Post by sylvie on Apr 5, 2011 14:44:29 GMT -5
SYLVIE SAIRA SPARROW
SILLY , FIFTEEN , CIRQUE DE FREYA , ZOOEY DESCHANEL
INSANE , CONFUSED , INTROSPECTIVE , CHARMING , GRACEFUL[/CENTER]
one of these days you'll be under the covers
you'll be under the table and you'll realize
that all of your days are numbered, all of them one to one hundred
all of them millions, all of them trillions
you'll be under the table and you'll realize
that all of your days are numbered, all of them one to one hundred
all of them millions, all of them trillions
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Samson Sparrow could hear the sound of his boots sloshing through the mud that mid-October night. They had just closed up show for the evening and would have only a day off before traveling again. Samson knew how he was going to spend his night. He could feel the familiar pounding in his head, a steady drumming of pain and dizziness. It was the kind of madness that was his constant companion.
He could hear her flighty laugh over his staggering footsteps. She was such a gentle creature. Samson knew that part of him loved her very much. He also knew he would never, ever be good enough for her. Audryn Longbottom was a rare and beautiful being that only came once n a lifetime.
He spotted her through the sheets of pouring rain. He stood for a moment, just watching. She sat beneath a red and white striped canopy with one of the other tight-rope-walkers. Her thick, dirty blond hair was pulled back into a bun atop her head. She wore a red dress and hadn’t washed away her stage make-up yet. Samson couldn’t take his eyes off her.
Suddenly, she looked up. Audryn had been completely immersed in her conversation, but she could feel something changing. That’s how it had been with Samson from the very beginning. Every time the two of them entered the same room or vicinity, they knew the other was there. Something about the way her bright blue eyes locked with his dark brown ones clearly stated that there was an unspoken chemistry between them though. The other show girls had warned her though. They’d whispered in her ear on those long nights around the fire or they gossiped while they smeared red lip stick off their faces after a show. They told her the truth about Samson Sparrow and the kind of person he was. Part of Audryn didn’t want to believe it.
Samson waited until they cleared the area. Audryn’s friend urged her on, tugged at her arm, but the young Miss Longbottom stayed where she was. She murmured an apology and waited until the girl was out of earshot. That was when she took a few careful and measured steps toward Samson. Not once did either one blink or make any sudden movements until Samson reached forward and took Audryn’s wrist. She let him pull her close to him. She was speechless, motionless, confused. Audryn had always been rather naïve. She had run off when she was only fourteen, leaving her parents and brother behind. She had joined the circus as a mere child. Now, here she stood at seventeen. She was a woman.
Samson’s lips were cold and fierce against Audryn’s. The motions were feverish and difficult to process. Audryn protested, pushing him away. Her voice sounded so meek next to the raging pound that was taking over Samson’s mind. He picked her up and pulled her over his shoulder. He carried her toward the woods that backed up behind the field where the carnival had been arranged. He ran through the labyrinth of trees and sticks. He tripped only twice as he continued on, Audryn’s quiet screams being swallowed up into the night.
When Audryn woke, her face was smeared with makeup. Her skin felt damaged, dirty. She realized she was sleeping in a bed of leaves, left alone in an unfamiliar place. Her clothes were torn and there was blood on her body that she couldn’t recall. Her arms were covered in thin scratches, her hair was knotted and a small chunk had been pulled out of the back. She sat alone for an hour straight, crying and praying and wishing that she could understand. But she couldn’t. She would never understand.
Her walk back to the camp was a miserable affair. She wiped and scrubbed at her face, trying to find what was left of herself beneath the mess. She only made it worse for herself. And, when she emerged from the blanket of trees, she could see only one face among the crowd. She watched as Samson Sparrow helped take down tents and carnival rides with the others. Their eyes locked for a few long moments and then Audryn surprised herself. She lifted her hand and offered the tiniest of waves. Her let a small smile dance upon his face’s expression and then went back to his work. That was the beginning.
What actually happened…
Audryn stood upon an alter of daisies wearing a thin layered white wedding dress. Her hair had grown lighter and was put up into the kind of gentle style that suggested only innocence. The tiny wisps of blond flitted around her shining blue eyes. One hand rested protectively over top her belly. She was due any day. Samson had insisted upon marriage before giving birth. Audryn didn’t want to get married. She felt so young. She didn’t think anyone would mind her having a child out of wedlock, but Samson begged and begged.
So, there they stood. Audryn couldn’t take her eyes away from him. He was such a strange, dark, confusing man. Yet, she had such strong feelings for him. Sometimes, Audryn wondered whether those feelings consisted mostly of love or hate, but she dared not show either should they surface. She needed to do this. The healer had told her the baby would be a girl. Audryn wanted her daughter to have a good life. Samson wanted the same thing.
They murmured their vows in quiet, delicate tones. Their fellow performers and friends surrounded them. Audryn couldn’t help but look back every now and again to spot her brother, Peter, who had walked her down the aisle. She couldn’t believe he had actually come. When she had run away, her parents disowned her. But Peter was so kind. Peter cared. Peter had come to her wedding, had walked her down the path of flowers, and had lifted the sheer veil from her eyes with a smile on his face. Audryn felt blessed. Just before the priest asked Samson to kiss the bride, Audryn sent a silent prayer up to Heaven, thanking God for all that she had in her life. As Samson’s lips rested gently atop Audryn’s, a searing pain overcame her. She felt the water around her feet and looked down at her now ruined dress. Her eyes grew wide and Samson took her hands in his. He quickly began to reassure her, saying everything would be okay. It was December thirteenth, a Friday, and their daughter had decided she would like to be in attendance at the wedding reception.
What she thinks happened…
My earliest memory comes from around age three or so. I sat with her among a field of dying flowers. It was Summer. I remember how bright everything was. I remember the way the brown grass scratched against my rosy cheeks when I rolled off the picnic blanket we sat on. I remember the smells of dust and earth and sweat. I remember my mother pouring lemonade from a jar into a small glass for me. I remember how she would lift me up. She would hold me high above her and spin me about as if I was a plane soaring through the air. I would giggle. The sounds would erupt like a kind of secret magic had just been produced. I remember the way she would smile, but never laugh. Her smile seemed so labored. She looked as if she was fighting the urge to cry.
She would sit me down and run her smooth hands through my long, thick, dark hair. She would braid it slowly and in precise knots. She would tie the ends with blue and red checkered bows. She would whisper promises in my ears that I didn’t understand. She would say things like, “We’ll run away together, you and I.” And I would smile this confused grin, this lost and wandering expression.
My father would rise up from the distance, his shadow looming forth like some kind of king of the fields might be coming. His footsteps were so quiet. Even as he came to stand beside us, I couldn’t quite hear them. Why was that? He would reach down and take my mother’s hand. He would kiss her cheek and she would make this face. It was like the face of a smiling porcelain doll. Even then, I suppose it looked a little bit fake. What was she faking?
What actually happened…
Audryn couldn’t help but want to be with Sylvie. Sylvie was the only thing left in her life that brought her true happiness, that she would always understand. Audryn loved her daughter more than she loved anything else. And, in so many ways, Audryn needed her daughter more than she needed the very air she was breathing. So, these little outings and picnics were not rare affairs. They were a weekly occurrence in whatever location they ended up with their show.
Audryn hated faking it. She hated having to pretend to be happy. She just couldn’t shake off all the things that were happening in her life. Samson’s unwanted affection and his constant abuse left her feeling weather and defeated. She wished she could leave, but where would she go? She had thought of asking to stay with her brother and his family. He had a son who was just a little older than Sylvie. But Audryn couldn’t be a burden. Peter had his own life now and Audryn wasn’t part of it.
She smiled for Sylvie. Sweet, Silly Sylvie. Audryn leaned forward to whisper the most lovely words in her daughters ears. And then, to promise her. Audryn wished upon all wishes that someday, when she was gone, Sylvie would remember those promises and those secrets and those nothings. She wanted her precious little girl to grow up and understand why everything was the way it was and to see that Audryn wanted better for her, for them both.
Upon Samson’s entrance into the day’s outing, Audryn could feel the fake smile plastered over her face. Inside, she was shaking. Inside, she was suffocating. Inside, she was dying. Inside, she wanted to take Sylvie up into her arms and run as fast and far from their location as possible. She could only think of the previous night when he’d hit her too hard. Audryn had ended up with a concussion. She’d had to speak with a nearby healer and get medicine. While they performed different tests to check up on her health, she was informed that she could no longer have children. Her daughter would be the only biological child that Audryn could produce and even that child had to have been a miracle. Audryn had cried and then they asked her the question that she had been avoiding. They wanted to know if she had ever been raped.
What she thinks happened…
I was five-years-old and I was dancing. Round and round and round. My mother had been teaching me ballet for the past two years. I was so great at it! I could stand on my tip-toes and twirl and leap and pirouette. My wispy locks of dark hair snuck free of the bun my mother had done atop my head. My ballet shoes looked worn and desperate. My mother sat on the low bench before me, counting my twirls. She counted them in a delicate whisper. Just enough for me to hear, but not loud enough to disrupt me. And then my father crashed from the door behind her.
He held up a bottle of brown-looking liquid and threw it against the glass mirrors along the walls. I stopped spinning and stood completely still, like a deer. I had once seen a deer in the forest behind the carnival while we traveled somewhere in Ireland. I felt like that deer right then. And my mother wouldn’t stop shaking. I wanted to hug her, but something inside of me told me not to move. Perhaps, if I held still enough, I could become invisible.
My father was screaming words that I’d never heard him say before. My mother looked so small. And then I saw them. I saw those tiny, delicate tears fall from her beautiful, shining eyes. I watched them slip down her pale, thin cheeks. I saw her hands trembling. I saw the way she stared into the floor as if it would help her. And then, I couldn’t help myself. I stood between them. I stared across the room toward the door and didn’t move.
My mother got up and fled on shaking feet. My father was screaming after her, but still stood with me. And then, he was right there in front of my quizzical, five-years-old face. And he was speaking in a racing kind of whisper.
“Sylvie. Sylvie. Sylvie. She doesn’t understand.” He spoke like a mad man. He spoke like the clowns when they put on a show. “She lives a life of fear. Do you want to live in fear?” He was asking me a question and all I could do was stare at him blankly. “No. You won’t be like her. You won’t be weak. You are my child. You will take this letter to the man in the back row wearing the purple top hat. Won’t you Sylvie? You will do what mummy cannot?” He was stuffing a thick envelope into my hands. I looked at the envelope and offered a tiny nod. Half way through the show, I snuck up through the rows of the audience and found the man with the purple top hat. He looked so charming. I thought him to be something out of a fairytale. I handed him the envelope and he winked. I had done well. I was helping my father.
What actually happened…
Samson had been collecting data for over two months through every location that Cirque de Freya had gone through. His hands shook slightly as he finished scrawling the numbers and percentages onto the sheets of parchment he had been addressing. He sealed it with deep purple wax and a symbol of a skull with a snake protruding from the mouth. He knew what his visitor would be wearing, but he was told not to deliver the message. No, he had to send someone else. And who better to send than Audryn? No one feared or listened to Samson as well as Audryn. So, directly after sealing the letter, he fled his trailer and ran toward the familiar studio room where Audryn would be teaching Sylvie her ballet lessons. The argument ensued.
“You will take the letter to the man with the top hat! You will deliver it for me!” Samson’s voice was a maddening sort of blend of sounds.
“No, I won’t do your bidding for you Samson.” Audryn was a mere whisper, meek and careful.
“Bidding? It’s only a delivery Audryn! It’s not like I’m asking you to be marked!” Samson fought back. He had to resist the urge to push her, to intimidate her physically. Something about the fact that Sylvie was standing there watching made Samson hesitate.
“That’s not what this is about! Today, it’s a delivery. Tomorrow, you’ll be asking me to help hide the bodies again.” Audryn couldn’t stop crying. Her words were choked and disastrous and still holding onto that meek demeanor.
“Bodies? That was once! This is only a letter, I promise you.” Samson took his voice down and his tone was a feverish mix of persuasion and desperation.
“I can’t do this with you. I can’t be this person. Get someone else. I need to leave. I can’t be this person. I can’t.” Audryn was becoming repetitive and she wasn’t making sense. Upon her dramatic exit, Samson felt only need, only desperation. He turned and looked at the little girl who still stood in the room with him. He looked down at her blank expression and her tiny frame. He felt his lips curl into a smile. No one would ever expect a little girl. Who in their right mind would accuse a sweet little girl of such crimes as Samson had been behind? No one. It was the perfect plan.
What she thinks happened…
“My mother said I’ll only be staying a week.” I said in a cheerful tone as I stared at the obnoxious looking blond boy across from me. There was a kind of mischief about my cousin that made me want to laugh. He felt like a brother, not a cousin. Part of me wished that I had grown up with the Longbottom family instead of my family. The Longbottoms seemed so nice, so normal.
“Only a week? Why can’t you stay? You could go off to Hogwarts like me in a couple years.” Frank spoke as if this was actually an option.
“I have to go back to the circus. My deliveries start again in a week. Even if my mother stays here, my father will come get. My mother will go back though. She loves her shows too much.” I said, I was seven and Frank was eight, but it felt like we were so grown up.
“What do you have to deliver that’s so important?” Frank asked me.
“Just letters. My dad gets them or writes them. One or the other. I deliver them to the people with the marks on their arms. They have to show me their mark, or else I can’t give them the envelope. That’s how it works.” I explained. It was sort of fun feeling like I knew more than Frank. He was always such a know-it-all.
“What kind of marks? Are they cool? Are they shaped like swords and dragons?” Frank asked.
“No. Actually, they look like skulls. They’re sort of scary. You would like them. If I was in charge of the marks, I would make them into bows or unicorns. That would be so much prettier.” I confided. Frank laughed and then stuck his finger in his mouth and then putting it in my ear. I winced and tried to throw one of the bows from my hair at his face. Our parents came in and said we had to start doing magic lessons.
What actually happened…
Audryn Sparrow sat at the kitchen table in her brother’s house. She couldn’t stop running her hands through her messy hair. It was a nervous habit. Augusta noticed the nerves and insisted on making tea. The woman was so kind. Audryn was happy her brother had made a good life for himself. Truth be told, Audryn didn’t know how much longer her life would go on. If she went back to Samson, which she probably would, he would most likely kill her. If he didn’t kill her, Arcturus King would. He had a bit of a vendetta out for her ever since she’d crossed a line that she never meant to cross. And the only thing that stopped her from taking her own life was sitting in the other room that very moment.
Audryn had spent the past six months haunting herself with schemes to kill herself. Some were elaborate affairs in which she hung herself from the platforms where the tight-rope-walkers started. Other plans were much less showy. The most common of which involved her taking three bottles of poison and falling asleep forever. Each time she felt carried away, each time she felt that itching desire to just do it, she would stop herself. She would get up and stop whatever she was doing and find her daughter and hug her. She would just hold Sylvie and remind herself why she was still there.
“Tell me again Aud, why now? What’s been happening?” Peter couldn’t hide the look of concern from his face.
“Things have just gotten worse. The abuse has always been there, but this is the first time that the danger has really set in. And he’s been using Sylvie. I can’t explain it, but I know he’s got her doing things for him…” Audryn stopped and tried to collect herself. The shaking had gotten so much worse. She felt like she was going to shake herself to death soon.
“Slow down. What makes you think that he’s using Sylvie?” Peter asked calmly.
“He’s just so secretive. And, as a mother, I just know something is wrong. Something is so, so wrong.” Audryn didn’t dare speak more than that.
“I trust your instinct, but this is your life and you have to make the call on whether or not you leave.” Peter advised.
“I want to leave, but where would I even go? I don’t have money, the only family I have is you and I will not take advantage of your kindness. I don’t even have any skills. I’m a tight-rope-walker and a ballet dancer. Those are the only things I’m good at. My magical education was very short lived and I’m practically a squib!” Audryn could feel herself losing it. Her voice was growing quieter and quieter. It was as thought she didn’t want anyone to know. But that was exactly why she had come there. That was precisely why she had arranged to visit.
“You need to start figuring things out. We can help you Aud. There’s always hope. You just need to make your own choices.” Peter said, taking her shaking hand and trying to catch her eye to reassure her. She flinched away and she couldn’t hold anyone’s gaze except Sylvie’s. That was what her life had become.
What she thinks happened…
When I was five-years-old, my mother had saved up all her tips for a month so she could buy me a kitten from a pet store. It was a little chocolate brown cat with big gray eyes. I named him Scooter. I took care of him every single day. I let him sleep with me in my bed. I carried him in a basket every time we traveled so he wouldn’t get left behind. I fed him. I cleaned up after him. I watched over him. From age five, I knew how to care not only for myself, but for another living creature as well.
I thought Scooter would be my constant companion until I grew up into adulthood. Unfortunately, I was wrong to think that. On the night of my tenth birthday, my father took me and Scooter out to a huge field beneath the stars. He said that he would be giving me the greatest gift and lesson of my life. He set Scooter on a boulder and told him to stay. He looked me in the eyes and his face became very cross. I was confused as he picked up a smaller rock and crushed Scooter’s head on with it. I began to cry. I felt so confused, so lost, so wrong. He took me by the shoulders and shook me until I stopped.
“Everything that you love in this world will die in time. That is tonight’s lesson Sylvie. You spent all those years loving and caring for Scooter and now he is gone forever. Instead of crying about it, I want you to bury him and get over it. It will make you stronger to lose the things that you love the most.” His words remained lost inside my mind every single day since he first spoke them. Everything that you love in this world will die.
I made an effort to not start crying again. I sat down in the dirt beside the boulder and began digging with my bare hands. I dug and my nails began to bleed. I was caked in the muck as I lifted Scooter’s blood-soaked body and set him into his grave. And then, I did something my father didn’t like at all. Just before pushing the dirt over Scooter’s lifeless body, I kissed his bloody head ever-so-gently. I was saying goodbye. For my punishment, my father beat me with a belt. Twenty lashes. That was what he said all the children got when they disappointed their parents. He told me I was too old to be making these mistakes. I was supposed to do as he wanted.
What actually happened…
Samson couldn’t handle it all. He’d never been good at handling things anyway, but the fact that Audryn had gone missing for two weeks and had left Samson in charge of Sylvie was too much stress. Samson could feel his angry outbursts pleading to be unleashed. He had to do something. It was Sylvie’s birthday and they’d just finished dinner with the other performers and Sylvie had opened a gift that Audryn had left inside her pillowcase. It was a gold locket with a photo of the three of them standing together outside the carnival. Sylvie had treasured the gift, but Samson saw it only as a symbol of what they were all slowly losing.
Samson took a few moments to himself. He ran his hand through the wall of an abandoned shed in a nearby field. His knuckles had bruised and bloodied, but he’d healed himself up easily enough. Normally, he would hit Audryn. But she wasn’t there. She was gone to who knew where? All he had left was that girl, the girl who was now growing up. She would grow up faster than Samson could deal with and then he would have no one. In addition to having no one, he would lose his messenger. So, he decided to teach Sylvie a lesson about loss. To him, it seemed like the best idea for them both right then.
What she thinks happened…
I stood alone beneath the stars. My head was aching. My forehead was bleeding. I was dizzy. So, so dizzy. A shooting star shot across the air. I could hear music in the distance. I thought of the record player my mother had. I thought of the two of us dancing around the studio to her records. I thought of us standing on our tip-toes and laughing. I could hear my mother’s laugh in my head. I hadn’t heard her laugh in years. I wasn’t standing anymore. I was lying on the ground. The dirt was dry and cold. I could feel the dustiness of it as my fingertips explored the texture. It wasn’t dirt though. Now it was mud. It was thick, dark, red mud. When had I scratched my knee? Was my head still bleeding? Why were the stars so bright?
“I wish upon these stars!!!!” I called out, my voice a feeble song. Who could hear me? Was God looking down on me with a smile, promising to take care of me? Would anyone take care of me?
What actually happened…
Audryn couldn’t stop shaking and screaming and trembling. She was locked inside the trailer she shared with her husband and daughter. Samson had trapped her in there. And then, he had left. She remained unharmed, for the most part, but she knew that was only making it worse for whoever he came across next. Audryn sat with her knees pulled close to her chest. She was rocking back and forth, back and forth. She hit her head against the edge of a counter repeatedly, wondering why she couldn’t stop. Her eyes felt so wide, but she couldn’t shut them. They were burning. Finally, she stopped herself, stopped the rocking. She stood up and reached for a knife inside a drawer. She held it in her shaky grip and thought about how easily she could use that knife to tare across her arms, ripping through the veins, ending her desperation and chaos. But she couldn’t. No. Sylvie was out there.
Audryn took the knife and used it to pick at the lock that Samson had jammed. It took her fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes wasted away picking at a lock in a panic. Audryn couldn’t waste the time, but she had. By the time she was out, it took her twenty minutes to find where Samson and Sylvie were locked away. She burst through the door to the supply truck as Samson beat Sylvie’s head against a packaging box. Audryn screamed at the top of her lungs. She was shouting profanities and nonsensical words. None of it fit together. All she could do was throw herself at Samson, beating at him with her weak fists. Samson hit her back. The only thing she could do was look to Sylvie and call to her. She called to her sweet little Sylvie and told her baby girl to run. She begged her to run as fast and as far as she could. It was the same as those promises and secrets she had once whispered in her daughter’s ear as a toddler. Now, the promises needed to be put to use. This was the only way she could protect her child. She could only teach her to run.
One of the builders came and found Samson and Audryn just as Samson started to smash Audryn’s head into the boxes. The builder dragged Samson off his wife and hit him hard enough to knock him unconscious. He tried to get Audryn to calm down, to explain what had happened. Instead, Audryn ran. She was running so fast that she couldn’t hear anything around her except for the mad beating of her own heart. Her breathing was burning and labored and intense. She could feel the builder running behind her. He was following. She could faintly hear him asking her to stop, but she couldn’t. She had to find Sylvie. She had to find her daughter!
Audryn knew that Sylvie would be in the fields. That was how it had always been. The fields were Sylvie’s safe place. Sylvie loved to be surrounded by plants and nature. Sylvie loved to be beneath the stars. So, when Audryn found her daughter bleeding out in those fields, she could only blame herself for making her child’s safe place so inconvenient. She and the builder worked together to apparate Sylvie to St. Mungo’s where she was healed within a week. Audryn couldn’t possibly forgive herself for what she had done.
When the builder tried to interfere with Audryn’s marriage, tried to get her to make some kind of statement, Audryn refused. She said it had all been a misunderstanding. It had been a confusing night. Sylvie had gotten hurt and run off. The things that had happened in the supply truck where wildly over-dramatized. Audryn couldn’t face the reality of it all. She couldn’t deal with.
What she thinks happened…
I stood outside Arcturus King’s trailer. I was so happy. I had just been given the position of tight-rope-walker. My mother was retiring. She was finished with her show. She would stay with the carnival and help with other jobs, but she would no longer be making her nightly walk. I felt this huge sense of honor and excitement. I was going to be part of the real show. I didn’t think anything could ruin this for me. But I was wrong. I could hear my mother inside that trailer. She must have walked in right after I’d left. She was inside having some kind of dissertation with Arcturus.
“Your ancestors would be rolling in their graves if they could see you now Arcturus!” My mother was saying to him. She sounded more angry and more powerful than I’d ever heard her before. Ever since my accident, she’d been that way, assertive. It was a big change.
“Do I look like the type to care Audryn?” Arcturus shot back at her. I began to wonder if I should intervene before the two of them actually started fighting. I was just old enough to be able to cast a good freezing charm.
“Don’t give me that. If Freya knew the support you have for these people and what they do… I can’t even begin to fathom what she would say or do. The entire foundation of this show is the exact opposite of what you’re letting happen.” I couldn’t understand what she was talking about. My mother sounded like she knew what she was doing, but I couldn’t wrap my mind around it in any way.
“I am my own person. Freya was wrong. And what we’re doing here and now is right. You may not see it that way, but that’s how I see it. If you have a problem Audryn, leave. Your husband seems to be just fine with the way we run things here. So does your daughter, for that matter.” Arcturus was talking about me and I didn’t see how I fit into this at all. What was I supporting? Was it bad? Was I expected to change things?
“Don’t you dare bring my child into this. She’s done nothing wrong. She is as innocent as they come!” My mother was speaking quietly now. I could hear her only because I knew her voice better than any other.
“Has he not told you what your precious child has done? She is one of our greatest assets.” Arcturus sounded like he was about to start a speech, but he stopped.
“I will stab you to death with this knife if you dare bring my child into this one more time.” My mother sounded insane, completely and utterly insane.
“You wouldn’t dare.” Arcturus said sharply. “You’ve been beaten near to death for years and you have never, ever fought back. Now is the same.” Arcturus murmured. And then, I heard a series of quick movements that I couldn’t understand or decipher. Next thing I knew, Arcturus was running out of the trailer screaming that he’d been attacked and Audryn Sparrow had fallen on a knife. I couldn’t move. I remained completely still. Was he telling the truth? Or had he murdered my mother while I was standing right there?
What actually happened…
“My wife knows what we’re doing.” Samson spoke in a sort of defeated tone as he and Arcturus King swept the empty stage.
“And?” Arcturus asked, as if it didn’t make any difference.
“You know the kind of person she is… She might turn us in. The war will only become more and more real as time goes on.” Samson spoke quietly. This was a private conversation despite them being in a very open space. It was late and no one was supposed to be there.
“I will take care of Audryn. You just focus on your job.” Arcturus suggested. The conversation was over as quickly as it had begun. It was a simple choice. There wasn’t any debate.
What she thinks happened…
“When did the nightmares begin Miss Sparrow?” The healer at St. Mungo’s asked me gently.
“Uhm, not long after my mother passed away.” I replied. I was still having trouble grasping why these things were happening.
“And what happens?” He pushed further, probing me mentally.
“Well, I’m usually running down a dark hallway in an old looking house. It’s a fancy old house. Like one of those manners the wealthy own. And I never know what’s chasing me, but as soon as I feel safe, I die. It happens every time in different ways. I die over and over and over every single night.” I explained. The words seemed to flood out of me. I had a habit of talking a lot.
“Are you afraid of dying Miss Sparrow?” He asked.
“No. I’m not. If I die, I will be with my mother again. I don’t fear what is a certain thing in my life.” I replied. I didn’t know where these words were coming from. For a whole second, I believed myself to be wise. But then I saw the tiny glimpse of horror on the healer’s face and I knew it wasn’t normal to not fear death. Not when I was having nightmares every night about dying anyway.
“Have you ever considered suicide?” He asked me with his eye-brows slightly raised.
“No. Why would I? God would frown upon killing myself.” I responded as though it was very obvious.
“Then, perhaps this is just a phase. Perhaps this is a way you’re coping with the loss of your mother. I take it you two were close? Maybe this is your sub-conscious trying to connect and make peace with her death.” The healer sounded a bit like he was rambling to me. I nodded as though I agreed, but I didn’t. I didn’t think I would ever make peace with my mother’s death. I would continue to miss her every single day that I still lived. But I had to live, because she would want me to. It was all for her.
“I’m going to let you return home with your father, but I suggest you start learning to make peace with the past Miss Sparrow. You need to let go.” He told me. I nodded again, hoping he was right.
What actually happened…
“She really thinks they’re all just nightmares?” Arcturus asked Samson as the two sat, stowed away in Arcturus’s trailer. They gulped down whisky like it was water as they talked this one through.
“Yeah. She hasn’t got a clue what’s been happening to her mind. Her memories being replaced and altered so that she doesn’t know about the messages and the errands… She hasn’t got a clue. And she certainly doesn’t know that she’s killed anyone. She told the healer that she has nightmares each night where she’s running and she dies. It’s flawless.” Samson was going on and on.
“That really is some beautiful spell work. And the fact that she’s still young and innocent looking… That’s just the cherry on top. She’s only thirteen and she’s helping our lot more than most adults these days.” Arcturus sounded impressed.
“She thinks she’s going mad though. Sometimes I hear her talk in her sleep. She begs for help to escape her mind.” Samson sounded slightly concerned, but not enough to prove he genuinely cared.
“Just a side affect. I want you to see it this way Samson, she is only a tool now. She was your daughter when your wife was still alive. Now, she’s not worth nearly as much to you personally. Your family is over, you loyalty however is a strong constant.” Arcturus opened a new bottle from the counter behind them.
“I hate to say it, but you’re right. It’s only practical to view her that way. I completely understand.” Samson agreed. The glasses chinked as the whisky was poured. It would be a long night ahead.
What she thinks happened…
“What do you mean my father is in prison?” I asked, shocked, as Arcturus King stood before our group at the nightly camp fire ring.
“We think him to be innocent and framed, but he is currently being held in Azkaban Prison under accusations of murder.” Arcturus spoke professionally. He made sure to make eye-contact with everyone around the ring. Everyone except me. He couldn’t seem to look me in the eyes.
“What are we supposed to do?” I asked, feeling more lost than I ever had in my entire life. My mother was dead and now my father was in prison. I was thirteen. I was screwed.
“You can testify for him. You can say he is a great man and couldn’t possibly hurt anyone.” Arcturus spoke rationally. “The same goes for the rest of you. If you would like to speak at the trial, please come to me and I can sign you up.”
“What am I supposed to do? I don’t have any family left.” I said quietly. I could tell eyes had shot to me. People felt for me.
“We are your family Sylvie. We wouldn’t just leave you.” Arcturus said gently. He seemed so kind. How could he have been involved with my mother’s death?
“You can stay with Althie and her sister. You’re not the first one to go through something like this.” One of the other moms spoke up.
“We’ll always be here to look after you Silly.” One of the builders said with a grin, calling me by the nickname everyone had used for me.
“We’re going to make sure you’re okay Sylvie. And we’ll help your dad too.” One of the elders said from across the ring. I had always had respect for my elders. Maybe we would find a way to work through all of this.
What actually happened…
Samson Sparrow sat on the other side of a barred window in a long, magically electrified wall. He stared at the steady expression Arcturus King wore. Samson felt as if he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He’d killed and entire muggle family. He’d been caught by a ministry employee who he didn’t realize lived in the neighborhood and did patrols. There was no way Samson would win his case and he knew it.
“There isn’t much time. Just take care of her and make sure she keeps doing her job.” Samson said, his words delicately coded in a way that would sound normal but would mean everything to Arcturus.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Arcturus responded, as if to say he would keep using Sylvie even if Samson asked him to stop their operations. With that small exchange of words, Arcturus left. He knew that the only other time he would ever see Samson Sparrow again would be at the trial where they’d put on their last show of innocence. After that, Samson would be nothing.
What she thinks happened…
I stood above the crowd, perched gracefully on my rope. I could see Flora across from me. We both wore these luring smiles, the kinds of faces that called in the audience wickedly. I was used to doing the shows by now. They were second nature to me. I was fifteen and this had been my one true skill for the past few years. I had tried to let go of my loss of family and put all my focus into my training. I wanted to be better and better and better. So, I walked the line with Flora and I smiled and I did tiny, showy jumps as I moved.
I was half way across when the pain came searing through my head. Everything felt wrong and dizzy and messy. I kept seeing spots of colors blurring my focus. I wanted to call out to one of the stage hands or lighting operators and beg them to not use hot pink color filters because I just couldn’t see! But I knew it wasn’t the color filters. For the past few months, this sensation has been my constant companion. There’s something missing in my mind, and I just can’t seem to find what it is. It’s killing me. I can’t figure out where everything has gone. Is this really how I’m going to live my life? I don’t know if I’m going to be walking this fine line for much longer.
word count: 7175[/ul]
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
EXPERIENCE 7+ years
CONTACT PM
MEMBER TITLE
Tight-Rope-Walker
always the messenger
never the message
always the messenger
never the message
CHARACTER'S:
HOUSE: N/A
HAIR COLOR: Brown
EYE COLOR: Blue[/ul]
OTHER CHARACTERS Lily, Frank, Kyndrick, Terria, Dax, Amelia, Mycah, Emma, Holden, Effie, & Russel.
ROLEPLAY SAMPLE[/ul]
12:55 PM…
”Have you ever felt like dying?” She whispered. ”Have you ever felt like each and every moment of every day was suffocating you slowly, stealing the life out of you in tiny measurements? Have you ever drowned while absent of water? Have you ever choked on nothing? Have you ever felt so numb that nothing could affect you? Have you ever been so empty that you could stand on the edge of a cliff and trip off the side and you wouldn’t even feel the adrenaline hit you? Have you ever been gone while you were still there? Have you ever been lost when you were at home? Have you ever thrown up without eating? Have you ever lost hours of the day and not known where they went because you weren’t aware of what was happening in your head? Have you ever seen something that wasn’t there? Have you ever heard something that didn’t make a sound? Have you ever fallen while holding still? Have you ever….” She stopped and took a shallow breath.
Emma Logan sat alone in the girl’s dormitory. Everyone else had gone to classes or taken free periods with friends. She had ditched Charms. She’d stayed in bed for hours, unmoving, unfeeling. Every movement after she dragged her fragile body from bed seemed labored. Her skin felt tight against her body. She couldn’t remember things, important things. Like when she’d last eaten or drank a glass of water or even smoked her last cigarette. She couldn’t remember who she’d last spoken to or made eye-contact with. She couldn’t remember… She felt like she couldn’t even remember her own name in certain moments. And not because her memory was taken or broken. She was broken. Her mind couldn’t stay in the present. She couldn’t think. She could only desperately attempt to feel and even that was a failure.
She stared into a mirror. It didn’t belong to her. Perhaps it was one of the other girl’s possessions. She was only borrowing it. Not to check makeup or admire herself or become self-conscious, but just to make sure she was still there. She wanted to be sure she hadn’t faded over night and disappeared entirely. She wanted to make sure she hadn’t become as transparent as the ghosts that floated aimlessly about this school. Because, for a whole ten minutes while she was lying in that bed, she felt as though she wasn’t even human. She wasn’t real. She was a mere figment of someone else’s imagination. And that only made things harder, made every breath less honest. She couldn’t be anything. She couldn’t process her surroundings or herself.
She looked down at her legs. Thin scratches lined up her thighs. Had she done that? She couldn’t remember. Dried blood smeared in little circles along those lines. Her nails had a similar substance just beneath the surface. She looked at her hands and realized she was shaking. Hunger. Her stomach was growling in an unhappy roar. She clasped her hands tightly and felt as her nails dug into her palms. More blood. Why couldn’t she even feel the pain? She gave the mirror an empty glance. She picked it up in one swift movement, despite her shaking hands, and she slammed it down against the floor. It smashed into fragments of reflective glass all over the stone flooring and deep emerald rugs. She kneeled down, and grabbed at the shards with a manic look stowing itself in her eyes. She grabbed the largest piece and ran it along her arm gently, watching the blood surface. It wasn’t a deep cut, just a tiny scratch, really. She dug the glass into her leg, trying to bait herself into calling out but no sound came from her. She felt a tiny flicker of anger and rose from her spot.
She glanced down at her legs to see tiny specks of blood from the minuscule shards of glass she had leaned on. Her knees looked wobbly, messy, disgusting. She started to run her hands through her hair repeatedly, mixing blood with her dark and tangled knots. She looked wild, like some kind of ravaging beast. Why couldn’t she feel wild? She wanted to feel wild. She wanted to feel panicked. She wanted to feel human. She wanted to feel alive. But she couldn’t. And that tiny flicker of anger was vanishing. Leaving her hollow. Leaving her vacant. Leaving her empty.
She went to her trunk and pulled out a pair of jeans. She skipped into them like a skeleton. The blood soaked up into the fabric and she ignored it. She grabbed at a white button-up shirt that she wore to classes and slid her arms into the sleeves. She shook like a drug addict as she tried to do the buttons up. She got half-way and left it, ignoring the fact that her lacy white bra was showing just slightly. She didn’t care. Empty people couldn’t care. She wanted to. She wished she could slip into some small act of obsessive compulsion in order to distract from her horrifyingly hollow reality, but she couldn’t. She could only grab at her school robes and put them on so they would cover up her bloody mess. She slipped her feet into worn out flat shoes. She grabbed her bedpost and took a long breath, attempting to stop her shaking. And then she tried to braid her hair. It seemed such a lost cause, but she tried to do so anyway. She needed something to do with her hands. Two loose braids hung about her shoulders, a mess of dark locks escaping and claiming their freedom as wisps around her eyes.
She needed out. She couldn’t go to class, but she needed out. So, she began to wander. She would wander the halls and be reckless and lost and exist. That was all she was capable of… Existing.
10:58 PM…
Emma stood before a tall window in an empty corridor. She stared out into the dark before her. She watched as the stars lit up, creating beautiful, entrancing art before her eyes. Relief. She felt some tiny sense of relief. The first feeling she had been able to tap into since that desperate glimpse at anger she’d felt in the morning. She could only attribute the relief to the knowledge that it was finally ending. She’d left her note upon the school’s bulletin board just that morning. In an hour, she would no longer be breathing. Her heart would no longer be beating. Her body would merely be an empty shell. She felt so close to an empty shell already that she wondered what the difference would really be. She tried to think, tried to process her actions. She wondered for a moment if there was a heaven and a hell. She’d believed in God as a little girl. She would pray when things got bad, she would pray when things got good. She’d look up at the sky and fancy that something out there was looking out for her. But as she’d grown up, God had started to seem like nothing more than a fairy tale. And, right then, Emma thought that even Hell would be a blessing. She would rather feel eternal pain, burning in an everlasting fire, than feel nothing at all for even an hour more. She would take Hell over the life she was living.
The stars were dancing. They were playing tricks on her. She tried to remember how many hours had passed since she’d dug the glass into her leg. She tried to remember the last person she had seen walk by. Had they noticed her? Had they known her name? Would they come back tomorrow and say, ”This was the last place that I saw Emma Logan, the girl who killed herself.”? Emma didn’t care. They’d most likely forget. And that would be easier. It was one thing to leave a world where others would cry over your death, but Emma had very few who would even pay her that honor. She thought only of her sister, her parents, and Severus Snape. Even her professors would only ever know her as a name on a list. She’d done it all on purpose. Part of it knew that this was how it would be.
She started to turn, she knew her time was withering away. And then she caught a tiny glimpse of something. There, in the corner of her eye, someone was moving. They were dashing out of her sight. Had Emma been functional, she would perhaps have chased after this person. But she could only think of what was ahead. She could only feel the uplifting weight of a few stolen potions ingredients in her school robe pocket. She could only let her lost-feeling feet carry her through those halls in an unaware kind of absence. She didn’t think of professors and prefects and others on patrol. She knew she was invisible. This was the last time that invisibility would matter.
The second floor bathroom had once been her refuge. She used to come there to get away from everyone else. Myrtle lived in this particular bathroom, but even the ghost didn’t like Emma. Emma was much too abstract to fit into even the most temperamental of Hogwarts ghosts’ reality. So, when Emma entered the girl’s lavatory, Myrtle promptly flushed herself down the toilet in the third stall down.
She took staggering strides toward the sink. She stared into the mirror and felt herself trapped in the morning. Should she break it? Should she attempt to feel something? Should she cry? Or lash out? Or yell? Or just speak? She could only stare. She could only stand as still as one of the many statues and look into her own glassy, stony eyes. She tried to get lost in some kind of distraction, to put off what she knew had to come. She tried to describe the exact shade of blue her eyes were. She could only go as far as to realize that it reminded her of glass. She felt as if she was a walking paradox. Here she was, staring into glass with glass. It was endless, reflecting back and forth, back and forth. Back and forth, back and forth. She realized her feet were teetering slightly. She was rocking back and forth on her heels. The movement was soothing. She felt a tiny fragment of calm take her, capture her.
She’d finally stopped shaking. Perhaps there was a God and he was guiding her now. He was taking her hands and steadying them. He was guiding them to her pocket where she pulled out the beautiful little bottle that contained her potion. The bottle was lavender. Emma had always been fond of lavender. And it had an icy quality about it that Emma would associate with death until she passed away in a few moments. There were times in life that were made for thinking, that were made for over-analyzing. This wasn’t one of those times. The movement was as casual as reaching for a goblet of pumpkin juice and taking that first refreshing gulp. Emma downed it like a shot. It tasted terrible, like tar and rust and gasoline. Yet she needed it. She needed it more than she’d ever needed anything else in her life. So, she swallowed it. All the finality washed over her. It was finally over. She was finally over. And she felt her knees buckling beneath her. It was too soon for the potion to take affect. This was emotion. This was everything she’d been dying to feel. And it was hitting her like a tangible object. She could feel the wind knocked out of her. She could feel the world becoming dizzy, becoming hazy. She could feel her eyes singed around the lines, her throat burning as if doused with alcohol and set ablaze by a flame thrower. She felt the tears she had so desired as they began to make their hasty escape. They drizzled down her cheeks so slowly that Emma wondered if they were made of some other liquid and not water.
And she felt as the numbness receded. She could feel the cold, dirty tiles that her palms were pressed against. She could feel the cuts on her body. She could smell the stench of the girl’s bathroom. She could hear the distant sounds that the castle offered. The occasional creak, the dripping of a faucet, the leaking of a pipe. She heard the screech of an owl outside the window and she looked up. She looked up to the stars as they continued to dance. She wondered if this was how Vincent Van Gogh had felt so many years ago. As he painted such beautiful masterpieces. Could he feel all of those sensations over-coming him? Did he do it because it made him feel alive? And Emma knew that those would be her last thoughts. She wanted them to be her last thoughts. She wished she could whisper a single word, Goodbye but she didn’t dare attempt to speak. She could only be lost in that haze. Her body sprawled out awkwardly on the damp floor. Her arms and legs flailed off in different directions. Her potion bottle having rolled beneath a stall beside her. Her hair resting in tangled tresses about her shoulders. This was her farewell. This was it.
THIS APPLICATON TEMPLATE WAS MADE BY JANASAURUS! OVER AT CAUTION!
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