Torn Fragility

'A light faced with darkness
Timidly shines
Sorely missed
By the very darkness
'

My parents have always been vague figures in my life. One could say I’m an independent soul who doesn’t have time for family but that would be only the half of it.

I have a two older brothers and for most of my life I have lived in their cool shadow. My parents had reached their goals through them. My oldest brother, a lawyer, had recently married a honours degree student who did international money as a hobby. My youngest was busy studying bio chemistry and had already won numerous prizes for his inventive research.

And what about me? The quiet unobtrusive sister? I was ignored in a polite manner by my whole family and it suited me perfectly fine; I could do whatever I wanted, could underachieve as much as I wanted, and my parents didn’t choose my friends for me like with my brothers.

Thus, I had surprisingly grown up to be obedient, quiet and well mannered. And I had developed my own talent without the amount of encouragement (if any) my siblings received. I had no awful disgusting habits, such as smoking or excessive drinking, I was a good if usually average scholar, and I could’ve easily had many friends in school f I had only spoken more.

But for once I wished I was a troublemaker, a racketeer and an embarrassment, for then my parents would watch over my every move and they would be more interested in my life and they would be good judges on my mood.

But they weren’t, therefore when I walked into our house that night, with a heavy heart and a downcast face, my mother smiled coolly at me and told me to help her with dinner. My parents had been vaguely curious when I had returned early from my job at Smith’s but I didn’t tell them any details only that I had misjudged the amount of work. They had accepted this with the trust in themselves of having reared an honest daughter.

I went upstairs to my room to put my painting equipment and purse down on my bed. I didn’t bother putting on the light; I was about to go wash my hands and help with the dinner. But some odd shape in my darkened room caught my eye and I turned back, flicking on the switch next to my door.

But with the coming of the light the shape was gone. But my chair which always stood in front of my white washed desk had been drawn out and placed in the centre of my carpet.
I shoved it back, drew my curtains closed over my two windows and despite my pursed lip and building anger I cowardly retreated from my room and hurriedly went downstairs. My mother looked down pointedly at my green and brown stained fingers and paint spattered shirt. It annoyed me that she was taller than me and always would be.

I washed my hands at the kitchen sink for once not caring about what she thought of me at all. I expected her to give me a stern word at least but when I looked over my shoulder she was talking on phone, having already forgotten me.

Why had I expected more than usual?

After a tense dinner around the dining room table with only myself and my parents, who only spoke to one another, I crept upstairs and taking a deep breath stepped into my room.

“Max?” I whispered.

“Max isn’t here, Rose.” My heart began beating wildly when I heard that voice, that unmistakable tone.

“Hannah?” I stepped fully into my room for I had been skulking behind the door before closing it behind me. My visitor stood near my desk, gazing at the pictures of drawings stuck to my wall, her hands clutching a brown leather handbag neatly in front of her, her greying hair taken up into a prim bun and she was wearing a simple pale green dress and practical shoes. She looked no different than when I had last seen her.

“As always, your talent amazes me,” she said turning to look at me. “I’m surprised that your parents aren’t in awe of you.”

“If I could outshine my brothers, they might take notice,” I replied not making eye contact. “Were you the one here when I came in before?”

Hannah took one last look at my drawings and turned to face me fully. “No, I’m afraid not. I apologise for just appearing like this…”

“How’d you get in?” I interrupted rudely wanting her gone but at the same time fighting off growing hope.

“I’m coming to that…I’m not who you think I am Rose,” she said sighing and looking tired. “I’m not human but I don’t belong to…Talia’s world either.”

I paled and sat down heavily on my bed nearby as the full truth in all its light dawned upon me. “So you knew…You knew what I was fighting against? Yet you chased me out like a maid who had been stealing!”

Hannah came down to sit beside me and tried to wrap her chubby arms around my shoulders but I shifted away from her, falling into a sulk.

“Rose…I sent you away so shamefully to protect you, not to insult you. I scribbled over that wonderful drawing of yours myself, I used to be an artist like you though not as good, and it tore me through to the core to do that to you and even more to have Max find it and think it yours.
Oh, I thought you would a plain girl with no talent and I hoped you could heal Max without Talia pulling you into her twisted world. But talent draws her like a moth to flame, draws her like it draws all of her kind.”

There was a catch in her voice and she stopped, looking away from me and wiping her sleeve across her eyes.

“I told you so many lies…But I had good reasons for not wanting to involve you any more than necessary. Talia’s world is not a world I want you trapped in even if you do manage to free Max from his web…I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

My silence was a clear indication for her to continue and she did, “Were you the girl who appeared years ago when I first met Max? I was never positive…”

My eyes snapped to her face and seeing my expression she gave a humourless laugh. “Why do you think I posted that advertisement? So that a grumpy middle aged woman could find it? No, so that you could find it. I had to have you and only you. I turned down numerous applications but when I saw your name I knew immediately.”

“You could take care of him perfectly fine couldn’t you? I know this must sound horrible but was the funeral an excuse to leave me alone with him? So that I could ‘free’ him?” my voice came out surprisingly bitter and I cracked a smile at that.

Hannah slowly stood up. “Yes. My sister had died years ago so my sorry was true at least. But my words were not. I do not apologise for that; you managed to heal Max in a few days; what I couldn’t do after years of coaxing him from his dark shell.”

“I did nothing…I merely treated him like a normal person,” I muttered beneath my breath watching her out of the corner of my eye while I twiddled with the frayed ends of my quilt.

“I want him to be a normal person, I want him to be treated like one even if everything else fails, and I want him to live a normal life, but that’s impossible; Talia isn’t letting go of him. She’s stubborn that way,” Hannah sighed.

“Why does she have such a strong fixation on us both? Is it really our talent that draws her?” I looked up into Hannah’s eyes, and looked into her soul. She flinched and took a step back.

“It’s not only that,” Hannah said averting her eyes. “There’s just a quality about those they choose that no one else has. I know this may sound rude, but you’re not exactly human either and neither is Max. You try to be but you’ll always have one foot in her world, in their world and another in this.”

“What am I?” I asked standing up and stepping closer to her, my eyes incredulous. “Am I not human? Am I not as real as anyone else?! I’m just a normal girl who became drawn into affairs she had no right dabbling in.” My shoulders began to shake but I couldn’t care less if I burst out crying like a small child now.

“You had every right,” Hannah whispered drawing me into her warm comforting arms. She smelled like honey and freshly baked bread. “And that’s exactly why Talia’s trying to overcome your spirit. You and Max are like them but you can love and that’s what scares them, what makes them hunt you till your hearts are as cold and merciless as theirs.”

“They’re jealous because we can love?” I removed myself gently from her embrace and stood up straight. I was silent for a few moments and my shoulders sagged slightly without naivety to keep it aloft and burden free. “My mother knows about me not being human doesn’t she?” I mumbled and tasted salt water. I hadn’t even realised I had been crying.

“I think you can answer that for yourself little Rose,” she said.

I finally understood my mother’s offhanded approach to rearing me, to handling me and the distance she kept from me. She was frightened of what she didn’t understand. “But why does Talia make herself look like me?” I asked softening my heart slightly towards my mother.

“She does what?!” Hannah hissed. I took a step back. I had never seen her like this. Her eyes blazed and I could almost taste her anger on the air.

“Rose?” my mother’s voice broke into the tensed silence that had grown after Hannah’s outburst. It sounded like she was coming upstairs to my room.

Hannah grabbed me by the shoulders and looked me straight in the eyes. “Max is looking for you but don’t let him find you. Talia’s waiting for the moment you both meet, I’m sure of it, although I’m not sure why she is.”

“Rose?” I whipped my head around trying to think up an excuse as my mother walked into my room without knocking. But when I faltered and looked back Hannah was gone. Only her faint scent remained.

“Who were you talking to?” my mother asked looking around my room. Even though we weren’t close I always caught her at odd times in my room either simply sitting on my bed or looking through my sketch books. I soon became highly annoyed after I found her trying to open one of my cupboards I kept locked up.

I forced a tense laugh. “I was trying to see how I could cope with Erica’s lines for her part. She joked about me having to be her understudy a while back if she caved in under the pressure.” My mother sighed and I stared at her challenging her to speak her mind and say that we both knew I was lying through my teeth.

“I just came up to ask you what you’d like for breakfast?” she asked nonchalantly.

I was stumped. I knew she had sucked that from her thumb. Was my mother fully aware of what I was? Was that why she was always to strange around me? With my brothers she joked and laughed but she handled me like she would a small tiresome child.

I took a risk and dived into unknown territory that could easily swallow me up. “Do you know what I am?”

“Someone who I don’t understand,” my mother answered evasively yet bitingly. “What you are however…” my mother trailed off and turned to go. “Goodnight Rose.”

“Goodnight,” I whispered at the closed door.

I woke up early the next morning with a sinking feeling. My heart beat wildly inside my chest crying to be free of its delicate cage of bone. I had had a nightmare or a half real dreamlike experience of once again walking through those strange moving halls of stumbling upon a room where a monster wept behind bars of iron and who cried out in joy when it saw me yet when I went nearer it told me to stay away and forget. Forget, forget. Forget as much as I was able to. The monster plucked a rose from where it grew over the windowsill next to it and handed it gently to me.

My pillow was soaked and when I opened my clenched fist a withered rose lay crumpled in my palm.