
“I don’t . . .that doesn’t. . .” Maggie swallowed her voice tiny; scared. “Warren?” Frantically her hands moved to her mouth, smearing the blood across her right cheek. “It has to come off. Take off your shirt, they can’t see. They can’t.,” Maggie grabbed hold of his tee-shirt, pulling at it in a fury of nerves. “Please.”
Maggie was bleeding, an impossible thing. The impossible woman was doing an impossible thing. Every part of Warren’s brain registered the whole thing as false, yet it was as true as his feelings for her. She had coughed the blood onto his shirt; she had spent the whole day slowly losing her mind.
Grabbing Maggie’s hands, he held them firmly against his chest. He focused his eyes on hers, his voice as calm as he could manage. “It’s going to be okay, Maggie. We’ll all take care of this. You’ve just got a little blood trying to get out. We’ll fix it.”
Biting her lower lip, Maggie shook her head. “What if I kill you with my blood?”
With a light scoff, Warren smiled. “Kill me deader? Doubtful.”
She considered this for a moment. Werewolf blood hurt vampires, but there was no record of her blood hurting them. The vampire that had drunk from her had survived, and this was only a little blood on Warren’s shirt. There was a chance that it could all work out in the end; just as long as no one else knew of her little incident. “No telling Douglas and Simon, though. They’ll cancel everything.”
“Maggie, Maggie, you’ve got me in a tight spot. We’ll tell them after we come home. Unless it happens again, then all promises are off. Agreed?”
Maggie smiled. He had thought the smile would be weak. Warren had thought he would see her as an ill person now. Oddly tiny and pale; her long and curly brown locks seemed perfectly welcoming against her pale neck. When she smiled, her eyes shone; she still looked like perfection personified.
“I agree to your terms, James Warren. I promise it’ll be better once we’re all in the countryside.”
*
It was such a simple idea that Simon was surprised no one - especially Andrews - had thought of it before. They had moved Maggie around in coffins and now Andrews was trying sedatives; sedatives that were making her ill. But, not one had thought of a moving lorry. It was a tightly secure place for her - no openings. There were two issues, though. One: it would be very similar to her stone prison and two: there was still the problem of getting her the ten feet from the house to the lorry. He wouldn’t try the sedatives again, that much Simon knew. He had thought of putting a pillowcase over Maggie head, but the neighbors might talk; and, he wasn’t sure if a pillowcase was thick enough to stop her pain.
Getting the moving lorry had been the easiest part of his plan. Simon had rented one for a week, something that had cost him half his bank account. It was worth it, if it meant that Maggie could see the country side.
*
At Maggie’s insistence Warren had gotten rid of the evidence. He had changed and put his shirt in the wash while she washed her face with warm water. Watching her scrub her face - even after the blood was long gone - made Warren shift uncomfortably. He wanted to turn from the bathroom doorway and give her some privacy, but he just couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her alone. Not with the dark thoughts he knew were filling her head.
Her words from earlier kept echoing in his own mind: she didn’t bleed. It was impossible. And when impossible girls starting doing impossible things, that was cause for worry. Warren was nearly sure the sedatives were to blame; they had made her act oddly. But, there was more to it, Warren was sure of it. Maggie’s body wasn’t acting normal; he just wasn’t sure what her ailment was.
“And you’re sure nothing like this has ever happened before?”
Maggie dropped her hands from her now red cheeks. Glancing at Warren she frowned slightly. “No. Yes. Stick a sword into my belly and the exit point is healed as you pull the sword from the entry point, with no blood. Shoot me in the head with a bullet: no blood and the entry point healed even as the bullet exits my head.”
“Yes,” Warren spoke gently, “but those are injuries. This was internal. Have you ever been ill?”
Biting her lower lip, Maggie nodded. “Before, with some of the other Keepers, things would happen. If they were gone for long periods of time, even just two weeks, I would get very weak and go away a lot. It only happened sometimes. And,” she went on quickly, seeing Warren’s lips start to part. “Douglas is with me every day. He just goes to work. He’s been leaving early lately and taking more hours, but he’s still here at night.”
To go from being with someone for fifteen hours of the day, for twelve years, to barely seeing them could be a reason. Yes, that had to be it. Warren wasn’t quite sure how it all worked, but he did know that there were rules and privileges to being Maggie’s human care taker. For one, Andrews was never ill and, according to Simon, Andrews couldn’t be hurt. In exchange - in theory - Maggie took bits of his energy, maybe even his life force. To go from full meals to snacks, that was enough to mess with anyone’s systems. Then, there were the sedatives. While a good idea, the damn things hadn’t helped.
“Maggie,” Warren swallowed. He shifted uncomfortably under her gaze, feeling like a little boy who’d been caught in a lie. “maybe you should ask Andrews if you can move to the country?”
“Pardon?”
“It’s farther away, so he and Simon would have to stock up on supplies. But, it’s so far from people that you could go outside anytime you like. And Simon could transform in the wilderness instead of a basement; less chance he’ll be found out. I told you before, didn’t I? That I asked a vampire about werewolves and even you. That might have tipped someone off. It was stupid of me, I see that now. You’d all be safe and Andrews would spend more time with you. You’d like to have Simon and Andrews around more, wouldn’t you?”
She stared at him for a long moment, seriously giving it some thought. There was a large part of her that liked that idea - and yet, Maggie knew it would never work. Things were better off the way they were, even if she didn’t always like them. “It’s a nice fantasy, but it would never work. I can’t have them living just for me. I would hate myself if I made them be that far away from society. It’s maddening never seeing anyone. Humans need interaction. We should stay as we are.”
There so much more that Warren wanted to say, but any moment that he and Maggie might have shared was ruined by the vibration of his phone. With a frown, Warren slipped his hand into his jeans pocket and pulled it out. A little envelope alerted him to the fact that he had a new text message from Simon. The message read: ’Come outside. Tell Maggie to pack. We’re leaving tonight.’
A soft smile began to form on Warren’s face. “We’re leaving tonight. Simon’s got a surprise. Go get your things. I’ll go see what it is.”
Maggie took a step forward, before stopping herself. “What about Douglas?”
“I’m sure he’s coming.” Warren reassured her with another smile. “He wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
*
At last count, Andrews had noticed five voice messages from Simon. He knew that he should check them, maybe even call the younger man back, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not after the way Simon had acted earlier. Andrews didn’t much like the idea of Simon accusing him of wanting out of his responsibilities toward Maggie. Nor was he very fond of Simon trying to suggest that the sedatives wouldn’t work properly. As far as Andrews had been able to figure out, the only way to get Maggie out of their home was by sedation or coffin, and he had promised her long ago that he would never put her in another coffin.
Andrews still remembered when he had taken Maggie out of her old apartment. The way she had stiffened when she was focused to enter the coffin; the way she had rocked back and forth still stayed with him. He had never seen more fear than he had that night. When he had unlocked the lid, Andrews had found claw marks. He had asked her about it, then, and she had told him of her hundred years in the stone prison and of the fear of being forgotten and abandoned.
Andrews wanted to go straight home and tell Simon everything. He wanted to tell Maggie he was sorry for what was happening to her, but that it was the only way. Sadly his car wouldn’t start, which meant he was stuck. No one was answering their mobiles; no matter how many times Andrews called.
He was about to just walk home when a tapping interrupted Andrews’ thoughts. Glancing to his right, he noticed Henry standing at the passage side door, gently knocking on the window. With a small smile, Andrews got out of the car.
“Fancy meeting you here,” Henry said with a grin. “I thought you’d be gone by now.”
“My car. . .is, there’s a problem with it. I need to get home.” He sighed hopelessly. “You wouldn’t-“
“Bring you home? Of course, yes! I’ll bring you. Could you wait an hour or so? I have some things to finish up in my office.”
Of course he did. It would give him more time to figure out just what he wanted to say to Simon and Maggie.
*
It was the silliest thing Warren had seen,; and, he had seen some silly things. Simon stood on the curve of the street, leaning lazily against a medium sized moving lorry. The lorry’s white cab door said ‘Cooper’s Movin’. Smiling broadly, Simon tapped the metal of the hold. Wordlessly Warren walked over and to the back of the moving lorry; the wide door was up.
“What did you do?” Warren questioned, his nose wrinkled in confusion. Simon had put a mattress, hurricane lamp, radio, and walkie-talkie in the back. It looked like a kidnappers’ van.
Joining him, Simon continued to smile. “I rented it for a week. It’s how we’ll get Maggie to the country. “It’s a great idea. The metal is three inches thick - just like the curtains inside. We just have to get her from the house to the back. We lock her in, and go. Easy.”
“Ah,” Warren raised an eyebrow, glanced back at the house, and back to Simon. “and what does Andrews say about all this? Leaving tonight, using a moving lorry, it’s a bit fast.”
“I doubt he cares much.” Simon didn’t even bother to hide the annoyance in his voice. Andrews had been acting weirder and weirder; forgetting his promises and responsibility. “He’s probably drinking tea and kissing a girl nearly a decade his junior. Do you know what would happen if I did that?”
Warren laughed under his breath. “You’d be jailed.” Glancing back at the house, Warren thought of Maggie. She was so excited about the country. But, there was a bit of a problem with going this routine. “Doesn’t this thing,” he pointed to the back of the moving lorry,. “remind you of anything?” Simon raised a confused eyebrow, his smile slowly fading. “Like a big cement box that a certain beautiful girl was trapped inside?”
“Oh,” Simon ran a hand through his dark hair. “But, it’s different. There’s light and she can
talk to us on the walkie-talkie. Anything is better than those damn sedatives. I want to go tonight. I’ve called Andrews and told him. Let’s ask Maggie. She has a right to decide.”
*
What was happening to her? It was a question that Maggie couldn’t get out her mind, even as she packed a few belongings into her favorite black leather suitcase. She didn’t bleed, or get sick. But, the sedatives were doing this to her, that couldn’t be denied. Maybe it really was like Warren had suggested. For twelve years she had spent most of her day - everyday - with Andrews. But lately he had been spending more and more time away from home. Maggie wasn’t completely sure how it worked, but she knew that her Keepers being around kept her healthy, and when they weren’t around, bad things happened.
“Maggie,” Knocked out of her thoughts, Maggie turned to see Simon leaning against the frame of her attic door. “I have a surprise for you: a moving lorry instead of sedatives as a way to get you to the country. Not bad, right? There’s just one thing - how do you feel about putting one of the curtains over your head?”
“Pardon?” Maggie raised an eyebrow in confusion.
“In theory it should work.” Simon went on quickly. “And it’s just a few feet from the door to the back of the lorry.”
Maggie had to agree that in theory it sounded about right. But, she still wasn’t quite sure. “What if it hurts?”
"I won't hurt you, my sweet Twinkle."
“What?”
Waving a dismissive hand, Simon shrugged. “I just heard it from a film. Anyway, I promise it wouldn’t hurt. And if it does, you can hit me.”
There could be pain, but anything was better than the sedatives. Nodding, Maggie picked up her suitcase. “Let’s try it.”
TBC in Part 2