Past Lives
Part II - Passing Sesons, Empty Bottles of Wine
February 18th, 2015
Penelope’s mind hasn’t stopped racing since Saturday night, but she hasn’t come up with a way to save herself. (Though she thinks a little protection spell wouldn’t hurt.)
She’s kept herself holed up at home. Home is still her childhood home, a big, brick Victorian style, although she’s the only one left in it. It’s all she’s ever known, filled with hardwood floors, antique rugs, high ceilings, glittering chandeliers, echoing halls, big windows. It’s just where she likes it, out in the middle of nowhere with no one around to bother her. Fit for a witch. And it’s home, it’s always been home, it always will be, but she isn’t sure it’s ever felt more lonely.
But there’s not much else she can do. Her job at the psychic shop is what keeps the lights on and the house warm, she can’t quit. She’s learned the hard way that ill intended curses and spells never end well for anyone, especially her. Her only hope is a little protection spell and the power of fate, which makes her feel a little sick. She was born and raised to change her fate.
So she pulls down a massive, dusty, leather bound spellbook from her bookshelf lined living room and spends the morning flipping through it, searching for something. Anything. Marie, her white, long haired Persian cat doesn’t have her patience, she curls up on her lap as if to absorb all her nervous energy.
“Think I’d convinced myself we’d never actually find each other, y’know?” one hand runs along Marie’s spine as the other flips heavy, yellowed pages stained with ink, “Which is stupid, I know, but it made it easier. I-I can’t be my mother. I won’t.”
There's no response, as usual. But Penelope knows she understands. Sometimes she wonders if Marie was meant to be her soulmate but is trapped in the wrong body for their little lifetime together because of some terrible karma.
“I think it’d kill me,” she continues, eyes scanning page after page, “If it ended up like her and my father. All of it for absolutely nothing. In this lifetime anyway,” she pauses, index finger sliding along lines of ancient words and history, “I think it’d kill me quicker than it did her.”
The best thing she can find is a protection spell from physical or emotional harm and she figures, it can’t possibly hurt, it’s close enough. She doesn’t want to think about her mother and her father anymore. She doesn’t want to think about recent history. She wants to fix her future, her fate, her heart, her old, tired, ever beating soul.
So she begins to collect supplies, filling her arms with herbs and jars and bottles. Her head is whirling again, not just with Harry but with everything she’s tried to bury in the past few years, everything she’s wanted to forget. And all he’s done since he appeared in her life is dig it back up again.
“Wish he’d just fuck off,” she mumbles to Marie after she’s collected everything she needs, nearly falling off a stepstool and breaking her ankle trying to reach a jug of storm water, “It’d just be so much easier that way,” she sighs, arranging things in front of her, “It’s just so stupid. It’d save us both in the long run…”
Marie doesn’t argue.
Carefully, Penelope drops her herbs into a glass jar before filling it halfway with storm water, muttering under her breath, “Strong as lightning, thunder, and rain, all attempts to harm me will be in vain…”
She feels that familiar stir in her chest, the one that for most of her life she had no idea what to do with or what it meant. Now though, she knows it’s her calling, where she belongs. Crafting and protecting and brewing. She isn’t like everyone else, but that stirring in her chest reassures her it’s okay. She’s on the right track, not quite at her destination, but finally moving forward with her calling, her life. And she’ll let no one take that away from her.
Next are the rose thorns, her voice just as soft as before, “Tough as a nail, sharp as a thorn, though this spell new strength will be born…”
She seals the jar with her best intentions and her biggest hopes, letting out a deep breath. It’s all she can do.
*
Gina is with her last customer of the day when Penelope flies in, as flustered as usual but ten minutes early for once. She ignores the concerned look from her coworker and goes straight back to the counter for Maria.
“I have a schedule change request.”
Maria hardly looks up from the tabloid in her hand, “No.”
Penelope’s teeth grit together, “You haven’t even heard it.”
There’s a heavy sigh and the roll of her eyes, “What?”
“I don’t want Harry on my shifts.”
She snorts, slaps her shitty tabloid as if what she’s just said is far more entertaining than any celebrity gossip she could get her hands on, “Lemme guess, a conflict of interest?”
She ignores the sarcasm, “Exactly.”
The tabloid is thrown into the trash, “No. He’s already on his way in.”
Before she knows it she’s alone, left with dusty books and cheap knick knacks and that hideous costume. Just waiting, stomach turning and heart thumping.
He shows up five minutes late, throws open the door without a care as she’s reading a man’s palms, which only aggravates her more. Her act is hard enough to put on without distractions, particularly distractions that come in the form of bouncy curls and gangly limbs and guaranteed heartbreak.
She nearly loses it while reading the third customer of the night, a sweet older woman with shaky hands and a walker. Harry opens the door for her and helps her over to Penelope (of course) and she avoids eye contact, wondering if he’d have done it if she hadn’t been the one behind the desk.
“What a beautiful couple,” the woman settles into the musty, padded chair across from Penelope, and she swears her heart stops, along with the rest of the world.
Harry is the first to make a move, after his muscles tense and his jaw locks (and his eyes still don’t meet Penelope’s), he forces out a laugh, “No, no, not at all.”
“Not what?” the woman squints, her eyes darting between Harry and Penelope and both of their respective necklaces, “A couple?”
Penelope’s hands curl into fists, her nails digging into her palms as she tries to find the strength to answer with a steady voice and kicks herself for not wearing a turtleneck instead of the thick sweater keeping her skin from burning, “Not at all.”
“Ah, a stubborn match,” she smiles knowingly, “You will be. It’ll all work out in time. It always does.”
Penelope hopes the woman in front of her is not more qualified for her job than she is.
*
The necklace burns hotter all night, and so does Harry’s gaze.
By the end of the night, Penelope is sure she’s going to lose it if she doesn’t breathe fresh air immediately. She’s never felt this kind of tension before, the kind she doesn’t know how to resolve. That’s what scares her even more, more than the inevitable future ahead of them, that tug in her chest she’s felt and been unable to identify since their eyes first met. It isn’t supposed to be real. And she’s determined to prove it.
“Let’s go for drinks then,” she blurts out as soon as he pushes the door open, before she can take it back or change her mind.
She watches him study her, leaned against the building with her arms crossed over her chest, hands balled into tight fists, and another nervous habit dangling from her lips. She wonders what he’s thinking, what judgements he’s making, what assumptions he’s already decided on as the smoke curls in the air between them. She wonders why she cares. Why that dangerous pull is still in her chest, why it’s only stronger when his eyes lock with hers.
He pulls his coat closer, a soft looking shearling with frayed edges and a broken zipper, shoves his hands in his pockets and nods once, “Alright.”
He locks up and they walk, side by side in the night, wind whipping around them. They make it half a block before she realizes how stupid she’s being, she has no idea who he is or where he’s taking her.
“Where’re we going?” she keeps her eyes on her worn boots and pretends her cheeks are turning pink because of the wind. She ignores the pull in her chest, the one that sent her legs moving after him without her head thinking.
He shrugs, tosses his shoulder without a care in the world and Penelope wonders briefly what it’s like to be a boy alone at night, “Was sort of following you, love.”
“O-oh,” she only feels like an even bigger idiot as she shrugs back stiffly, “R-right. Well ‘m not twenty one, so…”
“Mm,” he nods, as if he should’ve already known something so simple (she wonders if he should’ve), “I know a place.”
It’s a little bar a few blocks away. It smells, not half as bad as the shop, but still bad. It’s dimly lit, filled with boys in flannels and girls in dark lipstick. Not anywhere Penelope fits in or belongs, but Harry assures her the drinks are cheap and the patrons leave you be.
They take a corner booth and a bottle of wine. Penelope hadn’t pegged him for a wine drinker, but she supposes she hasn’t given herself a chance to peg him as anything, she isn’t supposed to.
“I know you’re only doing this to prove me wrong,” Harry admits as he pours the first glass.
She’s silent, lips pursed together tightly, one glass won’t kill her, “So’re you, really.”
He shrugs, “Bit different.”
She doesn’t argue because they both know he’s right. Harry is only doing what he’s been taught, what’s been ingrained in his brain since childhood. Penelope is aggressively rebelling against it. She always is.
But she has to prove him wrong, not just for their fate, but for herself. She has to prove they aren’t meant to be like everyone else, that she isn’t what he’s destined for.
The first bottle goes down easier than expected.
They play a game Harry seems to be unfairly familiar with, making up stories about the people around them. He’s good, a little too good.
“Second date,” he nods at a couple two booths away, two boys, one blond and the other a redhead.
“Second?” she scoffs, taking another sip of wine, “That’s too specific.”
He shakes his head, “They’re too comfortable for the first, too nervous for anything much further,” he points with his head again, “Him?”
She follows his line of sight to a man maybe ten years older than them, all alone, beer in his hand.
“Waiting for his significant other?” she shrugs. She’s learned already that Harry always has a little more pessimistic take.
He shakes his head, face adorned with a serious expression, “Stood up. Look at his shoulders. No ring either.”
She rolls her eyes, “Maybe he just has bad posture. Maybe they’re engaged.”
The second bottle goes down even easier. She isn’t even sure she tastes it.
Halfway through it, with his elbows propped up on the table and his chin resting in his hands, Harry asks, “Humor me?”
Penelope tilts her head back to empty her glass, swallows, raises a brow, “Maybe.”
“Why don’t you believe in this?” he flicks at the pendant around his neck, not caring how hot it is.
It’s a loaded question, one she feels like she’s been waiting for all night. Maybe since she first laid eyes on him. She knows what answer he wants, but she won’t give it to him. He can’t have it. Not now, not ever. She is here to prove a point, that she won’t give in, not to pull out her shattered, little heart and lay it out on the table for him.
“It’s a little ridiculous, isn’t it?” she shrugs it off, itching for another glass, “And sort of stupid to follow something so life changing, so blindly.”
He doesn’t shake his head, he doesn’t nod. Instead his lips curve up just a hint, brows knit in concentration as he silently urges her to continue. She’s never had that before, never not been laughed at or told off, and maybe that’s how they get to talking. That small, comforting gesture and a whole lot of alcohol. That’s what wipes away her intentions.
He lets her talk for ages, until she’s run out of words and deep metaphors to describe what she feels inside sometimes. He lets her talk until she herself actually believes the reason she won’t give him the time of day is simply because she is stubborn and defiant and not at all traditional. He lets her talk until her head is spinning and they’re on another bottle of wine and he’s on her side of the booth, hand creeping up her thigh.
He’s saying something she agrees with, something about how intriguing it is that everyone you meet has an endless story, lifetimes and lifetimes of lessons, but she can’t concentrate on it anymore. She can’t keep nodding and swallowing down her wine like it was never turned from water, she can’t focus on anything else other than his hand burning through her jeans and his fingers dancing along her thigh.
“Harry,” she breathes out, unable to focus her eyes anywhere but his lips all pink and puffy all of a sudden, “Let’s go.”
His lips pull into a smirk, his hand tightening on her thigh as he nods.
They’re out of the bar in a flurry, crumpled bills left on the table and stumbling over each other’s feet. The night isn’t nearly as cold as they remember it, as she pulls him along to the train, hand in hand, giggling at nothing. It’s fucking freeing.
It’s never felt like this, rushing home with a stranger. It’s always been nerve wracking and not quite perfect. Her pendant has always hung heavy and cold and ominous on her chest. But not now, not when his hand is in hers and her hair's in her eyes and they’ve just barely caught the train and their breaths.
It’s different even when they can’t keep their hands off of each other on the train, no second thought thrown to bringing him back to her place. Not when his cold hands have slipped under her jacket, under her top, up her side. Not when her lips are attached to his neck, moving down, down, down to the neck of his jumper and that burning chain around his neck.
She doesn’t even realize what she’s doing when she takes him home. Not when she unlocks the heavy door, not when she tugs him through the dark first floor past the bookcases and jars and up to her room. Not when she unbuttons his shirt and his jeans, not when his hands are pulling at any material of hers they can get their hands on. Especially not when his lips are making marks on her neck and they’re collapsing into a heap of skin on skin.
Only in the morning, when the air is chilled and there’s a warm body curled around hers and yellow light is filtering into the room, will she realize what a terrible mistake she’s made.
Penelope’s mind hasn’t stopped racing since Saturday night, but she hasn’t come up with a way to save herself. (Though she thinks a little protection spell wouldn’t hurt.)
She’s kept herself holed up at home. Home is still her childhood home, a big, brick Victorian style, although she’s the only one left in it. It’s all she’s ever known, filled with hardwood floors, antique rugs, high ceilings, glittering chandeliers, echoing halls, big windows. It’s just where she likes it, out in the middle of nowhere with no one around to bother her. Fit for a witch. And it’s home, it’s always been home, it always will be, but she isn’t sure it’s ever felt more lonely.
But there’s not much else she can do. Her job at the psychic shop is what keeps the lights on and the house warm, she can’t quit. She’s learned the hard way that ill intended curses and spells never end well for anyone, especially her. Her only hope is a little protection spell and the power of fate, which makes her feel a little sick. She was born and raised to change her fate.
So she pulls down a massive, dusty, leather bound spellbook from her bookshelf lined living room and spends the morning flipping through it, searching for something. Anything. Marie, her white, long haired Persian cat doesn’t have her patience, she curls up on her lap as if to absorb all her nervous energy.
“Think I’d convinced myself we’d never actually find each other, y’know?” one hand runs along Marie’s spine as the other flips heavy, yellowed pages stained with ink, “Which is stupid, I know, but it made it easier. I-I can’t be my mother. I won’t.”
There's no response, as usual. But Penelope knows she understands. Sometimes she wonders if Marie was meant to be her soulmate but is trapped in the wrong body for their little lifetime together because of some terrible karma.
“I think it’d kill me,” she continues, eyes scanning page after page, “If it ended up like her and my father. All of it for absolutely nothing. In this lifetime anyway,” she pauses, index finger sliding along lines of ancient words and history, “I think it’d kill me quicker than it did her.”
The best thing she can find is a protection spell from physical or emotional harm and she figures, it can’t possibly hurt, it’s close enough. She doesn’t want to think about her mother and her father anymore. She doesn’t want to think about recent history. She wants to fix her future, her fate, her heart, her old, tired, ever beating soul.
So she begins to collect supplies, filling her arms with herbs and jars and bottles. Her head is whirling again, not just with Harry but with everything she’s tried to bury in the past few years, everything she’s wanted to forget. And all he’s done since he appeared in her life is dig it back up again.
“Wish he’d just fuck off,” she mumbles to Marie after she’s collected everything she needs, nearly falling off a stepstool and breaking her ankle trying to reach a jug of storm water, “It’d just be so much easier that way,” she sighs, arranging things in front of her, “It’s just so stupid. It’d save us both in the long run…”
Marie doesn’t argue.
Carefully, Penelope drops her herbs into a glass jar before filling it halfway with storm water, muttering under her breath, “Strong as lightning, thunder, and rain, all attempts to harm me will be in vain…”
She feels that familiar stir in her chest, the one that for most of her life she had no idea what to do with or what it meant. Now though, she knows it’s her calling, where she belongs. Crafting and protecting and brewing. She isn’t like everyone else, but that stirring in her chest reassures her it’s okay. She’s on the right track, not quite at her destination, but finally moving forward with her calling, her life. And she’ll let no one take that away from her.
Next are the rose thorns, her voice just as soft as before, “Tough as a nail, sharp as a thorn, though this spell new strength will be born…”
She seals the jar with her best intentions and her biggest hopes, letting out a deep breath. It’s all she can do.
*
Gina is with her last customer of the day when Penelope flies in, as flustered as usual but ten minutes early for once. She ignores the concerned look from her coworker and goes straight back to the counter for Maria.
“I have a schedule change request.”
Maria hardly looks up from the tabloid in her hand, “No.”
Penelope’s teeth grit together, “You haven’t even heard it.”
There’s a heavy sigh and the roll of her eyes, “What?”
“I don’t want Harry on my shifts.”
She snorts, slaps her shitty tabloid as if what she’s just said is far more entertaining than any celebrity gossip she could get her hands on, “Lemme guess, a conflict of interest?”
She ignores the sarcasm, “Exactly.”
The tabloid is thrown into the trash, “No. He’s already on his way in.”
Before she knows it she’s alone, left with dusty books and cheap knick knacks and that hideous costume. Just waiting, stomach turning and heart thumping.
He shows up five minutes late, throws open the door without a care as she’s reading a man’s palms, which only aggravates her more. Her act is hard enough to put on without distractions, particularly distractions that come in the form of bouncy curls and gangly limbs and guaranteed heartbreak.
She nearly loses it while reading the third customer of the night, a sweet older woman with shaky hands and a walker. Harry opens the door for her and helps her over to Penelope (of course) and she avoids eye contact, wondering if he’d have done it if she hadn’t been the one behind the desk.
“What a beautiful couple,” the woman settles into the musty, padded chair across from Penelope, and she swears her heart stops, along with the rest of the world.
Harry is the first to make a move, after his muscles tense and his jaw locks (and his eyes still don’t meet Penelope’s), he forces out a laugh, “No, no, not at all.”
“Not what?” the woman squints, her eyes darting between Harry and Penelope and both of their respective necklaces, “A couple?”
Penelope’s hands curl into fists, her nails digging into her palms as she tries to find the strength to answer with a steady voice and kicks herself for not wearing a turtleneck instead of the thick sweater keeping her skin from burning, “Not at all.”
“Ah, a stubborn match,” she smiles knowingly, “You will be. It’ll all work out in time. It always does.”
Penelope hopes the woman in front of her is not more qualified for her job than she is.
*
The necklace burns hotter all night, and so does Harry’s gaze.
By the end of the night, Penelope is sure she’s going to lose it if she doesn’t breathe fresh air immediately. She’s never felt this kind of tension before, the kind she doesn’t know how to resolve. That’s what scares her even more, more than the inevitable future ahead of them, that tug in her chest she’s felt and been unable to identify since their eyes first met. It isn’t supposed to be real. And she’s determined to prove it.
“Let’s go for drinks then,” she blurts out as soon as he pushes the door open, before she can take it back or change her mind.
She watches him study her, leaned against the building with her arms crossed over her chest, hands balled into tight fists, and another nervous habit dangling from her lips. She wonders what he’s thinking, what judgements he’s making, what assumptions he’s already decided on as the smoke curls in the air between them. She wonders why she cares. Why that dangerous pull is still in her chest, why it’s only stronger when his eyes lock with hers.
He pulls his coat closer, a soft looking shearling with frayed edges and a broken zipper, shoves his hands in his pockets and nods once, “Alright.”
He locks up and they walk, side by side in the night, wind whipping around them. They make it half a block before she realizes how stupid she’s being, she has no idea who he is or where he’s taking her.
“Where’re we going?” she keeps her eyes on her worn boots and pretends her cheeks are turning pink because of the wind. She ignores the pull in her chest, the one that sent her legs moving after him without her head thinking.
He shrugs, tosses his shoulder without a care in the world and Penelope wonders briefly what it’s like to be a boy alone at night, “Was sort of following you, love.”
“O-oh,” she only feels like an even bigger idiot as she shrugs back stiffly, “R-right. Well ‘m not twenty one, so…”
“Mm,” he nods, as if he should’ve already known something so simple (she wonders if he should’ve), “I know a place.”
It’s a little bar a few blocks away. It smells, not half as bad as the shop, but still bad. It’s dimly lit, filled with boys in flannels and girls in dark lipstick. Not anywhere Penelope fits in or belongs, but Harry assures her the drinks are cheap and the patrons leave you be.
They take a corner booth and a bottle of wine. Penelope hadn’t pegged him for a wine drinker, but she supposes she hasn’t given herself a chance to peg him as anything, she isn’t supposed to.
“I know you’re only doing this to prove me wrong,” Harry admits as he pours the first glass.
She’s silent, lips pursed together tightly, one glass won’t kill her, “So’re you, really.”
He shrugs, “Bit different.”
She doesn’t argue because they both know he’s right. Harry is only doing what he’s been taught, what’s been ingrained in his brain since childhood. Penelope is aggressively rebelling against it. She always is.
But she has to prove him wrong, not just for their fate, but for herself. She has to prove they aren’t meant to be like everyone else, that she isn’t what he’s destined for.
The first bottle goes down easier than expected.
They play a game Harry seems to be unfairly familiar with, making up stories about the people around them. He’s good, a little too good.
“Second date,” he nods at a couple two booths away, two boys, one blond and the other a redhead.
“Second?” she scoffs, taking another sip of wine, “That’s too specific.”
He shakes his head, “They’re too comfortable for the first, too nervous for anything much further,” he points with his head again, “Him?”
She follows his line of sight to a man maybe ten years older than them, all alone, beer in his hand.
“Waiting for his significant other?” she shrugs. She’s learned already that Harry always has a little more pessimistic take.
He shakes his head, face adorned with a serious expression, “Stood up. Look at his shoulders. No ring either.”
She rolls her eyes, “Maybe he just has bad posture. Maybe they’re engaged.”
The second bottle goes down even easier. She isn’t even sure she tastes it.
Halfway through it, with his elbows propped up on the table and his chin resting in his hands, Harry asks, “Humor me?”
Penelope tilts her head back to empty her glass, swallows, raises a brow, “Maybe.”
“Why don’t you believe in this?” he flicks at the pendant around his neck, not caring how hot it is.
It’s a loaded question, one she feels like she’s been waiting for all night. Maybe since she first laid eyes on him. She knows what answer he wants, but she won’t give it to him. He can’t have it. Not now, not ever. She is here to prove a point, that she won’t give in, not to pull out her shattered, little heart and lay it out on the table for him.
“It’s a little ridiculous, isn’t it?” she shrugs it off, itching for another glass, “And sort of stupid to follow something so life changing, so blindly.”
He doesn’t shake his head, he doesn’t nod. Instead his lips curve up just a hint, brows knit in concentration as he silently urges her to continue. She’s never had that before, never not been laughed at or told off, and maybe that’s how they get to talking. That small, comforting gesture and a whole lot of alcohol. That’s what wipes away her intentions.
He lets her talk for ages, until she’s run out of words and deep metaphors to describe what she feels inside sometimes. He lets her talk until she herself actually believes the reason she won’t give him the time of day is simply because she is stubborn and defiant and not at all traditional. He lets her talk until her head is spinning and they’re on another bottle of wine and he’s on her side of the booth, hand creeping up her thigh.
He’s saying something she agrees with, something about how intriguing it is that everyone you meet has an endless story, lifetimes and lifetimes of lessons, but she can’t concentrate on it anymore. She can’t keep nodding and swallowing down her wine like it was never turned from water, she can’t focus on anything else other than his hand burning through her jeans and his fingers dancing along her thigh.
“Harry,” she breathes out, unable to focus her eyes anywhere but his lips all pink and puffy all of a sudden, “Let’s go.”
His lips pull into a smirk, his hand tightening on her thigh as he nods.
They’re out of the bar in a flurry, crumpled bills left on the table and stumbling over each other’s feet. The night isn’t nearly as cold as they remember it, as she pulls him along to the train, hand in hand, giggling at nothing. It’s fucking freeing.
It’s never felt like this, rushing home with a stranger. It’s always been nerve wracking and not quite perfect. Her pendant has always hung heavy and cold and ominous on her chest. But not now, not when his hand is in hers and her hair's in her eyes and they’ve just barely caught the train and their breaths.
It’s different even when they can’t keep their hands off of each other on the train, no second thought thrown to bringing him back to her place. Not when his cold hands have slipped under her jacket, under her top, up her side. Not when her lips are attached to his neck, moving down, down, down to the neck of his jumper and that burning chain around his neck.
She doesn’t even realize what she’s doing when she takes him home. Not when she unlocks the heavy door, not when she tugs him through the dark first floor past the bookcases and jars and up to her room. Not when she unbuttons his shirt and his jeans, not when his hands are pulling at any material of hers they can get their hands on. Especially not when his lips are making marks on her neck and they’re collapsing into a heap of skin on skin.
Only in the morning, when the air is chilled and there’s a warm body curled around hers and yellow light is filtering into the room, will she realize what a terrible mistake she’s made.