Evelyn Stones
May 06, 2019 4:20 PM
Feeling awash. by Evelyn Stones
The crumpled paper in Evelyn's fist had been balled and unballed a hundred times since she'd received it that morning. She was glad that it was a Saturday, because at least it meant she didn't have to face classes, but she wasn't feeling too up to facing breakfast either. She'd gotten up before anyone else and come down to the room where everything seemed to happen. She'd come here with Malikhi and with Ness, and now she was here alone. She wasn't sure whether she really hoped someone would come in, or whether she hoped they wouldn't.The truth was that she'd been here with her mother, too, and now that all seemed very far away. Of course, when she'd been here with her mother, it hadn't been in MARS. Today, the room was taking on the seaside near her home. It wasn't perfect; there were details she hadn't quite gotten right but couldn't remember exactly, and there was an obvious lack of life about the whole thing, but it was close. The waves crashed and broke along the rocky cliffside, the sun beat down on the backs of the silver clouds that were nearly always present on the Oregon coast, and Evelyn sat in the grass, overlooking it all. She was alone, and she thought she might always be.
I'll come back, but I don't know when.
The fact that Evelyn's mother had bothered to write at all was some relief, she supposed. It would've been worse if she just hadn't come to the concert, or if she'd had to hear from her father. At least this way, she felt like she had options, even if she knew that weren't really true. The worst, though, was that her mother wouldn't even say where she'd gone.
I've spent so long worrying about you and your father, and now with Charles James there, I just can't keep it up. I've had to go.
Had to go. Had to go. Because of Evelyn and her father.
Some part of Evelyn was being irrational, and hated Professor Skies, Ness, and the rest of Sonora for ever making anything change at home. At the same time, where would she be if it hadn't? Much worse off, if she could even imagine that. And at least now she wouldn't have to explain everything. When she finally did get around to telling Professor Skies and Ness, they would already sort of understand. Ness would undoubtedly get that concerned look that filled those eyes whenever they watched Evelyn talk about home, and Evelyn wouldn't have any words of consolation this time. Malikhi knew a little bit, but he'd been so distant since his own father's passing that Evelyn doubted he was really in a place to help much. At least he would probably understand the loss of a parent better than the others, but it felt selfish to say that their losses were anything alike. Malikhi's dad wouldn't ever have left him if he could've had a choice, and Evelyn's mother was leaving of her own accord. Plus, she was a muggle, which probably ruled out any sympathy from Malikhi over the whole thing.
No, the onus seemed to be on Evelyn to keep it all to herself, and she did so physically by clutching the letter tightly to her chest and crying, adding her own saltwater tears to the ocean breeze. Her makeup couldn't run off because she wasn't wearing any, but it wasn't because of any desire to be comfortable this time, and it wasn't the au naturale Evelyn that Ness and Malikhi sometimes saw. Instead, it was the ragged, sunken, pale face of a girl who'd been woken up by the tapping of an owl at her window and a letter that she hated waiting for her. Her blue and pink and purple hair had faded a little, and she thought she probably looked more sea-bleached than she had during any real spring time here.
Evelyn looked down when she noticed light coming from below her face, and found that she'd managed to catch fire, the letter in her hand engulfed in flames. She gasped and threw it aside, but it was too late; the letter was only ashes now. She stared for a moment before laughing hysterically, ending in panicked sobs and sharp gasping breaths. She'd only ever managed water by accident before, except a few odd tricks here and there. At least now she knew she was capable of more than that.
She thought it would be nice to climb or scream or something, but decided that that all took too much work, and she simply laid down instead. The cool grass felt good on her hands, and she was glad that the fire had gone out before she'd done anything to damage the environment here. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and wished that she was waking up instead of falling asleep as her memory forced her to relive a letter she could now no longer read.
Whatever you may think, I love you. I just have to love myself right now, too.
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Evelyn Stones
Feeling awash.
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Heinrich
May 07, 2019 2:34 PM
Rest. It does a body good. by Heinrich
Heinrich rarely slept well. Even after the worst of his anxiety released after telling Professor Hawthorne his secret, then further expanding upon it with Professor Brooding, he had not shaken his anxiety completely. He still worried what his classmates would think of him if they knew. He still worried that he had no friends. He worried what would happen if he did make a friend. He worried about bludgers taking out Hilda. (Which was a disservice, because she was a very good beater and he was the one far more likely to be struck from the sky during any given game or practice.) He worried about Hilda’s English development (a much more appropriate worry) and her grades. He worried about his own homework assignments and tests. He worried about Hansel helping Uncle Karl with the snakes and getting bit. He revisited every conversation he’d had during the day and critiqued his own English, and worried about how his words might have been misunderstood. He worried about rain in the next upcoming Quidditch match. He worried about the trip to Germany Johana Leonie had proposed.There were a wide multitude of things to worry about, really, and his brain insisted on visiting every one them nightly. They kept him up late, and woke him up early. If it was after 4, he didn’t bother trying to go back to sleep.
Today was an early one. He did homework in his room until curfew was lifted, then went for some breakfast. He was early enough to miss Hilda, which was probably a good thing because she’d ask him what was wrong and there was nothing to tell her. Everything was fine. He just didn’t sleep well. Again.
Too many more of those conversations and she might stop believing him.
But there wasn’t anything wrong. Everything was fine. Would he like to not have assassins for parents? Yes, but there was nothing he could do about that and it didn’t seem to bother Hilda the way it did him, so it must just be him who was dealing badly and he didn’t want to make her start worrying, too. Worrying sucked.
After eating, he decided to stretch his legs. He walked for a little while and found himself in front of the MARS water room. An impulse to walk along a beach made him push open the door.
At first, he thought he was alone. He’d had no particular beach in mind, though he had never yet made it out to a real ocean, so he’d kind of expected a lake with sandy shores rather than a rocky cliff overlooking the ocean, but the desolate crashing of the distant waves suited his mood closely enough that he hadn’t been at all surprised by the scene he walked into. It could have come from him.
But it hadn’t. Someone else was here, he realized pretty quickly. Evelyn Stones, who had shared German food with him at the Fair, was asleep in the grass.
He debated backing out and leaving her undisturbed. He considered just letting her rest (he wondered if her night had been as bad as his) and just give her a wide berth as he walked along her cliffside.
But what he did was kneel down next to her and blanket her with his school robe. And then he just knelt there, keeping silent vigil. Because there was nothing to be done about his other worries, but here, now, he could protect Evelyn’s sleep.
Because sleep was important, and he missed it.
After only a few minutes, though, between her steady breathing and the rhythmic crashing of the waves below and his own sleep deficiency, he found his own eyes growing heavy. He laid down on the grass, too.
Soon, his even breathing joined hers.
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Heinrich
Rest. It does a body good.
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Evelyn Stones
May 07, 2019 5:44 PM
But not like this. by Evelyn Stones
Evelyn wasn't totally sure what the names were for all the things she felt when she woke up. The fact that she was warm and cozy beneath a blanket was comforting, but the fact that it was an unfamiliar smell was disconcerting. The fact that she'd left herself vulnerable long enough to have been touched in her sleep without waking up was both a good sign -- she hadn't been kicked or anything -- but also made her feel as though anything in the world could've happened while she was asleep. She also heard three different breaths in the air: her own, the inhale and exhale of the ocean itself, and a stranger's. Finally, she remembered why she was here in the first place, and thought of the letter and her mother and her father and CJ and everything else, and she thought that going back to sleep might be the very best, even if it wasn't safe anymore. She hardly cared. But that scared her, too.These thoughts ran through her mind before she opened her eyes. She'd gotten into the habit of waking up with her eyes closed when she was much younger; it was important to know exactly what you were waking up to before you decided whether you really wanted to wake up or not. In this case, she thought it was probably best to go ahead and open her eyes and discover which stranger was breathing shared air with her, and whose blanket she was wearing.
As always happens, Evelyn took a deep breath as she opened her eyes, resigning herself to be all the way awake. The sky above her was still the mottled grey and blue that was so prevalent off the Oregon coast, and she was glad that nothing had melted or stormed up too bad while she'd dozed. Unfortunately, she had no way of knowing what time of day it was without seeing the real world sky, however real this may all seem to her.
Finally, she did what had to be done, and considered her situation more closely, making observations as she went. The fabric that was keeping her so warm and smelled so unfamiliar was much more familiar than she'd expected, as it was the same dark green that she saw and wore every day. It was much bigger than she was, though, which wasn't hard since most people in the school were bigger than she was, especially if they were her age. It was a nice smelling robe, though, which struck her as interesting. She was usually pretty sensitive to the smells of anger and alcohol that accompanied her waking up more often than she liked to think about. When that wasn't the case, it was because she was at Sonora, waking up alone in her bed in her dorm. Now, neither of those things were true.
Turning her head as imperceptibly as possible, Evelyn was surprised to find that the student beside her was sleeping as well, and that she knew him. Heinrich Hexenmeister, the boy with darkness in his eyes and sadness on his shoulders, all despite the smile on his face, had found her sleeping, given her his robe, and laid down a safe distance away to sleep as well. She wondered if he planned it that way, or if he'd just fallen asleep. There was something that felt . . . personal . . . almost intimate . . . about falling asleep to the same waves and the same winds and the same open space. More than that was the fact that this was her beach from her home.
She remembered the way he'd been kind to her at the fair the previous year, and he'd seemed almost excited when she wanted to try German food with him. At the same time, how many people paid him any attention? It didn't mean he was nice or safe, it meant he was lonely. Maybe. The fact that her gut hadn't told her to get up and run had to mean something, though, too, right?
Evelyn pushed herself into a sitting position, instinctively curling herself underneath Heinrich's robe and feeling very small for very many reasons. Her hair was smushed all over, the result of napping on the ground with a saltwater breeze in the air, and her eyes felt sticky. She wondered if she'd fallen asleep crying.
Suddenly the realisation that maybe Heinrich had been there just for that reason crossed her mind, and her throat felt thick. It felt like Heinrich was there, and so no one else would be; Evelyn would wake up safely. That's exactly what had happened. She'd also slept better under his robe, warm and safe, than she might've otherwise. She didn't quite feel like an empty shell the way she did on other occasions when she'd fallen asleep after a bout of devastation. What was different about this?
She supposed the least she could do was exactly what he'd done for her then, particularly since it wasn't the least at all. No; if that was the case, he'd done the most anyone could do for her just then. Perhaps she could repay the favor.
Pulling her knees up to her chin, Evelyn took a moment to adjust Heinrich's robe around herself and wrapped her thin, frail arms around her legs, her mangled arm crossing over the top of her normal one. It was a habit she picked up when the twisted, gnarled injuries there were fresh, and she let herself dive tentatively into her memories as she looked out over the waves and listened to Heinrich sleep. Somehow, everything seemed a little bit closer to okay.
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Evelyn Stones
But not like this.
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Heinrich
May 08, 2019 10:23 AM
No, pretty sure this was better rest than my room gives me by Heinrich
He became aware of the sound of waves first. Then he noticed the salt in the very air he was breathing. This was not home. This was not Utah. And this was not school. His forehead creased in confusion and he sat up, and opened his eyes. Where was -Oh. He saw Evelyn sitting up, looking out over the cliffside to the ocean beyond and he remembered. This was at school. MARS just had the ability to look and sound and even smell completely different from the rest of the place. Right.
He rubbed the sleep sand from his eyes and wondered how long he’d been out. He did feel more rested than he had in a while, so it had probably been more than just a short doze.
“Erm, hi,” he said, a little awkwardly, because as simple and innocent as the morning had been, they were still more strangers than not, even if she had enjoyed eating German food. They weren’t even in the same classes this year, with him moving up to intermediates and her still being in her second year of beginners. And they had just technically slept together. Completely platonically. At further than an arm’s reach from each other. But slept. Together. On a isolated cliff near the ocean, that may or may not mean something significant to her. And she was still wrapped up in his robe.
It was just a little bit weird. And it was probably all his fault because he hadn’t just left.
Had that been Wrong? He couldn’t tell. He hadn’t destroyed a problem or anything though, so it was probably okay? Maybe he would ask Professor Brooding the next time he worked as her assistant.
He shifted around to mimic her position, looking out at the sea, close, to be companionable, but not too close, so he didn’t come across as pushy or invasive. The last thing he wanted to be was invasive.
“Did you have a good nap?” he asked carefully, his English coming out a little slow even for him on account of him having just been unconscious and his brain not being fully up to speed yet. He figured that was a safer topic than why she’d come out to this place to sleep in the first place. That would surely be invasive.
His own rest had been unexpectedly good, even without a mattress, pillow, or blanket. Maybe he ought to try sleeping with wave sounds in his room tonight, see if that helped any. The distant crashing sounds were pretty calming even now. Or maybe it was the crisp salty air. He wasn’t sure he was quite up to making that effect himself yet, but maybe he could do a little research later today to see just how hard a charm like that might be to learn. A goal was always a good thing to have.
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Heinrich
No, pretty sure this was better rest than my room gives me
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Evelyn Stones
May 09, 2019 1:29 AM
Okay, I'll give you that much. by Evelyn Stones
OOC - Not necessarily a content warning, but this does include the thought processes of someone who very much is not thinking rationally and is not reflective of abuse survivors' culpability.IC -
Evelyn didn't jump when Heinrich woke up, and she wasn't sure why. She did have the sensation of being caught though, and was mildly embarrassed to be sitting there awkwardly with his robe on. At the same time . . . he started it. Heinrich said hi and was quiet, and Evelyn just gave him a polite nod. She wanted to smile, to thank him for his kindness and for seeing her, to breathe a little easier, but none of it came. However, she also sort of wanted to scream, and ask him why he was there, and demand to know his motives, and she also didn't do that. Altogether, neutral was a pretty good place to be.
They were quiet for what seemed like no time at all. It was easy silence, despite the inherent awkwardness of it all. She was actually aware of the fact that they might have been friends if they were in the same year. He was only a little bit older than Evelyn was, but that was all the difference at Sonora, where it meant they were separated this year. They'd worked together some the year before, but there had been other things than friendship on Evelyn's mind at the time. Like survival.
Now that all seemed to come back to her, even though the rational part of her brain was aware that things were much better now than they were then. She was afraid that if she gave up on self-pity, as she would have to if she were reasonable, then she would move onto self-hatred, and she was too busy hating her parents at the moment.
Really, it probably hadn't been any time at all. He was just sitting, not too close and not too far. But most importantly, not too close. And then he asked about her nap. It was such a kind thing to ask about, and so simple. It wasn't demanding details about the things that seemed more immediately pressing, like their surroundings or the fact that she hadn't returned his robe yet.
Evelyn was still feeling bitter, and almost let it come out of her mouth. However, when she thought about the question, she realized she'd actually slept pretty well. That was odd.
"Good," she admitted, her voice lighter and more honest than she'd meant it to be. She decided it would be best to just give up on worrying so much for right now. It was exhausting anyway. "I haven't slept well for a long time," she admitted, thinking back to Christmas at the McLeods' before explaining with a shrug: "Family stuff. Thanks for . . . I dunno. Thanks for everything."
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Evelyn Stones
Okay, I'll give you that much.
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Heinrich
May 09, 2019 11:34 AM
Family Stuff does suck though by Heinrich
Heinrich was surprised by how accurately Evelyn’s words matched his own thoughts about their respective recent sleeps. But when she added the reason for her poor sleep of late, Heinrich couldn’t help but turning his head to look at her directly in frank, open-mouthed shock.Professor Brooding had said there were other students here with less than amazing families. He hadn’t even disbelieved her. He just hadn’t expected to run into one and find out about it without . . . he didn’t know. Employing legilimancy or something.
Which he (a) couldn’t do, and (b) would probably feed his bad wolf, so he hadn’t expected to know when he found such a person.
Well, he supposed he still didn’t. She just said family stuff was messing with her sleep. It could be normal family stuff. Not all of his family worries were related to the one really bad thing.
He looked back out at the ocean. “Yeah,” he agreed, with two parts sympathy, and one part bitterness. “Family stuff is corrosive. Not good for sleep.”
He hesitated a moment at her thanks, not sure he had done much of anything to earn it, but if she thought he had, it was polite to be gracious. “You’re welcome.” It was one of the few phrases he’d learned early on as a contraction before he knew what contractions were, and that they were generally more appropriate for casual conversation than academic writing. And since he prioritize excellence in academic writing in English over casual conversation, and he wasn’t yet skilled enough in the language to easily switch between forms, it was one of the few phrases where he actually conformed to a more informal phraseology.
He fell silent for a little bit, thinking about his own family stuff more than wondering about hers, but curiosity was there. Did she have parents with bad wolves, too? He wondered if that was too intrusive to ask. He wasn’t sure he wanted her asking that of him, so it probably was. So he didn’t.
Instead he just stared out at the horizon and remarked, all too casually, with a feigned indifference like opening up to anybody who wasn’t a teacher was something he had any kind of experience doing.
“I have not slept well since moving to America either.” He almost left it at that. Let her draw her own conclusions about why that was. The culture. The language. Uprooting his whole life to the other side of the planet. But she had told him, so it it was only fair to reciprocate. “Family stuff.” It was a nice vague term she had used. He liked it. It encompassed all of the problem, but gave nothing of the details away.
He stared out over the waves, and added, for accuracy, “Most family stuff. English also make problem. I lose sleep from English, too.” He grimaced out at the ocean. Idly, he picked up a small pebble and tossed it off the cliff with the force of tightly bottled frustration finding a pinpoint outlet. “You think English be the biggest problem. Living in a place, not speaking same language. English should be the biggest problem.” He hugged his knees tightly to his chest, mirroring Evelyn’s pose.
“English is not the biggest problem. English gets better. English can be fixed.”
He suddenly wondered if that was why Hilda hated the language so much. Why she refused to work at learning it. Did she want English to be her biggest problem? Was she just pushing all of her anger and resentment for everything else at English because it was the easier target?
Did Hilda hate English so much so that she wouldn’t need to deal with the underlying reason of why she needed to learn it? If she fixed her English then she’d have to face that it wasn’t new vocabulary and grammar rules that she was really angry at.
It was that Mom and Dad were never the people they thought they were. Hilda might be aware of that, but she hadn’t accepted it. She suspected it, but didn’t believe it.
And English was her scapegoat until she did. And he did understand why she was so furious with the language and it had nothing to do with weird verb placements or letters making the entirely wrong sound (or being ignored completely, begging the question of why they were in the word in the first place). No, she had every right to be mad because, with work and effort and practice, English could be mastered but . . .
“Family stuff can not be fixed.”
And that just didn’t seem fair.
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Heinrich
Family Stuff does suck though
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Evelyn Stones
May 09, 2019 5:21 PM
Do you think family just sucks as a whole? by Evelyn Stones
Evelyn thought it was sort of funny to hear Heinrich stumble through some of his sentences, and then also come out with words like corrosive. She supposed that was part of his Aladren nature, but she appreciated it too. Corrosive was the word used for chemicals that eat away at metals, and stuff like that. To think that Family Stuff ate away at sleep . . . dissolved it into nothingness . . . that hurt. But it also felt right.Evelyn nodded, not even really sure if Heinrich would see it. He'd looked so surprised to hear her give the brief explanation that she'd given, but then he also agreed. Was there something going on with him that he didn't want to talk about? She had met his sister, and they seemed to get along well, so she thought that it probably wasn't that.
Silence expanded between them again and it felt nice to be silent in their shared understanding of poor sleep and poor families. He seemed stressed, and she recognized the tightly-wound, ready-to-snap sort of tone he used when he spoke of his move to America and of English. She couldn't imagine dealing with all of that, although she'd probably be willing to move across the world and learn German if it meant she didn't have to think about home anymore. Home.
"English is a problem though, too, because it doesn't ever have the right Words," Evelyn pointed out. "I don't know if any language really lets you open up all the bad dreams that stick with you after you wake up. You can't ever get them out."
She sort of hated him a little bit for making her more emotional, but she figured that it wasn't really his fault that his comments made her want to cry. Everything made her want to cry right now, and a kind boy understanding a little bit wasn't really to blame about that.
"I'll learn German if you want," she said, shrugging. It made the most logical sense to help him out a bit by jumping in the same sinking ship. Or at least by helping him paddle it. "You'd have to help me, but I'd love to learn." She thought of Katerina refusing to help her learn Russian. At the time, it had made sense. Now, she was just angry about everything.
Family stuff can not be fixed.
Okay, now that really wasn't fair. Evelyn's voice was thick and her eyes were damp when she spoke again. She hated crying in front of anyone and had made it basically her life goal not to let anyone see her cry. That hadn't worked out, but a girl could dream.
"I thought mine was fixed," she sniffed hard, trying to pretend she wasn't. "I thought everything was going to be okay, but it never is, is it? You're right. It doesn't get fixed."
She thought it would be nice if she could swear a bunch, or shout, or run a really long ways. She thought that thirteen years old seemed very big and very small, all at once; the world was very big, and she was very small, but her world was very small, and she was very big. Nothing made sense anymore.
Anger washed over her, replacing her self-pity with all the frustration and anger and rage directed outward at all the adults in the world that weren't going to help her at all. "Why do we have to deal with it? That's the real question. Why do you and me have to deal with all the crappy stuff our families do. They're adults, aren't they supposed to make it better?" She mirrored Heinrich's previous action and chucked a rock. She had always been very careful never to turn to violence, because she thought that she probably would be just like her dad if she did. Wasn't that just so nice of him to expose her to all the crappy things she could grow into? Thanks, dad.
"We're supposed to worry about grades, and first kisses, and holidays with friends," she demanded, just shy of a shout. "We're not supposed to have to worry about grades because we can't sleep because of crappy parents, or first kisses that we just can't even care about, or holidays with friends that might come over and see all the things we try to pretend don't suck. This is so . . . ugh!" There were no words and she settled on flopping down onto her back, which hurt a bit but felt good. She was embarrassed for having said so much but didn't care enough about anything to really be very embarrassed either. "I think that I hate everything, and I don't want to," she murmured.
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Evelyn Stones
Do you think family just sucks as a whole?
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Heinrich
May 09, 2019 10:56 PM
My siblings are fine. Uncle Karl is okay. Parents stink. by Heinrich
He was surprised again when Evelyn, a native speaker, called English a problem for lacking enough words. But then, she seemed to want to use them for things he didn't use German for either. Talking about his nightmares had never much appealed to him. He preferred a more denial based approach to dealing with bad dreams.He was even more surprised when she offered to learn German for him. They were hardly close friends. This was only the second time they'd talked outside of class. Though, to be fair, it was a pretty intense second meeting. "I can teach basics," he offered, but he was three years into immersive language learning and he might be technically fluent - in that he could understand most of what was said to him and communicate most of what he needed to say on a daily basis - but he was by no means a flawless speaker and he was sure he missed a lot of subtleties in what he heard. He didn't expect he could get Evelyn much past where Hilda was now. He wasn't against trying though. Especially if it meant there was another person in the school who might be able to help Hilda communicate with everyone else, if only by a little. If nothing else, Evelyn would be more willing language student than Hilda was. "Language is hard, though," he warned.
When she griped that she thought her family had been fixed, he felt a moment of crushing envy, followed immediately by crushing second-hand disappointment. Without knowing the circumstances, he could only guess that whatever her family stuff was had been able to improve (which was enviable, because nothing about his could) but then it relapsed, and that was just altogether soul-sucking because that meant even fixable problems could be un-fixed. And that might almost be worse. At least he knew his situation was stable and permanent.
No, he knew the uncertainty was worse, because he'd lived that his first year. The hope that the trial might find them innocent. It made the final verdict all that much harder when that hope was destroyed. Now there was no hope. Nothing could change what was.
He listened carefully to her tirade as it burst out of her, then sat quietly in the silence that followed, contemplating over what she'd said.
"There are things to not hate. You can try to focus on those," he recommended after a few moments. "I focus on Hilda and Hansel. Hansel is my youngest sibling," he added, because there was no reason why she would know that name. "He is six."
"My situation can not be fixed," he said cautiously after another moment's pause, because his comment had seemed to be what set her off, and he felt bad about it. "I not know what your situation is or if it can be. We live with Uncle Karl now. That will never change. Deutschland is not safe for us. Too much bad wolfs got out." He doubted she would understand that last part, not unless she was also receiving informal counseling from Professor Brooding, but maybe she would take it as a poorly translated German metaphor for something close to what he meant.
Though she might think there had been an actual wolf attack and they were orphans now, or that his parents got turned into werewolves, or something equally tragic and wolf-related, so he quickly added, "That is metaphor. No real wolfs." He irritably chucked another pebble. "Just my parents being," he paused, hoping he was catching the slang correctly, then repeated her word, "crappy."
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Heinrich
My siblings are fine. Uncle Karl is okay. Parents stink.
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Evelyn Stones
May 10, 2019 12:28 AM
*nods* Parents stink. by Evelyn Stones
Language was hard, and Evelyn didn't doubt that at all. She also looked forward to the distraction of something that was totally possible (unlike her academics), and totally not family related (unlike . . . everything else). Plus, it might make her a new friend, and Heinrich was less confusing than others she'd met so far; he understood her anger and didn't hold it against her or want her to let it go, and he didn't have so much grief that he wasn't really a person anymore. She was pretty sure that such thoughts made her a terrible person, but she preferred not to think about that."How do you say, 'I'd like eggs, please,' in German?" It was important to ask the practical questions first. "Like for breakfast."
Silence was nice. Talking was nice. Either way, Evelyn almost felt comfortable. That was a nice change of pace for a lot of reasons. It hurt to think that she could only really hope for this sort of middling resignation as the closest to happiness right now, and she hated that too. Nothing made any sense anymore.
At first, when Heinrich suggested she think of things that she didn't hate, she was angry. Wow, what great advice!
I hadn't thought of just not being angry yet. Thanks! But then he spoke about his siblings and Evelyn heard the same sense of responsibility and accidental love that she'd felt in herself when she first met CJ. If anything had kept her from deciding outright to run away from home-- or not return, as the case may be-- it was the fact that she'd be leaving her baby brother behind to deal with it if she did that. She wasn't entirely convinced his life would be as bad as hers was, but starting out with a recovering abuse addict and an abandoning mom couldn't help.
The thought made her stomach do flips and she had the urge to throw some more rocks. Laying down made that hard, so she sat up again and pushed some rocks away with her hand, appreciating that she could at least control that much. Of course, the entire room was made up of her mind, so there was that too. Unfortunately, the room couldn't bring her mother back, either physically, or even make her the same mom she'd been before. It couldn't do that for her dad, either. It couldn't make Evelyn a better daughter. Stupid room.
"I have a baby brother. He's almost a year old. His name is Charles James, but I call him CJ." She wanted to ask him whether he ever got jealous of Hansel especially. Did he ever feel like he resented the little baby for being just a baby? For not yet experiencing all the hardships that he had? Maybe for living after it was all done? She didn't know whether Heinrich's family situation was a matter of moving forward with or moving forward from, and she didn't want to pry. "He's very . . . innocent."
The fact that he went on to say he did not live with his parents, and that Germany (she knew that much German!) was not safe for him made her worry. She'd been in a not-safe home before and it was not a good time. But actually moving countries, losing everything, and never getting to go back? That was more intense than just crappy parents.
"You don't have to talk about it," she said quietly, "but if you want to, I'm a good listener." Evelyn took a moment to look at Heinrich-- to really look at him. She wanted to see him, whatever he was willing to let her see. She wondered what he saw in her, and thought she owed it to him to at least look back. "I'm glad that there aren't real wolves though," she added with a soft chuckle. "Although I think I want to hear more about this metaphor, too."
22
Evelyn Stones
*nods* Parents stink.
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Heinrich
May 11, 2019 9:03 PM
Like Hilda's egg by Heinrich
"Eier, bitte," Heinrich translated her, feeling kind of strange going the other way. Usually he translated for a person who didn't understand English well, not for someone unfamiliar with German. It just felt a little backwards, but he thought he could get used to it. It might even be easier. He was sure of his mastery of German. "That is simple, 'eggs, please,' which is easier. Or you say, 'Ich hätte gerne Eier' for the full sentence. 'Eier' is eggs," he added. "Ei for just one. Bitte is please."Heinrich nodded when Evelyn stated that her baby brother was innocent. He got that. "Hansel will probably not remember Mom and Dad," he said. "He was three when . . . we moved. He missed them a lot at first. He cried at night for them to come read to him like they always did. He would mad when we did not make them appear for him . . ." Another small rock sailed over the cliff. "Sometimes now he asks if Mutter und Vater can visit us. He understands not why they are gone, why we leave without them. Uncle Karl is soon more father than Vater to him. He is lucky." It wouldn't save him from the stain entirely, he was still the son of two assassins, still had their blood, but the most advanced thing they'd ever taught Hansel was how to use the potty.
Even Heinrich couldn't see how that could be done evilly.
At the offer to listen, Heinrich just shook his head, but he couldn't help a smile when she offered that she was glad there were no real wolves involved. "I too," he agreed, with the closest thing to humor his voice had carried in a long time.
What he could talk about, though, was the metaphor. "Professor Brooding, she find out about family stuff when I drop too many hints. She tell about metaphor wolfs. People have two wolves. One is good. One is bad. You feed the good one by being good. The bad one you feed by being bad. When you feed one too much and the other too little, you only have one wolf." He hesitated a moment, almost leaving it there, but then added, "Mutter und Vater have big strong bad wolfs. Too big to hide. People saw bad wolfs were too big. They sent us to Uncle in Utah."
He didn't say his parents got sent to prison, but it was a pretty clear corollary. It wouldn't take a huge jump for Evelyn to guess that. What she couldn't guess based on the metaphor, what he didn't want to share, was their exact crime. People went to jail for a lot of things, some of them pretty minor, others one time offenses. Only a very tiny fraction of a percent got sent to prison for being international dark wizard assassins who committed almost two decades worth of murders all over Europe. So she probably wouldn't guess that. If he was really lucky, maybe she'd guess embezzlers. If his parents had to be criminals, why couldn't they be embezzlers? Non-violent. White-collar.
"I listen good, too," he added. "I can not promise I understand all words perfect, but I get close idea usually. I can promise I never share secret. Or you say nothing. That is okay, too. I understand not want share. I share not all either."
1
Heinrich
Like Hilda's egg
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Heinrich
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Evelyn Stones
May 11, 2019 9:36 PM
Exactly like that, no differences at all. by Evelyn Stones
Evelyn repeated Heinrich's German words as carefully as she could, committing them to memory for practice later. Hilda was in her house and she thought that might help, too, although she hadn't talked to the younger Hexenmeister hardly at all. Her pronunciation wasn't very good, but it wasn't awful, and she smiled at Heinrich, thanking him before he answered her question about his brother.It hurt to hear somebody else agree with her. She thought it would feel good to know that she wasn't alone, but it really just meant there were more crappy parents out there being horrible and making their children suffer. Of course, it didn't sound like Mr. and Mrs. Hexenmeister had left for the same reasons that Evelyn's father almost had or that her mother actually had. It almost sounded like they were dead, but Heinrich seemed more bitter than grieving and she doubted that.
"I understand that a little bit," Evelyn said. "Everyone's situation is different and I don't want to pretend that I know exactly what you're going through," she assured him as she began pushing rocks around and writing absentmindedly in the dirt. It felt good to get sand under her nails and the rocky beach was homey. Which was . . . okay. "I think CJ will not understand either." Except that Evelyn wasn't even sure whether her mother was going to stay away forever, and CJ might not even have to ever know that his parents had been bad parents.
Maybe that wasn't fair . . . Evelyn's mother had been a good mom . . . and then a bad mom . . . and now she didn't want to be a mom at all. Did that mean she'd never really been a good mom at all? Evelyn didn't like to think she had two crappy parents. What if . . . no, she didn't want to think about that. but she couldn't quite push away the thought that maybe, just maybe, both her parents were right. Then Heinrich explained Professor Brooding's metaphor and Evelyn felt sick. What if she was the bad wolf and that was why they didn't want to be around her? Maybe they were trying to stamp the bad wolf out?
She was aware that her displeasure appeared on her face in the form of a creased brow, tight lips, and wrinkled nose, so she couldn't exactly say nothing.
"But how do you know which one you're feeding?" she said in a quiet voice. With the sound of waves and things, it was almost imperceptible. She blinked tears away and looked down, only to find that she'd written her own name in sharp letters in the dirt. Evelyn Stones. She brushed her hand back through it, angrily wiping it all away. It hurt to do so, but it was better than staring at just another piece of who she was that her family had given her.
She looked up at Heinrich again, searching his expression for some disbelief that she could be the bad wolf. Would it help if she thought others thought it was impossible? Or would it hurt more to see that no one at school seemed to see what a mess she was? Was she that good at deception? Or did it mean she wasn't bad?
Blinking hard and wiping her eyes with her palm, Evelyn looked away. "Sorry," she said. "I'm sorry. I'm just . . . I'm..." She couldn't even say she was tired now. She was, in a way, but not tired like sleepy tired, so it felt wrong. She didn't want to be a liar. And he was willing to listen, so maybe she should just tell him? But what if his family situation was so much worse that he just laughed at her? It wasn't that bad, anyway, right?
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I just don't know what to think, you know?"
22
Evelyn Stones
Exactly like that, no differences at all.
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Evelyn Stones
0
5
Heinrich
May 15, 2019 11:47 AM
Should be shiny and tasty but just a smelly mess by Heinrich
Heinrich nodded in understanding that her brother likewise would not remember the ‘family stuff’ she was going through, which probably meant her situation was resolved as best it could be as well. At least he hoped so. Ongoing problems were probably worse than the single removal and relocation the Hexenmeisters had faced, traumatic as that had been. At least it was done. They had a new normal now, and Uncle Karl was doing his best.He turned to look at her when her voice got quiet. His glance caught her in time to see her wipe her hand over the rocky ground. It looked like she might be blotting out a drawing, but he hadn’t turned in time to see the original image before it was cleared away. Then she wiped at her eyes and was apologizing for the tears, for not knowing what to think.
“I forgive,” he promised. “But I know not knowing -“ he broke off, getting confused in his grammar, stumping himself of how to arrange the words he wanted to say. He tried again, aiming for a simpler construction. “I know not what I think either.”
He hugged his knees tighter against his chest. “Mutter und Vater had big bad wolfs. But I saw not them, not ever. I think they have good wolfs. So I not know if I just have big bias, if I have very bad insight, or if I completely unable to tell bad from good. I am angry, but I know not if I am mad at them for being bad, or if I am mad at me for being bad at seeing bad. They are mein Mutter und Vater. You think I know them best. I know them not at all. And if I know not them, who know I? Know I even me?”
He pressed his lips together and raked his fingers through the ground of the rocky beach, looking for another good pebble to throw. “I have trust problem now,” he admitted. “Especially against me.”
He did find, though, that he felt both vindicated and relieved that telling the wolves apart was not so easy as Professor Brooding made it sound. But then Evelyn was probably one of the other vaguely mentioned ‘other students’ who also weren’t to be judged by their parents’ actions. He didn’t know what Evelyn’s did, but he thought maybe he might see what Professor Brooding was getting at. Even knowing they did something, his opinion of Evelyn’s likelihood of doing something bad herself wasn’t changing.
Though, to be fair, he was pretty sure, whatever they did do, they hadn’t killed people with dark magic. So there was that.
“I ask how I know which wolf is which, too. Professor Brooding says the bad wolf bites.” He supplied the answer to Evelyn’s question as it was given to him, grimacing in wordless commentary that he found this answer less than entirely helpful. “I ask for better answer. She says do not destroy problems. So I,” he stopped halfway through the motion of throwing the rock he’d just picked up, then put it carefully down next to him and patted it. “I try not destroy anything. I want not my big bad wolf following me.”
He paused, double checking with himself that he really wanted to say this because once it was out, there was no taking it back. “I want not Aurors seeing my big bad wolf, and locking me in prison, too.” He shuddered a little hearing the words come out in his own voice, out loud, where someone could hear. He glanced worriedly over at Evelyn to check her reaction to that revelation because he felt pretty certain, based on her previous lack of comment that he had been too subtle before when he’d tried to tell her earlier, and she’d missed the implication.
Now it was right out there, unmistakable and plain as day. Not the crime, not the life sentence, those he was keeping to himself as long as possible, but Evelyn now knew the main shape of Heinrich’s family stuff.
The aurors had taken his parents away to prison.
1
Heinrich
Should be shiny and tasty but just a smelly mess
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Heinrich
0
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Evelyn Stones
May 15, 2019 3:44 PM
Everything is a smelly mess. by Evelyn Stones
Heinrich's grammar seemed to be suffering, either from emotion or from prolonged use, and Evelyn reaffirmed to herself that she would learn German. She was only 13, so by the time she was an adult, she'd probably be able to speak it pretty well if she worked hard. She hated thinking of anyone going through school alone with their 'family stuff' and alone with their words. That sounded awful. She suddenly had a greater appreciation for what Professor Brooding had taken the time to do in potions class with labels and textbooks, whatever else she thought of the woman. Professors just shouldn't be that happy.Maybe Evelyn was just bitter.
She found herself nodding along as he spoke, his words resonating painfully inside her chest. When he said he had a trust problem, Evelyn grimaced inwardly. She didn't like to admit that she did, but she'd even begun noticing herself the way that she flinched away from Malikhi or even Julius sometimes, and she'd literally come to the MARS room to get away from people, even people like Ness, because she was so convinced that they'd all leave at some point anyway. Her instinct was to be defensive or deny it, but she and Heinrich were long past that point now.
"I do too," she told him. "I saw my parents' bad wolves, but I didn't do anything about it. I think that . . . " She wasn't sure what to say exactly. She didn't want to make this a pity party, although she doubted it would go that way anyway. Maybe it was habit that kept her from saying too much. Besides, she hadn't really seen her mom's bad wolf she didn't think, and she didn't want to lie about it.
"I didn't realize that their wolves were bad until later, and then it all made sense looking back. I feel like I could've done something sooner, or I should've done something differently. I feel like I must be the dumbest person alive not to notice any of it before. If I didn't see it in them, I'm sort of afraid that I'll do something awful someday and then look back and realize that I made a lot of mistakes up until that point, and that I was feeding the bad wolf for a long time."
"The bad wolf bites," she repeated, thinking about that. "Is that why all this sucks so much? We got bit?"
Something about Heinrich putting the rock down, an action which Evelyn observed out of the corner of her eye as she was decidedly searching the horizon for answers at this point, made her relax. There weren't many guys who caught themselves without anybody telling them what they were doing in her experience, and it was nice not to worry about it. Even Malikhi, one of the first times they'd spoken, had grabbed her arms and shaken her roughly. Of course, that didn't mean that Heinrich would never do anything like that, but it was good to see someone choose a better course of action.
"That's how you feed your good wolf," she said, glancing at him and nodding at where he'd put the rock down. "You're already doing better than your family."
She looked away again and Heinrich was quiet for a moment before speaking. He seemed to be thinking, but Evelyn wasn't sure why she thought that. Something about the way the air felt just made her sure of it. When he spoke, it was with great care. Evelyn wasn't normally one to be filled with poetic visions or artistic ideas, but she thought that if a secret were whispered in the cavern of a chest, where a heartbeat was supposed to go, it would sound a lot like Heinrich did just then.
She could feel him looking at her, and looked back at him with searching eyes. There was no pity there and no accusations. There was no fear or repulsion or anything else. She was just looking, watching, and seeing.
"I reported my dad," she said, but she didn't mean to say. She meant to say anything else, but a weight that she hadn't meant to be carrying came out instead. "He didn't go to prison but . . . it wasn't good." She took a big breath and let it all out before speaking again. "Can we help each other? We'll watch out for each other's bad wolves and good wolves." She didn't want to ask him for help, but she was pretty sure she needed somebody who understood. She needed to know she wasn't crazy. It was easier to offer help than to ask for it.
22
Evelyn Stones
Everything is a smelly mess.
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Evelyn Stones
0
5
Heinrich
May 16, 2019 1:31 PM
Agreed. We need some flowers. by Heinrich
She’d seen her parents bad wolves. In retrospect, admittedly, but she’d seen them. Heinrich wondered if that made her better at this, or just unluckier. It was kind of hard to imagine someone being unluckier in parents than the kinds of bad people that make DADA necessary, but Mom and Dad had seemed like pretty decent parents up until the point they got arrested and tried and found guilty for multiple counts of murder and Dark Magic use. That was bad. But their wolves had never bit him. He’d never had to experience his parents being evil where he could see it.Retrospectively, of course, there were signs and clues he knew he had missed. But he was reasonably certain they had been like undercover spies around him and his siblings, their true colors masked, a normal facade in place to conceal what and who they really were. Their bad wolves were penned and hidden out of sight, and just their smaller good wolves allowed out to play. They’d been assassins for nearly twenty years. They were literally professionals at hiding what they did for a living.
Logically, Heinrich simply had not had the experience or training necessary to pierce through their well established veil of deception, nor had he really seen any reason even to suspect such a veil existed and needed to be pierced through. It didn’t lessen his gut feeling that he should have noticed something so integral about the lives of his own parents, but logic was on the side that he could not have been expected to see through lies that had been crafted and honed almost a decade before he’d even been born.
“Yes!” Heinrich exclaimed with feeling as she expressed in English words the thing that kept him awake at night the most. The accidental feeding of the bad wolf. “That,” he agreed, calmer. “I worry for that, too.”
“I think I was not bit,” he said slowly, carefully, stealing her past tense of the verb bite and hoping it was the same for first person singular as it was for first person plural. English was usually pretty kind in just have one past tense form for everything. The trouble was in knowing if it had an ‘-ed’ on the end or if it was one of the many special cases where that didn’t work. ‘To bite’ was apparently one of the later. “I was not close enough to see a bad wolf. I think the big bad wolfs knock ideal statues of parents off pedestal and I cut against broken pieces. You see the bad wolf. You might have a bite.”
He looked at her in surprise when she told him he was feeding his good wolf. It took a moment to realize she meant not throwing the rock, and he resolved himself to be careful about not doing that anymore. He nudged the rock a little further out of reach.
He looked up from the rock in shock as she admitted she was the one who turned in her father. He stared a little, mostly out of surprise, but also partly in horror and awe.
He couldn’t imagine how hard it must have been to actually see that ones’ parents’ wolves were bad, and then be the one to report them. He’d been spared that dilemma. Any injuries he’d taken from the wolves were merely incidental, impersonal; traps from which he’d gotten hurt but for which he had never been the intended target.
Mom and Dad, after all, had never intended to get caught.
If that hadn’t happened, he’d be perfectly ignorant, attending the same German wizarding school Mom and Dad had gone to, living like any other German teen, worrying about grades and maybe girls, and not remotely aware of what was happening in his home’s off-limits basement.
That thought left him feeling more than a little bit nauseous.
And what if he had found out? Would the wolves have turned on him? Or worse, would Mom and Dad have tried to bring him into the family business, teach him how to feed his own bad wolf? Would he have agreed to? Depending on how well they set him up for it, he might have. He didn’t know. He’d always been so keen to learn from them, to make them proud of him.
That’s why his distrusted himself so much now. He didn’t know if they’d already started. He’d always been more readily influenced and guided by authority figures than, say, Hilda was. Hilda was stubborn. She made up her own mind and nothing could sway her once she did. Heinrich . . . was not like that. Heinrich could be persuaded with facts and additional information. If they’d given him wrong information, if they’d massaged the facts just so, made a good case for themselves . . .
He didn’t know that he would have turned them in, even if he had known. He’d want so much to believe them, to trust them. He’d been so crushed by the trial because they’d never even gone on the stand, never tried to defend themselves. Even after all the evidence against them, if they’d just perjured themselves, said it was all lies, he’d have stood a good chance of believing them, but they hadn’t.
He distinctly remembered not wanting to believe the evidence. He distinctly recalled his solid belief that it was all a mistake, that Mom and Dad would not - could not - do the things for which they were accused.
That belief was shattered and broken now, but it had been very strong, strong enough that he could have been led the wrong way if things had gone differently.
“Yes,” he agreed without hesitation at her offer to help each other, because clearly, obviously, he was horribly flawed and needed a watcher. And if she thought the same about herself, she’d probably know that better than he did.
He reached out and picked up the pebble he hadn’t thrown, and offered it to her. “My good wolf. Keep him safe. Call him Guterhund. It means good dog.” Then a concerning thought occurred to him and he frowned. “It disappears when we leave MARS. We need different symbol.” He put the rock down again, and went to rifle through his pockets but realized she was still wearing his school robe.
New plan. “Should we go in the Garden, find real rock?”
1
Heinrich
Agreed. We need some flowers.
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Heinrich
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5
Evelyn Stones
May 16, 2019 4:36 PM
Yes! Big beautiful flowers. by Evelyn Stones
Evelyn wasn't crazy. She wasn't crazy. She wasn't crazy. Because she couldn't be crazy if Heinrich was also worried about doing the wrong things and being like his family. He seemed not crazy at all, and he hadn't run away yet. It was dangerous to think that she could maybe get away with talking to other people about this, and she decided not to pursue that train of thought. The few people in her life who knew anything about what was going on were more than enough.Although, if she really thought about it, there was probably something unhealthy about the fact that no one knew the wholre story. Malikhi knew that things were wrong but didn't know all about it. Ness knew almost everything that was going on but Evelyn didn't always tell the Aladren about what it felt like. She wasn't sure how to express it and she didn't know exactly how much Ness was up for in that regard. Now Heinrich new more about how she felt, but less about what was actually happening. Did that make her a bad wolf, just because she wasn't being honest with anyone? She put it all aside.
The thought of being cut on the broken pieces of the life he'd had made Evelyn sad. She wasn't sure which was worse, and was pretty sure that they were equally awful in different ways. It was easy to say now that she'd rather have had those happy years with her family and not have been hurting all along, but that wasn't really true either. She was sure Heinrich would rather not have gotten his hopes up before his parents were taken away.
He seemed . . . well Evelyn thought he maybe seemed appalled that she would have reported her father. Was it that he was shocked at her betrayal? Or that he was wondering what could've brought her to that point? Should she justify it?
Her conversation with Professor Carter, her conversation with Professor Skies, and her conversations with Ness all came to mind. None of them had thought she was wrong and in fact had encouraged her to come forward with more information as she could. But really, what had it helped? With her mom gone, she had no idea what it would be like to go home next.
Evelyn couldn't help wondering whether her mother had left precisely for that reason. Her daughter had essentially brought a big bright spotlight down on her shame and her pain and wasn't around to deal with it. Or worse, what if her mother had left because of Evelyn herself? Did she see something in her that Evelyn hadn't recognized yet? Was it selfish of her to start a friendship with Heinrich when he clearly was wanting to be friends with nice people and she wasn't sure if she was nice yet?
It was exhausting to be going around in circles asking so many questions, but she thought that they were important to ask. The problem was that she couldn't answer them herself and didn't really have anyone else to ask. Maybe, if she were lucky, that would change. For now, though, she had to keep it to herself and just see.
When Heinrich agreed wholeheartedly that it would be good if they could have a pact of sorts, she exhaled a sigh of relief. She hadn't realized she was holding her breath but the idea that she wasn't going to be alone, and that the person she was confiding in would also need her sometimes just changed everything. She wouldn't have to be Ness' burden anymore.
"I'm so glad to hear you say that," she told him sincerely, allowing a smile to Chaine her expression.
The sheer wash of emotion made her realize just how long today had felt, and how much of a mess she was. She hadn't been intending to let anyone see her like this, and she was mildly embarrassed that someone had. At least that person understood.
"Guterhund," she repeated dutifully, doing a fair job of matching the way Heinrich said it. "I like that."
Then she grimaced, realizing he was right. She took both his attempt to check his pockets and his suggestion that they go elsewhere as a cue to return his robe, and she felt much lonelier without it. She hadn't realized how nice and warm it was and the smell was familiar now, which was good too. It was also chilly on these cliffs, and she felt a bit bad for not having given it back sooner. Her hair was a mess, but it was clean at least, so she was pretty sure it wouldn't smell like sweaty, oily scalp or anything when she gave it back.
"That sounds perfect," she said.
Something about the whole situation had her just feeling so caught up in everything. It was easy to spend time with Heinrich, which was odd, but nice. She got to her feet and brushed the sand and rocks off herself, stretching as she did so. She felt less tired than she had in a long time, and didn't yawn.
Not wanting to appear as vain as she was, she didn't ask for a mirror or a moment to stop by a bathroom or anything like that, instead doing her best to smush her fading blue, pink, and purple hair back into some semblance of normal. She ran it through her fingers and tugged at it, finally settling on something halfway decent. Her own pockets featured a hair tie, so she took the opportunity to tie it all up in a loose bun.
"Thank you," she told him again. She'd read somewhere that positive reinforcement was good and helpful and effective. Gratitude had always seemed like the best way to do that, and it felt very vulnerable without giving too much away. Gratitude was easy. Hopefully it was a good wolf thing to do. "Let's go get a real rock. This is the start of the rest of our lives," she told him, smiling with something pretty close to hope in her eyes.
22
Evelyn Stones
Yes! Big beautiful flowers.
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Evelyn Stones
0
5