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A clump of damp hair thwacks onto the sink. Followed by another. Then another.
Isadora hadn’t been planning to cut it or anything. In fact, she’d quite liked how her hair had finally grown long enough to tie back like Violet’s, but the scissors had just…been there, resting on the bathroom sink. That was enough to make her do it, apparently.
Long tendrils wash down the drain like ink when she turns the tap on. It’d probably have been better to dump the hair in the bin but that’s all the way outside and Isadora can’t bring herself to care if she’s being perfectly honest. It’s not like it’s her sink she’s clogging up anyway, it’s her foster mother’s; some well-meaning judge who doesn’t like Isadora as much as she likes the concept of taking in an orphan.
Blinding sunlight blazes through the kitchen windows in an obnoxious manner. Isadora squints, glaring as she hurries to the cupboards in search of something to take her mind off things. Like hot sauce. Sometimes, she’d gulp straight from the bottle so that all she could focus on was how badly it burned. Rummaging through neatly organised cans and bottles her hands come to a sudden halt alongside her heart and Isadora flinches on instinct. Footsteps.
Flinging the cupboard doors closed, silencing the slam with a finger right before it hits shut, Isadora swivels around empty-handed just in time to see Justice Strauss-her foster mother-walk through the door wearing a bright smile that falters, the corners of her mouth drooping further down to form a frown the longer she peers at Isadora,
“Oh my…” the woman mutters. Isadora takes it as confirmation that her hair is on the more…alternative side.
“Are you-are you okay, dear?”
Despite not swallowing any hot sauce, Isadora finds her throat and eyes to be burning and so all she can do is nod. Justice Strauss still looks concerned so Isadora offers her a small smile. Or at least she tries to, her mouth feels like it’s made of elastic all of a sudden-the weak kind that breaks if you stretch it too far.
The woman moves closer to Isadora, reaching for a shelf near her head and bringing down two mugs: one shaped like a black cat with the tail being the handle and the other with a vintage floral design. Isadora grips the countertop, trying her hardest to refrain from flinching.
“Sometimes,” began Justice Strauss, pouring water into a pot, “when I am upset or worried about something, I find that all the solutions in the world can be found at the bottom of a nice, refreshing cup of tea.” The woman busies herself over the drinks, as if the statement she made were not utterly ridiculous.
“What-” Isadora stops to cough as her voice breaks, flushing in embarrassment, “what about my siblings?”
“Hmm?” the woman hmms, pouring tea into both cups alongside a dash of milk and a few sugar cubes (for which Isadora was glad, people who drink bitter tea belong in prison for crimes against their own taste buds).
“Won’t they want some tea, too?”
“…no, dear, I-I don’t think they will.” With her back to Isadora, she stirs the sugar in, spoon clinking against the sides of the cups.
“Oh,” is all Isadora replies, “I’ll be back in a minute.” She leaves the kitchen, soft feet padding down the hallway quietly. So quietly. She used to be so confident, so outspoken-maybe a little too outspoken at times- all in all, her presence had been vibrant in that enviably unapologetic way. Then Olaf happened. And now that envy, that longing to just be the person she was before roars like a fire in her heart, burning her mind to ashes.
The library, like the rest of Strauss’s house, is flooded with sunlight and an aching sense of unfamiliarity. Everything in it is colour coordinated from the red rug matching a painting on the mantlepiece to the muted browns, blues and yellows of the books neatly lining shelves from floor to ceiling. Isadora hovers in the doorway (dark hair and clothes causing her to look less like a person and more like a vague silhouette), aware that to this room, to this house and to this world she is nothing but a dark stain.
She hurries to one of the back shelves, polished parquet floor scoffing at her scuffed black boots, and stretches up, sliding an atlas off the shelf and tossing it onto one of the overstuffed armchairs, accidentally toppling over a stack of newspapers that had been placed there prior.
“Sh*t,” she sighs, dropping to her knees to scuffle for the scattered sheets, “You’re such a neat freak, Dunc, you’d probably cry if you saw newspapers being handled this recklessly.”
In reality, if Duncan were to witness said blunder, he most likely would have relented after one small teasing remark rather than burst into tears however it is easy for Isadora to forget that when the sound of his sobs echoes through her head on a nightly basis. Once the papers are set to rights and the atlas, on a different armchair, is flicked open to a map of Cyprus, Isadora allows herself to leave the room. Justice Strauss may not have let her bring her brothers tea but Isadora would always find other ways to look out for them because that’s what siblings do. Triplets especially. Their parents had made them promise eachother, on an evening that felt centuries ago, to always look after one another nomatter what. Isadora intended to keep that promise (although she’d done a pretty lousy job of it so far) if only for the fact that she wouldn’t be able to live with herself otherwise.
‘I would rather set myself ablaze,
than wade through guilt for the rest of my days.’
It’s not the perfect couplet by any means but ‘perfection’ hasn’t existed for quite some time. Maybe it never has.
***
Justice Strauss sidles into the chair beside Isadora in the kitchen, angling it so that they face each other. Isadora clasps her hands round the boiling hot cup. It burns. She tightens her grip.
“It appears that the coal supply for our fireplace has disappeared again,” Strauss says.
‘Our fireplace?’ As if.
“Do you know why that might be?”
Isadora shrugs, taking a searing gulp of tea. If Strauss wants her to admit to something then why won’t she just come out with it?
“Listen, I know that you haven’t had the…best experience with fire however we need it to keep our home warm, do you understand?”
No. She didn’t understand. She didn’t understand how any place where her parents and siblings weren’t alive and well together could be called ‘home’. It was sacrilege. For the first time since she came to live in that painfully picturesque house, Isadora meets Justice Strauss’ eyes, delivering a withering glare that would have made the great unknown itself turn tail and dive deeper into murky waters. (Isadora would know, she had been swallowed whole and subsequently vomited out of that very being less than a fortnight ago.)
With a somewhat nervous sip of her tea, Justice Strauss continues, “How about we come to a compromise, dear? I purchase a fireguard so we can be safe and warm, meanwhile you leave the coal where it is. What do you say, dear?”
{‘If you help your brothers with their spellings, we’ll take you to that ‘Humpty-Dumpty’ reading, what do you say, dear?’}
“Stop calling me dear,” she hisses into her cup, words getting lost in the steam. “How do you know if it’s me taking them? It could be anybody.”
Justice Strauss releases a soft but strained laugh and Isadora concludes that there are worse sounds than Nero playing the violin; it’s the sound of that breath before Justice Strauss says her next sentence. The dreadful tension of knowing the sheer weight her next words will hold.
“Anybody? Why, dear, there’s nobody els-”
Isadora’s hands shake so severely that tea spills all over her front, soaking her thick black wool sweater and burning her hands a nasty red. The cup slips from her wet grip, crashing to the floor and shattering into a million pieces.
“Oh!” Squeals Justice Strauss in shock.
Isadora makes no noise and instantly stoops down to collect the pieces. It feels like that’s what she’s spent her whole life doing.
“No, no, dear, be careful or you’ll-” The woman’s warning arrives too late-as most warnings tend to-for a particularly sharp shard has already left a deep cut in the palm of Isadora’s left hand (her writing hand). No noise of anguish escapes the child’s lips but the woman makes a sympathetic “ahh” sound on her behalf.
“You sit down now and make yourself comfortable, I’ve got bandages lying around here somewhere…”
Isadora returns to her seat, staring absent-mindedly as thin streams of blood drip from her hand, splattering onto the shards circling her chair. An eye stares back at her from one of those jagged shards. It’s not hers, she’s sure, this eye looks too tired. Too drained. It’s the eye of a wakened corpse, not a human. A splatter of blood obscures the image and she stops thinking about it. What’s the point in reminiscing about someone who’s gone and left her?
A warm hand on her arm surprises Isadora and she strikes out. Hitting Justice Strauss in the side. The woman squeaks and Isadora catches her eye, hoping her gaze conveys the apology her voice isn’t steady enough to give.
It must do because Justice Strauss slowly, tentatively pulls Isadora’s hand towards her and hovers a bottle of disinfectant over it, “this is going to hurt.”
“It already does.” The response is let out in one breath, barely a whisper, as Isadora squeezes her eyes shut in anticipation.
“It’s going to hurt,” the woman repeats then adds firmly, “but it will help. Something will always help but only if you let it.”
The stinging sensation isn’t that bad but it causes her eyes to water regardless. She sniffs, picturing the bacteria in her wound disintegrating-if that’s even how it works, Klaus would probably know if he were here- then she opens her eyes and her gaze catches on the shards littering the floor; broken before their purpose could be fulfilled and destined to be dumped.
Justice Strauss talks as she wraps soft bandages securely round Isadora’s hand, she tells her a story from her own childhood about a time when she had accidentally broken her father’s favourite vase and blamed it on the neighbour’s cat only to feel so overwhelmed by guilt that she couldn’t speak without stuttering for the following three years. It’s a pretty concerning story to be honest but Isadora is glad all the same for the break from silence it offers. It’s been far too silent lately, deafeningly so.
Delving into her sweater pocket as Justice Strauss sweeps, Isadora retrieves three commonplace books; water damage rendering them all illegible, the meticulous placement of tape and the featherlight touch of their holder being the sole things keeping the pages from falling loose. Leaving them on the table, Isadora rises to help Justice Strauss clear up the broken thing for recycling because it wasn’t useless, nor did it deserved to be dumped, for in it was the chance to become something again.