On the Fifth Day of Christmas
My True Love gave to meFive Golden RingsFour Calling BirdsThree French HensTwo Turtle DovesAnd a Partridge in a Pear Tree
The sky was covered in a thick cover of black clouds, stretching out far and wide to prevent even the slightest slivers of silver light to pass through, obscuring the moon and all the constellations of the stars that Lila had always been able to look up at as she had grown up.
On some particularly bad days, Lila climbed out of her blankets, opened the curtains and then had simply stared out at the sky, trying to find and point out all the stars that she had memorised off from the star maps that had been in her primary school library, all of them read, traced over time and time again, and fully engrained in her mind by the time she had left primary school.
At High School, her interest had waned further
On the Sixth Day of ChristmasMy True Love gave to me Six Geese A LayingFive Golden RingsFour Calling BirdsThree French HensTwo Turtle Doves And a Partridge in a Pear Tree The bus, for once in its life, came at a timely manner, arriving within the minute that it had been scheduled to trundle up to the bus stop. That was if the faded and scratched out bus time table was correct and not an old version that hadn’t been updated. Thinking about it, the time table probably didn’t even matter because the bus came around often enough anyway to not particularly need a time table, what with the limited number of routes that it could possibly take in this middle of nowhere town. Lila gave the bus driver, an old, usually jovial man who she had seen every single day of college, the name of the same of the same bus stop that she had disembarked at every sin
On the Seventh Day of ChristmasMy True Love gave to me Seven Swans a SwimmingSix Geese a Laying Five Golden Rings Four Calling BirdsThree French HensTwo Turtle DovesAnd a Partridge in a Pear Tree. Lila finished the rest of the journey scowling to herself on her bus seat, wondering why the town, despite knowing all about her situation, despite how hard she had worked to hide it to prevent extra ostracism, still did nothing to help her or her family. She wondered how dis attached someone had to be to excuse those acts of violence, terror, and abuse that were happening right underneath their noses and then still go on with their day as if nothing bad had been going on. Dimly, she wondered what would've happened if she had killed her parents in a fit of violent rage and anger and whether she would be able to get away with murder, considering the apathy of all the individuals around her, in light of all she had learned just then. It was then she decided that she really have ough
On the Eighth Day of ChristmasMy True Love gave to me Eight Maids a MilkingSeven Swans a SwimmingSix Geese a Laying Five Golden Rings Four Calling BirdsThree French HensTwo Turtle DovesAnd a Partridge in a Pear Tree. Lila, heaving and panting, her anger worn down by the long trek to the train station, walked in, turning around to push the doors open with her back, rather than bringing her arms up to use the door handle properly. The lights were a pale yellow and made everything look slightly sickly as she tried to walked the few paces that it took to reach the desk. There was a seating area off to the side where there were two vending machines, one full of snacks and the other full of cold drinks, with a coffee and hot chocolate machine next to them both, a collection of chairs pushed up against the walls at either side with the customary potted plant that made one wonder if it was actually real or not and demanded to be touched to find out. The ticket booth was at the fro
No.It couldn’t be.It wasn’t possible.It wasn’t possible.It just wasn’t possible. This had to be some sort of heat induced, delusional fever dream that Emmet was living through from standing at the window for far too long. There had to be some sort of other explanation for this. Maybe some kind of doppelgänger or some ancient ancestor, who just happened to share some kind of completely uncanny resemblance to the man that he was looking at now. Emmet kept his eyes glued on the face of the man who now was crossing the street, tracking each and every motion that the other made. When the other looked towards both sides of the road, Emmet couldn’t help but be drawn to the flaming curls of fiery red on the man’s head. There were a few strands of glimmering silver, glinting off the yellow sunlight and looking like they were the amber sparks of a kindling fire, obvious to Emmet even with the more tame haircut that the other had. The red
He wasn't ready.Emmet was not ready.He was not at all ready in the slightest with so much to lose if this all went wrong.Jasper had already left him once and if he went away again, before Emmet had gotten his answers, then he knew that he would be crushed. This opportunity now was something of a miracle, and it was far too unlikely that this would happen again. It just wasn’t going to happen. This was the only time for him to be able to find out what had happened. There was no more future for him after this. And it already felt like this was a hazy dream, even with the soft blanket panic that was slowly wrapping around his brain and smothering the edges of the world. He needed to know why he had been abandoned. He needed to know why he had been left all alone. He needed to why this has happened, even after all that they had been through, He needed to know. He needed to learn.He needed this. And this was
On the Ninth Day of ChristmasMy True Love gave to me Nine Ladies DancingEight Maids a MilkingSeven Swans a SwimmingSix Geese a Laying Five Golden Rings Four Calling BirdsThree French HensTwo Turtle DovesAnd a Partridge in a Pear Tree. When the first commuters arrived in the morning, ready to take their trains approximately five minutes before the long, snake like vehicles arrived, Lila had managed to brush her hair out into something acceptable and then make two separate braids. She had tied them both up at the back of her head to make two buns that sat low and side by side, styling the whole do using the mirror made by the gleaming, flat, and shiny glass of the snack machine that sat to her side, also making sure that a few strands were pulled out at the sides of her head to trail downwards and frame he
On the Tenth Day of ChristmasMy True Love gave to me Ten Lords a LeapingNine Ladies DancingEight Maids a MilkingSeven Swans a SwimmingSix Geese a Laying Five Golden Rings Four Calling BirdsThree French HensTwo Turtle DovesAnd a Partridge in a Pear Tree. Lila had only ever taken the train with her father, and she had only gone with him because her mother. She had decided that she never wanted to see Lila’s face again, for the third time that month and Lila enacted the strategy that she had settled on months ago: avoiding the older woman like the plague until at least three hours had passed to let her hopefully calm down. For over a month, her father had decided that he had wanted to visit a locomotive exhibition and had chosen a particular museum to go to, after planning the trip for two week
There were so many things that Emmet needed to do. The time machine was lost to him, hidden somewhere only Lila, and possibly Jasper now here, knew, and it was probably somewhere he couldn't reach. The responsible thing for Lila to do was to give up the device to Jasper to allow him to keep it safe, but considering her spotty track record and her also dubious ethical constitution, it was unlikely for her to have given up such a source of power, considering that a time machine would functionally allow anyone to travel wherever they wanted in time and it was just far too unlikely for the little psychopath to give that up so easily. Also, even if she had, it would be almost insulting to Emmet, for her to behave so cruelly towards him and then following through with the most logically evil course of action, and even if she didn't do so, it would be fully in character for her to do. In his eyes, there was no way for Lila to win and her character gave no re
“Why’re you sleeping on the floor like that? Come on, get up. You’ll hurt your back doing that,” Doctor Marigold chided, dragging all her bits of heavy machinery around the office space to prepare for her demonstration.Behind her, Lila remained still.“I know that you’re not dead. Come, get up already,” she called out, stepping over a few sheets of paper that she had laid out to grab Lila by the shoulder and heave her up into sitting.The stubborn girl just flopped down again, not opening her eyes.“If you get the fuck up, we can move the flight a week forward so you can stop worrying about it,” Lucy Marigold shouted across the room.Like a rubber band, Lila snapped back up and finally opened her eyes.It had been harder to see the bags below them when they had been closed and Doctor Marigold wondered if she should buy the girl some sleep tablets.“I’m awake,” Li
Yolanda seemed to understand that she needed to back off and stop teasing Gretel, when the other woman's eyes suddenly misted over, and it was if she was no longer a part of this world.She kept the bubbling annoyance within her away from her face, putting on instead a mask of concern as she reached out and poked Gretel's arms, trying to maybe prod her out of her stupor and bring her back from the recesses of her mind.Yolanda had never actually seen somebody collapse inwards to a catatonic state over her own actions.It was interesting to see it all happen and fold out in front of her.She poked Gretel again, touching her in the face lightly to see if that would possibly work to pull the other woman out of her mind and back into the world where she was needed proper.It wouldn't reflect well on her if Gretel didn't wake up within the hour.It didn't feel as
When she awoke, she was sat ready to eat and was dressed just like her mother, in a pastel blouse and a lungi down to the floor.Lila looked down at herself and jumped when she heard rattling, noticing the ten, or so, bangles on each arm and the lines of mehndi that ran down all the way to the hems of her sleeves, resting halfway between her shoulders and elbows. A pin held her blouse shut at the top and a quick once over of her hair, with one of her hands, revealed that it had been styled in a simple bun and adorned with flowers.“This is weirdly romantic,” Lila commented, staring at the lit candles nestled in the variously sized candelabrums set around the circular room.There was no door, but a giant window which led to a balcony outside. There was no ceiling but the walls reaching upwards, all the way up, until they formed a dome in the same shade of dull brown that coated the floor and the giant, round table in the centre.The only dishes
“So, is she finally asleep?” Emmet asked the boy stood behind the counter. He was exceedingly slim for someone surrounded by sugar all day and Emmet could make out the outlines of his spindly elbows through his shirt. His face held a no nonsense, blunt, and almost bored expression. “Yeah, she is. She’s been knocked out on the sofa since I sent her back there,” Kai answered the long haired man in front of him, his hair pulled back by a ribbon matching his eyes before being pulled over his shoulder once more. He looked vain. “Oh good. Don’t tell her that I was involved,” the man asked, putting both his palms up to face Kai. “I’m telling her that you’re a fucking weirdo for that,” was the scowled answer. “No. Seriously, don’t tell her. She doesn’t like me and I don’t like her. She’s known my partner for longer that I’ve known him. She doesn’t trust me with him. Why’re you making that face?” Emmet tried to justify himself before giving up
“Are you sure that you’re getting enough sleep?” Kai asked Lila, watching her sway on her feet and clutching the front counter.“Yes,” she gasped, dropping her head into her hands, elbows on the table.“Go and lie down on the sofa. Go to sleep for a bit. I’ll wake you up when I have to leave for college,” Kai instructed her, tapping her on the shoulders and shepherding her towards the office.“… fine,” she conceded, letting Kai move her along towards the back.“You know that this just proves my point,” Kai pointed out, pushing her through the boundary of the door and closing it behind her.“Fine,” she whispered back to him, talking into the silence of the office.She let herself fall over the sofa, draping her upper body over the arm rest and letting her head be cushioned by the pillows. Shuffling a bit over to put her body entirely on the sofa, Lila f
“One! Two! Three! Four! Five!Now again!One! Two! Three! Four! Five!Now keep on going!”Lila landed each punch, timing her breaths to the count as she moved her fists, dodging underneath the swing that came towards her head, before blocking the second hit that came to her and moving along with the force of the fist that hit her arm.The swinging punching bag forced distance between Lila and Tweedle Dum, and she stepped back to where she was stood before, within the path of the moving bad, to put more distance between him and her.“One! Two! Three! Four! Five!One! Two! Three! Four! Five!”Lila punched the bag once more, landing all of her hits.“Okay, time for a break,” Tweedle Dum announced, grabbing the punching bag and pulling it back to him as Lila moved away from the centre of the room, sitting down on one of the rickety plastic chairs at the side of the room.She took of
“Bitch! Why’d you run off and abandon me like that!?” Lila shouted from behind the counter when Kai finally walked back into the store.She was waving her hands about and wore an apron covered in flour as the single customer in the store, an old man precariously balancing on his cane, slept whilst leaning on the radiator.“I thought that you wanted some bonding time with your family so I left you to do that it private!” Kai answered her, tiptoeing past their unconscious patron, in a combination of whispering and shouting.“They’re hardly my family and you left us in the middle of a public café!” Lila cried, not modulating her voice at all.In the background, the old man began to snore.“But you still talk to them a lot like you do to me, so I let you, and besides, I got about fifty more pages of Good Omens done in Waterstones,” Kai appealed, finally at the counter and opening up the
Gretel and Silver had their fun as he continued to teach her how the interface worked and how he had managed to figure out that the system was an older model from the lack of integration between the screen and the touch pad, and explaining how easily it would potentially be to do so once the technology, as displayed in this device, had been demonstrated and established to work in a functional product."We were working on something like this as well, back in the workshops back home for the company that I was in the research and development department for. We were trying to get our motion sensors to be as small as possible for more commercial and personal use of technology that we could sell to the public and those who couldn't afford the contact computers.We had no idea on how their tech worked, because of trade and company secrets and all, but we managed to piece together a few things by looking at the patents and when we bought a few and m
“Alright, the shop’s free. Why are you actually here?” Lila questioned, crossing her arms and staring down at the tablecloth of Jasper and Emmet’s table.“I’ve got lesson now. I’ll be back in a few hours,” the teenage boy behind Lila announced, picking up a bag that had been hidden behind the counter the entire time and rushing outside.Lila continued to stand there, waiting for a reply.Jasper couldn’t help but notice that she wasn’t meeting either his or Emmet’s eyes.“Are you planning to leave us?” he asked her back.Lila’s fingers dug into the creases of her shirt,” I’m going to be leaving for a trip soon, and I’ll be back as soon as I can. Kai’ll be running the shop and will be looking after things, broadly. He lives here now and I scheduled my leave for when his school term ends so he can take care of things.”“On thi