Finally Chiming In

Well, I have renewed my commitment to getting a draft of this novel done. So, here is what is either Chapter 2 or the completion of Chapter 1. I'm still trying to get to know the characters a little and learning how they behave. And now that this is done, I get to reward myself and read Mark's chapters! So here you go....

Chapter 2: Perspective

As Morrighan follows her mother down the hall to the chamber she feels herself growing more and more anxious about the girl, but she didn’t want to make a scene in front of the fretters. Morrighan hates “the chamber.” It’s like a set from some low-budget horror movie, complete with velvet curtains and matching divan and a hulking armoire with carved griffins and gargoyles.
“Look, Morrighan, just because you set me up on some convoluted online calendar system doesn’t mean that you get to change my schedule willy-nilly,” says Madame Finch.
Willy-nilly? Who, in this century, uses phrases like that Morrighan thinks.
“I didn’t change your schedule. They did,” says Morrighan, her anxiety turning to agitation.
“You are running the front of the house, not them.”
“Front of the house? What is this, a restaurant? Oh, wait…it is a house. My house, where I’m not allowed to wear my own clothes or do my homework or eat a pop tart even.”
“We wouldn’t have this home if not for my business. You know that.”
“Right. Your ‘therapy’ business. What do you think the sisters would say if they really knew what you did here?”
“The point is, you cannot go changing my schedule around on me like this. I need time to prepare and reflect before I meet with a client.”
“It’s not my fault you have these people trained to come see you before they make any miniscule move in their lives. I’m surprised they can even go to the bathroom until you tell them it’s not a bad omen or something. Besides, shouldn’t you have known Mrs. Pryor was going to show up here today? You are psychic, right?”
“Morrighan!?”
“Look, I’ve gotta go,” says Morrighan. “Just make up some crap to ease Mrs. Pryor’s mind about her daughter. No sense ruining her life too.”
Morrighan storms out of the chamber and through the back door. The forward motion does feel good, she thinks. She races around to the front of the building. The truck is no longer blocking the driveway, but she spots it parked in the guest lot. Nobody is in sight, but she hears the mother calling for the girl, her voice loud and annoyed. Morrighan doesn’t sense any tone of fear or anxiety even though her own heart is pounding. With a sense of dread, she runs over to the truck and kneels down beside it. The image of the little girl swinging over the side of the truck and crawling underneath it keeps playing over and over in her mind. What if they hadn’t seen her there? What if she had been afraid to come out and just stayed there hoping for the best? What if she had tried to get out, but couldn’t? Morrighan forces herself to look underneath. There is no broken, tangled, mashed little girl under there. She lies back on the asphalt, relieved, trying to figure out what to do next. She has nowhere to go. She does feel bad about how she talked to her mother; she’s never done anything like that before. And yet, she feels somehow liberated.
The community is quiet today, Morrighan thinks. No kids out playing football, no choir practicing down at the chapel, no leaf blowers, just the din of the diet Nazi calling out for the little girl. The last thing she wants is a run-in with yet another overbearing mother today. Maybe nobody will notice if she just stays right here.
As she lies on the ground, she begins to enjoy the new perspective on this place that is so familiar to her. From down here, the palm trees look like they are tickling the sky. She tilts her head all the way back so that she can see the residence behind her, upside down. It looks completely different from this angle, she thinks. The repeating arches that normally elongate the façade and make it seem intimidating now just look like soft, rolling waves. She closes her eyes and imagines herself floating gently away, like a leaf.
She tilts her head back even further so that the top of her scalp is touching the asphalt, hoping she can see clear to the top of the chapel’s bell tower. The sisters say that it is designed to reach up into the Heavens and that the buildings are majestic to honor God, just like how people dress up when they go to church. She can’t quite see the top, so she scooches away from the truck, but she hears a rustling in the bushes that stops her cold. Without moving, she lowers her eyes down to ground level and there, inside the hedge is a pair of big, blue eyes. They stare quietly for what seems like a long time while Morrighan tries to figure out how to explain what she is doing, but then a little voice speaks out from behind the leaves.
“What are you wearing?”
Morrighan, who in her haste had forgotten to take off her tunic, bursts out laughing. “My mom makes me wear this,” she says as she sits up and spins around to face the hedge.
“Your mom makes you wear that?”
“Well, it’s for her, um, business and I forgot to take it off.”
“My mom makes me wear this,” the little girl says, crawling out of the bushes and up onto her feet with a twirl. She is wearing a pink leotard with a sequined skirt shaped like flower petals. Her tights are snagged and she has the chocolate smudge that spans her pink, puppy-like belly.
“Your mom, she’s um, looking for you, you know?”
Morrighan can see that at the mention of her mother (as if she didn’t know she was looking for her), the girl is ready to flee. Apparently she doesn’t want to see her mother any more than Morrighan wants to see her own.
“Would you like me to show you a secret way back to your house?”
The girl eases a little. She nods, brushing the dirt off her knees and Morrighan notices that there is a twig, camouflaged, in the girl’s tousled bun.
“Ok. Here’s the deal,” says Morrighan. “The front of the residence is all manicured. They’ve removed all the native trees and brush and replaced them with these cobblestone walkways and fountains and palm trees and statues and hedgerows to make it look fancy enough for God. But when you walk out in front, everybody can see you. What most people don’t know is that the residence hugs up to the edge of a forest. So whenever I need to walk somewhere, I go around to the back and walk through the woods.”
Morrighan uncrosses her legs and shifts up onto her knees, pulling the tunic out from under her. “That’s my house on the end right there,” Morrighan says pointing. “You’re moving into the unit next door with the big kitchen, right?”
The girl backs up a little, as if spooked.
“It’s okay. I saw you and your family unloading boxes earlier. That’s why I came out. See, I saw you crawl under the truck and I was worried that. Well, I just came out to make sure you were ok. My name is Morrighan; what’s yours?”
“Morgan?” the girl asks.
“No, it’s Morr-i-gan. It’s the name of a Celtic goddess who lived a long time ago; my mom is into that kinda stuff,” says Morrighan. “Anyhow, it’s okay if you want to call me Morgan; most people don’t say it right.”
“My name is Figgy,” the girl says in a voice that is barely audible, “Nobody gets it either.”
“I think Figgy is a nice name,” says Morrighan.
Figgy smiles, looking a little more at ease.
“So, Figgy, what we’re going to do, when the coast is clear, is dash over to the side of the building by my back door. Once we get there we’ll be out of sight and I can show you how to get around to the back. You ready?”
Figgy nods and reaches out for Morrighan’s hand. Morrighan awkwardly grasps onto the little girl’s hand; she is surprised how small, and warm, and firm it feels. She is not at all surprised by how sticky it is.
“Okay. Let’s go. Quick,” says Morrighan pulling the girl to a start. As they run, Morrighan stumbles on her tunic, but the girl, despite her size, is able to steady Morrighan and they make it to the edge of the building unnoticed.
“Follow me,” says Morrighan. She shows Figgy how to squeeze between the hedges and through the wire fence behind it, a weak barrier. Once they are on the other side, Morrighan looks down at Figgy and realizes that she has made a big mistake given the girl’s penchant for hiding. Figgy is awestruck by the infinite tangle of bushes and trees that cover the steep hillside.
“So, Figgy, when you’re back here, it’s really important that you make sure you can always see the building.”
Figgy doesn’t seem to be listening. She is crouched down next to an oak tree that has an enormous hole in its trunk. Morrighan doesn’t even want to think about what kind of spiders might be lurking in there.
“It is really easy to get lost out here if you lose sight of the building,” Morrighan continues. It’s kind of like when a swimmer gets pulled out into the ocean by a rip current. They think they can just swim straight back to the shore, but that doesn’t work. Really, they have to swim parallel to the shore to get out of the rip tide. It’s like that out here. You can feel like you’re walking back the right way, but really you are just getting more and more lost.”
Figgy is now inside the tree; all Morrighan can see is the flower petal skirt and the pink stem legs, her head and body swallowed by the venus flytrap of a tree. She decides to pull out the big guns: math. Nobody can question good, solid math.
“You see, Figgy, this hillside is steep and ridged, it’s like a series of overlapping planes, each with a slightly different slope. You may think you’re walking down a single slope in a straight line, when in reality you’re crossing onto different planes with slightly different slopes, throwing you off course with each step. Plus, there are trees and bushes that you have to step over and around and they all look the same, sort of an optical illusion that misguides you.” The girl seems unmoved, so Morrighan decides to embellish. “One time a boy got lost out here for three days.”
Figgy is now examining the decaying bark of a fallen tree, poking at it and watching it crumble to dust. Morrighan decides that the best thing to do is to get the girl home so that she doesn’t have to feel responsible for her anymore.
“Ready, Figgy?”
Figgy doesn’t answer; she’s fascinated by the decaying wood. Morrighan crouches down and takes a closer look. “A hyperbolic plane,” she exclaims.
“No, it’s a turkey tail,” says Figgy. “Connor tried to cook some once, but they taste like leather. They’re supposed to be good for you though.”
“I mean its shape,” says Morrighan. “See the ripples along the edge, how they curve in on themselves and then back out? I’ve been trying to picture what these shapes would look like. I can’t believe they were right here all along.”
“It just looks like a ruffle to me,” says Figgy.
“Well, I mean, yeah that’s all it is, really…but for centuries nobody even knew that a shape like this existed.”
“They didn’t have mushrooms back then,” Figgy asks.
“I mean, they didn’t know it existed, mathematically speaking. Of course they had mushrooms. I think… Well, anyhow, let’s get out of here,” Morrighan says as she stands up. She grabs Figgy by the shoulders and turns her around so that she is facing the building. The back of the building looks nothing like the front. Instead of the grand façade with columns and arches and balustrades, the back is a series of square boxes, the stucco stale yellow and dingy.
“You can tell one unit from the next by the fire-escape ladders; each unit has its own. Your house is the second one from the end, so it is by the second ladder,” Morrighan says.
“I guess God doesn’t look at the back of the building,” Figgy says. “Because it looks just like my crummy old apartment from back here.”
“I guess not,” Morrighan laughs.
“Let’s go find our way in,” says Morrighan. They squeeze through a gap in the Manzanita bush and step back through the wire fence. “Your unit is attached to the main kitchen, so you have lots of doors and windows to choose from, but it looks like the kitchen door might be cracked open.”
Morrighan walks over and peeks in the window. It is dark inside and they know they’re not in danger of running into Figgy’s mother because they can still hear her, periodically, off in the distance.
“There’s nobody there,” Morrighan says. She nudges the door open and they both peek their heads in. “See that swinging door along the far wall? That’s how you get into the rest of your house. You okay from here?”
Figgy nods.
“And you’re not going to sneak out again today, are you?” Morrighan asks. “It’s gonna get dark soon.”
Figgy shakes her head.
“Okay, then,” says Morrighan, “I’ll see you around. I’m right next door if you need me.”
Figgy tiptoes inside and closes the door behind her. Morrighan is happy that the girl is found, she just wishes she didn’t feel so lost.