oblivion

alice longbottom, twenty-six, mother in the end, everyone is aware of this: nobody keeps what they have, and life is only a borrowing of bones.

[alongbottomed]

arthur →

He hadn’t been expecting the knock on the door, it took him off guard and whilst dread had filled his system, Arthur had managed to delay the instinct to throw up wards around the bundle of children who were drawing in the makeshift living room. 

Charlie had looked up, a similar concern to his father’s running across his features as he checked on his baby sister sleeping just by Art’s armchair. Arthur shook his head at the boy. It wasn’t an emergency, they didn’t have to practise the escape route again. George was watching his older brother, waiting for the outcome of his father’s decision to start effecting him. Art flexed him a smile of reassurance before offering a sign of, “It’s okay, I’ll get the door,” before walking out to answer Alice. 

Long gone for the need of security questions but there was an air of patience between the residents of Godric’s Hollow. Arthur checked her image through the peephole before unlocking the door, wand in a holster on his forearm. Never had a cardigan-ed man been so prepared. 

Peering round the door he offered a loose smile, tension holding his body taut before he invited her in. Opening a fucking door. The kids relaxed as they spotted Alice, a chatter of greetings and Percy ran over. Art slowed him by catching his shoulder before Percy attached himself to the other’s leg, noticing her off-demeanour. Instead the child offered his hand for her to take. 

“Look at this writing!” He exclaimed, Arthur already worrying about the nature of the other, shutting the door behind her. 

“Why don’t we get a cup of tea first Perce and then we’ll come over.” He spoke aloud, stammering over the plosives but put effort into sounding assertive. Once the adults were watching the six year old smile and return to his drawings fortunately. It was a rare occasion that Arthur’s suggestion hadn’t caused tears but he couldn’t complain. 

“Are you okay darl?” He offered gently, stepping away from the bustle of children and into the kitchen. It didn’t take much for him to assume that it was about the mission. It wasn’t going to be something that he had much idea of where to start. He wasn’t sure of how much to say, or if anything at all. There was protecting a mate, and then there was excluding someone he considered family. Arthur put the kettle on almost automatically, only leaving her side to grab a mug from the cupboard before returning and placing a hand gently on her shoulder. 

Alice dreams of Neville often. True enough, he comes to her in her nightmares, his final moments a frozen into an image she can’t erase, so small and perfect and irreversible—but sometimes he comes to her older. Grown. Like Charlie or Percy or at some other stage in his life, with an entire family of memories stripped away. Some nights she wakes in screams, some in sweats, but there is one constant to it all: her son is dead and the space in the bed beside her is empty. All the warmth washes from Alice’s eyes as Percy approaches her—she is strange and alien and certainly earns Arthur’s concern—but it is only because she is remembering.

Not remembering. Dreaming.

Alice shakes herself from the mirage. The gentle creasing around her eyes returns to her face and she takes Percy’s hand, rubs her thumb over his knuckles, releases it. 

She knows Arthur’s directives are made in mind of the children, so she doesn’t listen to the words much. She catches only parts: writing, tea, are you okay, darl’? The latter she feels permanently imprinted on her brain—she struggles to offer up an answer for it. Not the one she wants to give. Not even now, her cheeks discoloured by saltwater and the circles beneath her eyes bruised by violet, where she has been given the opportunity to be vulnerable.

Neville’s absence is one she is slowly growing accustomed to. Frank can see it, plain as day, and it has led him resent her. Not resent her, but resent something about the two of them: the fact that she doesn’t seem to be able to feel anything; that they can’t solve this mystery together, as if it was one of their cases; or that no matter how hard they both fight, they will never see their little boy again. Nevertheless, it causes him to abandon her side, searching for answers in the cracks of unturned stone. But Alice has never been one for vengeance—that, she supposes, is their one distinction, their one contradiction. Frank, furious, will expend what remains of his resolve to hunt down a faceless killer, and Alice will not. She has always been compulsive, but that compulsion has always been entrusted to logic: there has always been a process. It is why she knows she cannot impede her husband’s destiny, cannot obstruct a fate written in the marrow of his bones—all she can do is let him go, and wait.

It is a rhythm she has been recognising in her own time. Alice cannot keep Frank from destruction, self-made, but she can ensure he has someone to face it with him. Someone like Arthur, with provocation to return home to something other than mania or consternation or the silhouette of a woman he still loves but no longer knows. Alice catches the kitchen surface behind her with her left hand, leaning into it, the other instinctively moving above Arthur’s in answer. It is a simple gesture, one that does not chill her bones or force her body to reject it out of disinclination, but one that seems to speak without words. ‘I—’ she retracts the contact, pulls the sleeve of her cardigan over her knuckle and wipes at her under-eye, sniffling. But there are no tears there to wipe; she has dried them all out.

Alice clears her throat and speaks with haste. ‘I’m sorry—I’m sorry, it’s just—it’s so late, you’d be putting the boys to bed just about now and I know that and I shouldn’t have come, but I had to—’ she pauses for a moment, inhales silently to steady her breathing. It must all seem so strange, her voice thick emotion but her eyes blinking without tears. Like choking through dry sobs, heaving through the grief. ‘I had to come, I—well, Frank is going with you all and I don’t know when he’ll be back or what he’ll do or—’ or if he’ll come back, she thinks. 

[alongbottomed]

frank‌ →

Chaos exists beyond these four walls, but there’s a stillness here. The office remains largely untouched by the nonsense of the outside world, free from even the vacillating whims of the ever-changing Ministers due to Kingsley’s phlegmatic leadership. Really, it’s a gift to be free from the politics that other departments are subject to. However, it’s an unfair comparison. The Ministry as a whole has always been more reflective of the world at large, especially when it’s as divided as it is now. Their role as Aurors is much more cut and clear: search for dark wizards and witches, apprehend them, then rinse and repeat. It attracts a certain kind of personality, one that shies away from neutrality and disavows any sort allegiance to Voldemort and his goons. Here, there’s only one side to be on. So, for now, this is the eye of the storm, the safe harbor where ships come to dock and find reprieve from the winds that beat ceaselessly. It’s also where Frank thrives, propelled by a compulsion to achieve as he always has and always does. Simply put: he excels at his job and he loves it. 

Of course, being an Auror has always been a large part of his identity: since childhood it has been his objective; since adulthood it has been his impetus. Even though he’s an afterthought while he’s in his role, residing in the periphery until trouble emerges, Frank enjoys it. Truthfully, he prefers it that way. In the past, there was talk about flashier titles: become Chief Warlock; become the Minister of Magic. What he likes, though, is that he and Alice have carved out their own spots in history. Their titles, though meaningful, aren’t what set them apart; it’s their success rate and reputation that make them notable. As a pair, they’re unstoppable, lethal even—just as Frank knew all along.

Truly, he doesn’t mind working with his wife. In fact, he’d say that’s one of the more compelling points of his post. Some believe it’s too much; after all, how can they breathe if they’re constantly near one another? The answer is simple for him: he’s never once felt suffocated by her presence. Even now as she stumbles headfirst into him, knocking some wind out of him, with her hair undone and face flushed from exertion, Frank can’t help but look at her with the utmost admiration. His expression brightens as she speaks. Alice doesn’t say much, but it’s enough. He wants to see her smile again; he wants to be the reason for it. “Perhaps you could lend a hand? I’m looking for a woman, quite beautiful, about this tall,” he holds his hand up at an angle slightly lower than her forehead. “I saw her earlier and can’t seem to get her out of my mind.”

Alice and Frank Longbottom are not often seen far from one another; they are partners in every possible sense of the word, and when they run their hands over the same case-files they merge into a single unit. For years, Alice had enjoyed her loneliness. Her fingers brushed through hostile vines and nettles, spellbound in the dusk, and she had only her shadow to keep her company. She had liked it like that; she’d come to appreciate dangerous plants over the company of most others. But then there was Frank. Frank, with a voice just a little too loud for the library and a voracious appetite for more—for knowledge, for victories under his belt. Frank, who had not attracted Alice’s hesitancy, but curiosity. Frank, who was her equal in every detail, every issue, and saw her as she wanted to be seen.

That is what it is to be made for someone: to not feel compelled to explain who you are, because that person already knows you in sum.

Alice unthreads the quill resting at her ear, spins it in her fingers and taps it to her lips, humming. ‘Mm,’ she thrums, head tilted to the side a little. ‘I know the one.’ This is a game of theirs: Frank’s jokes have not abated, though Alice’s temperament has changed over the course of their relationship. It has never been much use to apologise on behalf of her husband; every one of his movements is purposeful and full of intent, and she has gradually conceded to them. Jibes, teases, comical displays of affection that she publicly denounces but, surreptitiously, holds dear to her heart. ‘Now, she can’t have gone far. She was here not too long ago. I would help you look for her—really, I would—but, you see,’ Alice tips her nose down towards the records, blurred a little by their use, ‘This case won’t solve itself.’

They both hold their stare for a few seconds; eyes unblinking but their expressions faintly bending into smirks. This is another one of their games: who can keep this going for the longest? But Alice is always happy to lose to Frank, always happy to let him seize the glory—because there is no loser, not really. They will play these games of fondness over-and-over until the world won’t let them anymore. She steps forwards into him, this time with all the pertinence she owns; closer to him, because they can never be close enough. ‘Let’s trade. You help me with my case, I help you find your mystery woman. Hm?’

[alongbottomed]

amos‌ → 

He’s struck, always so struck, by her. It’s unfair, the way the world has been. Giving her Frank, giving them a child, taking it away–he doesn’t know anyone who’s deserved it less than Alice. Is there anything in the world she has never felt for, any flower or animal or person she has not wept for? Yet she is cursed by this unending pain, because someone else decided she deserved to be punished. Amos wishes, not for the first time, that he could absorb this for her.

“Do you want to go for a walk?” he asks, quick, seeing the look on her face. He’s never going to stop wanting to rush her away from the things that hurt her. She is so much, with dirt in her fingernails, talking brightly about plants. He hasn’t seen her like this in weeks–months–and wants to keep her here on this emotional buoy as long as possible. Amos offers an arm, his raised eyebrows pleading with her not to say no. “It’s too nice to stay inside.”

She almost says no, hastily, like a natural-born reflex or subliminal knee-jerk. Alice is so used to saying no. It has become her gut reaction, hot one moment cold the next, that now she has to pull herself back for a moment, wash the expression from her face, swallow the word.

Amos must see the transition—Alice’s skin washes from white to pink and her widened eyes crease into commas—but she doesn’t mind. The mirror is keeled over in the other direction; once it had been her pulling Amos away, from the fragments of Nora left behind that he was desperate to make fit, and out into nature.

Alice’s mouth twists into a smile. ‘Alright,’ she says, threading her arm under his and curling her fingers on his arm. She casts a glance back to the cobra lily, only for a moment, as if it is like leaving behind a child not yet sure how to dress and feed and care for themselves. Amos guides her, so by way of nature she allows herself to be guided, lifting her chin to look at his face. All her attention is his now. ‘Let’s go wherever our legs take us.’ 

[alongbottomed]

who: @artseptimus. when: february; sometime after alice’s conversation with frank. where: the weasley house.

There was something resonant about the Weasley house, arbitrary and with children loping across the floorboards. Something precious, something familiar. As if the reason that Alice recognised it as she did was because she had seen it in a dream; a future made of clouds that tore themselves apart at her touch. Hers and Frank’s might have looked something like it: a great mess of a house, made by a child learning to walk and touch and speak. A home she would never have, a child she would never raise. A fantasy that shifted further from reality the longer she felt the want of it.

Frank would be gone soon. There was no stopping her husband once he’d put his mind to something: this she admired in him, loved in him, but slowly it was shifting to ash in her mouth. He had been clear and resolute: he wouldn’t turn the opportunity away, but Alice had to know. Frank had repeated to her three or four times their plan: snippets of information he needed her to know that faded from her recognition as quickly as she’d heard them—except that he would come back to her. Yet Alice knows her husband, straight through to the bone. Given the opportunity, Frank would chase down any silhouette that vaguely resembled their son’s killer until his breath left him and his feet had gone raw. But Arthur would be there too. Arthur, with a thousand questions about his wife’s disappearance, but with children back at home. Depending on him. Waiting for him to come back. So here she is, a little careless and worn by exhaustion, her eyes glossed over by fear and still red from the tears, cardigan wrapped tightly around her waist. Her knuckles faintly shake as she stretches her hand to the knocker.

     ‘Arthur?’ she says to refortify her knock, which is low and uncertain. ‘It’s me.’ Clearing her throat with a cough, she is louder this time. ‘It’s Alice.’

[alongbottomed]

charity →

Alice always could read her better than most and the subtlety of her silent wondering is shattered by her knowing response. Frank is out. The words slice sharply through the still air and they cut all the more for the immediate penitence that follows them. Alice’s smile is soft and kind and makes Charity feel even guiltier for wondering what she could have easily guessed. Frank is out. Frank is somewhere searching for answers… for resolution. And Alice is at home suffering with the harder truth of their loss, alone. It makes Charity want to turn on her heel to track him down and shout at him that there is searching for answers and there is hiding from the truth and one can look very much like the other. She doesn’t. It would be doubly cruel to besiege him when he is already beset on all sides by the agony of his grief and to leave Alice alone, again. 

Instead she busies herself with her spread and accepts the cup of tea from her friend with an answering smile. She sips it gratefully letting the warmth fill her. If it does little to chase out the darker thoughts that sometimes rise up to poke at the cracks in her soul Alice’s soft laughter and the sight of the scone in her hand more than makes up the difference. Even mired in her own despair there is a brightness to Alice that breaks through in moments like this. Something similar to the light flickering in Charity’s chest yet altogether different. If Charity was the glow of the sun on summer day bringing warmth and contentment in its wake, then Alice was the piercing light of a constellation of stars pricking the dark sky and lighting the way. Like much of Alice it was often obscured by the clouds of her grief and loss but there were times when it burst through and even when it didn’t Charity knew it was there just beyond the fog. She could chart it in the merest hint of Alice’s smile or cadence of her laughter like an astrologer searching the night sky. 

“Oh hardly. If you saw my kitchen you wouldn’t be so quick to welcome my mess-making efforts, I’ve yet to find a cleaning charm diligent enough to get every bit of flour up. I feel like I must leave a trail of it everywhere I go by now,”she laughs the corners of her eyes crinkling as she watches Alice bite into the scone. It’s such a little thing but for much of her life it has filled her with happiness to see people enjoy anything she’s created. Even as a little girl she was ever pressing samplings of roughly formed cookies onto visitors and neighbors alike watching eagerly and wondering - do you like them? Will they make you smile? Do I make you smile? She bakes now almost constantly and cooks more than ever but the small pleasure she once cherished fades beneath the weight of her guilt. This isn’t enough. This isn’t really helping. I’m not enough. She doesn’t feel that way with Alice. Alice’s gratitude isn’t strained or forced or absent. Her eyes lack the casual judgement she finds on the edges of other Order member’s glances and words that seem to label her refugee instead of ally. With Alice she still feels like she has something worthwhile to offer and that her longing to help is natural and welcome instead of just another symptom of her desperation. 

Alice’s words conjure a picture of the past. Of Alice and Frank coated in flour and buoyed by their shared laughter. It flashes through the room like a specter and fades just as fast. “I’m glad to share, if I ate half of what I’m baking nowadays I’m afraid I’d blow up to size of a blimp but I like to keep my hands busy and I…” I’m not sure what else to do. Charity could hardly forget the outcome of her last attempt to organize something she thought might be useful. She can still hear Glenda’s voice bursting from her radio like a rock through glass. “I’m happy to have something to share.” Her words are honest but still come out slightly strained.  She settled at the small kitchen table reaching for a jar of pear preserves to spread on a honey scone of her own, “I planned on fixing some eggs to go with the savories but I feel like today is a day for dessert first.” She paused after a bite tilting her head and admitting,”I’ve missed you. I’m sorry I’ve been absent I…” Alice is hurt and faded but she’s still Charity’s dear friend and there is too much between them for Charity to hide the whole of her own feelings with any true success. “Well the vigil didn’t go quite like I hoped and I’ve been worried I might have done more harm than good.” 

In even her darkest moments, Charity was a birdsong. A sort of lyrical, vivacious warmth that reminded you that even now, in the midst of persecution and hardship, beautiful things still grew. Mother birds, still providing for their fledglings under the glow of the sun. The way that very sunlight, furrowing down at them from various points of the sky, continued to rise and fall, day-by-day. Some things were constant; some things toughed it out. Like Charity.

A stifled laugh unfurls behind Alice’s lips, still nibbling at the scone as she reaches for her tea. She had been in Charity’s kitchen on numerous occasions, witnessed its sparkly sheen before the typhoon; flour spun about the room like a dust-devil, buttering itself over each conceivable surface it encountered. Charity wasn’t wrong in her testimony, and Alice certainly had the evidence to fortify it. But she could hardly say she minded. Mess gave her something to do: something to clear up, something to occupy herself with, something with which to busy her overwrought, restless fingers. After all, some things were difficult to let go of: her overzealous heart, reined in by her mother’s straightening-up, her grooming. Eccentricities Alice had inherited as an afterthought.

She sips at her tea to clear her throat. ‘I think it’s perfectly forgivable when the end product is as good as yours. If you tasted my cooking, you’d strip me of my right to make mess entirely,’ she says; half joking, half not. From birth, her mother had impressed upon her an obstinate duty to manage herself, bred in the bone to tauten and pull together her wild escapades. Bare feet muddied by dirt were scrubbed, nails bitten were filed down, teacups detonated were swept under the rug. ‘At least I’ll know how to find you if I ever lose you,’ Alice remarks from behind her cup, gently pressed to her lips. It is a thought that unnerves her a little; the mental picture of Godric’s Hollow without Charity Burbage, the cobblestone pathways hollowed out by her absence. No lacquered, warm light in this grey village; no bright smiles or lemon tea or food spreads with blood, sweat and tears—so many tears—poured into their preparation. It is a thought she cannot bring herself to consider right now, one that—it must be said—does not even cross her mind now fully formed. It passes by unrecognised, in all likelihood to be revisited later, when she can truly identify it; when she is alone.

Alice furrows her brow, only slightly, as she watches Charity stumble over her words; how the right ones remained suspended somewhere just beyond her reach, unable to reconcile the truth to what she feels she should reveal to her now. Alice pulls back the evaluation in her eye, the scrutiny, and lets the words fall where they need to. I’m happy to have something to share: a half-truth, through which Alice easily peers. In all things, that has not changed. As she listens, Charity’s expressions expose the sentiments oscillating beneath them: I’m happy to have something to share, because before I shared everything with Althea, my wife, and now I have no-one. That, Alice supposed, they could share. Fortunate as she was to still have her husband—sound in body and limb—by her side, he receded from her anyway. Alice’s expression is one of cognition and understanding, and a recapitulating smile unfolds on her face as her friend shifts her attention back to the spread. It was comforting to see her indulge in it alongside her; it made her feel less condoled, less like alms-giving, less like Charity’s presence here was a keenly-felt necessity rather than an individual gladness.

     ‘Dessert first—what has the world come to?’ she says all caricatured and incredulous, with the fettle of a girl who did not yet know war. Alice has not spoken with anyone like this in some time—with the exception of Amos, who knew better than most how to coax out the spirit of that misplaced girl from her lungs—with such jauntiness and life. But for Charity, as it was for Amos, it was easy. It is why she does not mind so much when she wrenches the discussion back on itself; back into the vigil, the broadcast, the way the gaps between her fingers felt all lost and alien as Frank’s own slipped away from them. She bows her head, almost, as she fixates her attention on her own shuffling feet, before casting it back to Charity. Alice’s eyes are soft and she smiles consolingly, reaching her hand out and placing it gently on her friend’s. Her fingers linger over Charity’s own and they provide, she hopes, some solace in all this. 

     ‘I wish you wouldn’t say that,’ she says tenderly, though without much conviction as how to proceed. Unpremeditatedly, she feels a flash of guilt wash over her. Of course. Of course she wasn’t the only one to have lost something to the static that night. Frank had moved quick as light from her side and he was yet to return to her; perhaps he wouldn’t. ‘People needed to say goodbye. You gave them that.’ The broadcast wasn’t you. What happened—it wasn’t you. Alice tilts her head to the side, smiling with her eyes and adds: ‘But I missed you too.’

[alongbottomed]

who: @flongbottomed. when: happier times (flashback). where: auror headquarters, ministry of magic.

The Ministry was always in a state of flux – all this Alice knew, for it had changed several times over in the years she had worked there. Ministers came and went, changes gone as soon as they arrived, as was the very essence of bureaucracy. One thing was constant: an auror’s desk, inundated by parchment. By dossiers that placed a valuation on how much good they’d done, how many witches and wizards they’d put away. Alice’s desk was certainly no different. It was doused in since-solved assignments—fragments of old maps and amorphous scribblings whittled down the field—for which she was endlessly teased. As her hands astonishingly swept up all the correct files, loosely bound together by a single paperclip, they would say: ‘Merlin, Alice, how do you manage to get anything done with cases six months old still pinned to your walls?’

But the sheer number of them never went unnoticed. Not for either of them. Frank, of course, was harder to miss; six-foot-three and really quite pronounced, towering over his little wife. But that was not to say that Alice ever went overlooked by his side: as a two, they cut down threats and brought in criminals; soldier and logistician, one could not exist without the other. This, everyone knew. How could they not, when Frank insisted on referring to his wife as ‘Alice Longbottom’—emphasis on the Longbottom, because, yes, this woman here was his wife—at every opportunity; when he’d try his hand at every single bad pick-up line he’d ever encountered, mid-way through conversation, as if everyone around them had not each been at their wedding themselves?

Alice rises from her desk now, in the same state she is always in: faraway, eyes gripped by the case in her hands, looking up to watch her step only intermittently. As she turns the corner, moving her little body around the partition of her office cubicle, she knocks into something much larger; something she often runs into, as a general rule. ‘Oh—’ Alice punctuates the impact, recollecting herself. She smiles, bright and brief, as if Frank’s sharp materialisation had activated in her some gladly-received inspiration; an answer to a case as yet uncracked. He had the preternatural habit in doing that – of commanding such absolute faith in her, that she might crack any code, unravel any mystery, ensnare each and any outlaw who continued to evade their pendent justice. ‘Hello, you.’

[sweeneyxlaura]

I have a feeling that if this show is big, it won’t be long before there are stories about me being an asshole because I wouldn’t take a photo with someone—but it is so often because it makes me panic and I don’t know how to respond. I’m such a socially inept person in general that I’m like, “How am I going to deal with it?”  – Emily Browning in The Last Magazine interview, 2017

[alongbottomed]

amos →

He could listen to Alice talk about plants for years, probably. That’s not necessarily because he loves her, though that fact doesn’t hurt, certainly. It’s mostly because Amos enjoys hearing people talk, especially talk about things they adore, and Alice adores plants in a way nobody but Frank understands. Oh, Amos loves his plants, of course, but his are the sweet green and yellow things that grow without much effort and strain toward a gentle word, no sign of snapping or snarling or danger of biting off fingers. Alice loves those, though, same as any other. The poisonous, the dangerous, the horrible. Things the Diggorys never kept around but Frank hunted like pieces of expensive jewelry. Amos admired him for that.

He’s given her the closest thing to what she loves, and he drinks in her pleasure. He hasn’t heard her speak this many words in succession in quite a while, and he suspects, given the reports he’s heard from others, he’s not alone in that. Does Alice talk to anyone except Charity, here? Charity and him. And now, hopefully, her plant.

Snakes can be easy to charm. Yes, well, she would know.

He badly hides a cringe at her familiarity with the plant, aware of how hard its bite can be–it hadn’t been happy about being uprooted from the greenhouse, though now that he thinks about it, maybe it was the greenhouse that was making them unhappy in the first place. Perhaps he should uproot them all and bring them here. They had been an experiment of his mother’s, and Amos isn’t sure he has the time or energy to continue it. He’d rather spend his time on things that aren’t semi-dangerous plants–and Alice could take better care of them than him.

He’s made up his mind on the spot, then, to bring the rest of the cobra lilies. It’d turn her front step into a danger zone, really, somewhere he’d be nervous to step, but nothing can really stop Amos from visiting Alice. She could cover her door in venomous tentacula vines and he’d still shoulder his way through to seize the knocker. “I think I could manage,” he chuckles in return, recovering his composure. “If it does well out here, maybe I’ll bring a few more–you’re right, I don’t know anything about them, they were my mum’s…” As usual, talking about his mother is like stuffing cotton in his mouth, and he trails off unexpectedly with a pained smile.

Like love and war, Alice and Amos were poles apart; in the light, their fingers stretched across whole horizons to finally meet. There had always been an extraordinary roughness to Alice; her hands bloodied by rose thorns, dirt settled in the beds of her fingernails – all this her mother doggedly scolded. She could not pluck that wild heart from between her ribs: in spite of her efforts, she could not quite bring herself to love all the things she was supposed to love. And there was Amos, with his gentle, uncalloused hands, negotiating his way around breakable petals, as if he was afraid, almost—so Alice had always thought—of their tenderness. Their fragility. As if they might tear at his touch.

But love and war will always catenate; they will coil their tails around each other, blending their furs into one. They will do this for as long as there are lovers; as long as there are fighters. 

     ‘Please, do,’ Alice says, her hands still smothering the last of the roots with dirt. Her grip has loosened since she was a girl: softer things depend upon a gentler touch; this she gives with all the tenderness her constitution possesses. She takes a moment, exhales the first breath of air that has not made her body shake with vulnerability in days, and arranges the plant a little: untangles its leaves, irons over the soil, rubs at the serpent’s brow with her index finger. It is not so much that she does not hear the inconspicuousness of grief in Amos’ voice, the way his intonation squeaks a little at the footling mention of Nora—rather, quite the opposite. In spite of all things she reads it all; even it does not exist, even when it is of her own invention. But Amos has no interest in himself: he has no interest in rehashing out the past; he has no interest in dredging out old woes. This she knows, revealing a smile not unlike his own; clumsy and a little wobbly.

She closes her eyes and tilts her head towards the sun—now skulking languorously beneath cloud—and feels the sunlight touch her skin, in spite of its disguise.

     ‘Ordinary flowers don’t do very well here,’ she says, bringing herself from the ground and brushing the dirt from her knees. What she means is: only magical plants grow here; the soil rejects all things else. ‘The Lovegoods have no problem, I know, but here—’ Alice stretches her hand across the dirt, kneeling beside the beds once again, as if to catechise them, ‘They have a little trouble.’

Alice is aware, all too suddenly, that she is simply sitting here, hands blackened by dirt, talking of very little; of things of insignificance, of things that Amos certainly already knows. Nonetheless, it is the first time in weeks, perhaps, that she has been able to string whole sentences into a weightless interdependence; it is the first time since Neville that she has spoken with such ease. She pulls herself from the ground—for the final time, now—and scrapes her whipping hair into a loose bun, releasing it to gather at the nape of her neck. She would invite him in—for a cup of tea, or a plate of food—but she knows her cupboards are bare, that they have been for days now. She suspects that Amos knows it, too.

[lifeinpoetry]

Sometimes, she loves the world with a wideness disproportionate to her heart. Sometimes behind glass, that heart lies, beating.

— Natasha Oladokun, from “After the Poet Has Been Told by a White Woman That Her Hair Makes Her Look like a Lion,” published in The Rumpus

[die-despres-blog]

Emily Browning photographed by Eddie O’Keefe

[alongbottomed]

remus →

He wasn’t sure what to say.  And that was strange– he knew Alice had grown used to uncomfortable silences, knew most people didn’t know what to say to a grieving mother, to someone who had lost so much, even when they had all lost. Remus hadn’t had trouble summoning words around Alice, yet, not since they’d all come to Godric’s Hollow, but his loss for words now wasn’t because of her, wasn’t because he was stunned by grief or helpless at the idea of comfort. It was because of what she’d said. 

The war was still happening.

They were still losing.

It wasn’t as if it was the first time he’d thought it. Living with Sirius and his rage and his desperation, it was impossible to forget that the Death Eaters were still out there, getting closer and closer to domination with every passing day. Even when the world, in this one quiet place, felt still, it turned beyond the limits of his protection.

That was the root of his guilt, the cause of his sleepless nights. As if something deep in his bones knew he ought to be worrying about all the people he couldn’t protect, no matter how hard he tried to tell himself to focus on the people he could. He was weary, down to his bones, certain he could handle no more pressure than what he had already undertaken, and yet he wasn’t sure he’d ever stop feeling guilty that there wasn’t more he could do. Wasn’t sure he’d ever stop feeling like choosing to protect this place was, in itself, a selfish kind of atonement for the life – James’ life – that he could have saved if he had pushed a little harder, demanded a little more, understood himself a little better.

The war was still happening. They were still losing.

     ‘Do you think we’ll ever stop fighting that for long enough to save the rest of the world?’

He sounded naive and simplistic, he know, an alien kind of childlike idealism seeping into the words. Save the world. He’d never thought he could save the world. Had just focused on throwing a brick at a time to topple the tower the Death Eaters were building for themselves. But… if not them, who would step up to do it?

She studies Remus for a moment; still glassy and thin, but with all the chill washed out of her. This is what it is to speak to Alice now; like talking with a ghost. She was often silent—had always been silent, rarely felt a need to disclose her thoughts much, for those who mattered most had always known them before she spoke them—and now was no different, the words always suspended somewhere between her heart and her lips; like water turned to ice, a frozen spear caught to the stone, always possessing the want to push on but never the knack. Alice had always been happy to think, and Frank to talk. To be their mouthpiece, their synchronicity. Frank, she thinks, will never stop fighting, never stop burning. But to burn: that was to remember why they were here at all.

But she doesn’t need to tell Remus this. He knows. He understands. She has to remind herself, sometimes, between empty breaths, that war makes widows of everyone. There is so much to lose: a person, a home. Often these things are the same.

She will admit that Godric’s Hollow has become a thing of comfort; a cut away from the world, familiar, with everything to think about and nothing. No-one thinks to search for them in homes long idle, blood scrubbed from their fabric. Here, Alice has grown accustomed to their inaction: the way that the sun rolls lazily behind the clouds day after day. And she will concede that the war cannot be fought from here. But Alice isn’t fighting—she is surviving. Breath after breath, the rise and fall of her chest a constant reminder that she exists; that, even still, she is alive.

Again, she doesn’t need to tell Remus this. He knows. She can see it in his eyes, the inflection of the question. He knows.

“I—” Alice pauses, perhaps too abruptly. Saving the world. To think of it now is a taunt, an albatross heavy like iron, weighing them down at the neck. And yet, it was a pursuit to which they signed their names. Without a second thought. The way Remus poses it, all unfeigned and wide-eyed, leads her to wonder what sort of response he is looking for. A raw one, real, with some foresight he might have overlooked? She does not quite know if she is capable of giving him one, of compassing out any shred of hope—but then, that plucky spirit had always found its way up her throat whenever it was needed. 

“Some of us will always be fighting,” she says, without indicating who. “I hope we can. I hope we do.” And then, as if these words are not enough: “But that’s why we’re here, isn’t it?” No-one can fight battles with broken bones.

[alongbottomed]

pandora →

Alice’s yearning to help was enough to stave off the last of the frosty chill that had settled itself so deeply in Pandora’s limbs. It was her own feelings for her dear friend mirrored back to her. Oh how Pandora wished she could help Alice, to alleviate her grief for just a moment. Even in Alice’s suffering her heart had not shattered, the kindness was still there. It was a curious cycle, everyone here had suffered loss, yet they all tried to support one another, tried to keep their friends afloat even while they drowned.

“You do help, Alice. Do you recall giving me the book on curses of the mind the year you left Hogwarts? Though it didn’t contain the answers we need it proved to be a great help in beginning to understand what Xenophilius is going through.” Pandora assured her friend that her very presence was a much appreciated aid.

Pandora could see the way their humble garden lit up her friends eyes, so devoid of a genuine smile for so long now held a small spark. She stood back for a moment, letting Alice connect with the earth. “These are native.” Pandora gestured to a large patch of budding plants. “I suppose these are too… though they are hybrid plants of Xeno’s creation.” Pandora couldn’t keep the proud smile from her lips as she spoke of her partner’s achievements. Though so many people wrote them off upon first meeting, Pandora knew their mind was greater than even she could begin to understand.

“The garden is mostly medicinal at this point.” Pandora explained, “but we are growing a few vegetables too.” Pandora took one of the plants she had collected that morning, roots still attached and gently buried it within the soil.

Alice’s mouth twists: into something gentle, something pleasant and warm. She remembered it, of course—the Fawley library had always been munificent in measure, ensuring Alice was never at a shortage of spines to run her fingers down or pages to voraciously imbibe—but texts such as these were not always well received by her mother. Always with a unique spit of vehemence, she frowned on such things. Even then, eighteen years old, soon to be married. A library, a cornucopian sort of mother-lode, with only the right sorts of books. But by then, her fingers had devoured each and every line of evidence from its worn, old pages; of all the hands in the world, there was nothing loath in it to have made its way into Pandora’s.

“I’m glad it did,” Alice signs, keen to escape the exchange altogether. She does not do well with these eulogies, like breakable assertions of gratitude—she knows she is of little use to them these days. If the Order required insight, they dared not approach her; rather it be Frank, always eager to stave off the vacuum of his frenzy. “I don’t think it’s a curse. Not one documented, anyway. It must be something deeper, something—else.” This is about all she can bear, much too affecting a thought for her to consider it any more; it is not a sentiment that truly warrants a response, nor one that she anticipates will be of much use. Her breath growing thick like fog in the air, Alice busies her hands once more, smoothing the rust of the earth over the last of the cullings.

Alice crawls, almost, to kneel beside Pandora, to watch the movement of a healer’s hands, dirt smothering the root into the earth. Clinically, she tugs her sleeves over her fists, pulling the stretch of her cardigan around her chest, the chilly insolence of the air settling into her bones now—beginning to feel fresh and raw, like a wound grown from a wound. Alice settles her chin in her knees, stretching her hand to rouse the attention of her friend. “We should brew some tea. Tea, and soup.”

— FIN

[alongbottomed]

amos →

And just like that, it’s Alice, beautiful despite the tired voice and pale face, Alice even though she’s lost some weight and the skin around her lips looks unfamiliar with the shape of a smile, Alice with her warm eyes and the shape of his name in her mouth. It’s always been the same. Grief dogs her step and darkens the skin beneath her eyes but it doesn’t change her soul, and Amos is grateful to have her in his arms again. The pleasant solidness of her form gives him a relief he’s been craving for weeks, since he left with a rushed goodbye, Moody glowering at him while he lingered. It’s hard to be away from her in a way he’s not accustomed to–Amos has long since known their closeness at school does not expand into everyday adult life. A part of him is just so worried when they’re apart, picturing her silent in a room with Charity’s bright chattering falling on her deaf ears or Frank’s sullen grief skulking about in her periphery.

He wraps his arms around her and lifts her–it’s easy, with her so small, barely coming up to his shoulder. It’s a holdover from his first growth spurt, realizing at about sixteen that he was already a head above her and could easily swing her about in his arms. She wasn’t the only one who indulged him, back then, but she was the only one of the group of shorter men and women who still giggled when he did. He didn’t expect a laugh now, given her mood, but it felt secure, her clutching him with the strength it took to not slip down, her breath hitching with the stretching of her lungs. As long as Alice still had the strength to hold him when he lifted her in his arms, he could still the panic in the back of his throat when he heard her screams at night.

“Today,” he tells her, a bit breathlessly as he set her feet firmly back on the ground. He’s glad her arms linger around his neck, as his linger around her waist, loathe to release the solid warm feel of her. With her mind so far away, these days, sometimes the touch is his best judge of her emotional state. It’s the only way to check her pulse without her noticing. “I’m sorry I couldn’t write–Moody was a little paranoid about security–” and he remembers, suddenly, the gift he’d thankfully placed on the stoop before she opened the door. Amos unlinks his arms and stoops down to retrieve the pot, presenting it to her with a lopsided, shy sort of smile. “Brought you a little present.”

It’s a strange plant, translucent curved leaves in the shape of something like a particularly vexed question mark, waving like the head of a snake as he jostles it. Amos taps the pitcher with his fingers almost reverently, causing it to shiver. “It’s a cobra lily–remember when that one bit me in sixth year?–from my mum’s greenhouse. They’ve gone a little…rabid, lately, it’s been humid and they’re fat with flies, spreading too much. I was going to replant a cutting anyway, and I thought you might enjoy–maybe it’d be better off in your hands than mine.” He smiles a little awkwardly, the rambling a byproduct of vulnerability, of giving a gift one is unsure will be well-received.

Transference: that is what it feels like as Alice feels the weight of his arms, the air between them swallowed up all of a sudden, gone away. She feels all those anxieties and hell-hounds draughted out from her, winging their way from the both of them. Even now, no more than a hull of the girl he’d come to know in school, Amos’ presence was irreplaceable: he reminded her, though changed, that she was still that girl, still just a girl. Amos still saw her, knew her, not as the bale of grief who receded from the human touch, misshaping herself into twists and knots, but Alice. Alice who loved unexplored boulevards and poison plants, more comfortable with things forged from thorns than gold. Alice who knew him, who had turned up on his doorstep one louring November night, and shown him all this. Alice, who still had that same belligerence, tucked away somewhere. Alice, who was only gone away, only for a little while.

All this she knows, even if she cannot believe in it herself, even if she thinks the girl she was and the girl she has become can never truly be reconciled; can never be one. As a child, Alice had always overburdened by the weight of expectation; now, fully-grown, Godric’s Hollow is no different. Estimated like glass, handled breakably, people slip past her as if she might shatter at their touch. But Amos, Amos knows her, in his marrow, in his bones. Alice knows there are those amongst them who do not trust him, even still; those who do not make good use of his virtues, as they could. But to bring him into the fray, that is a decision she would make, and make again. There are few things, these days, Alice is certain of: but Amos is one of them.

As her feet touch the ground again, Alice is moored. As if, for the first time in a week—two, perhaps—her knees might not buckle from underneath her. She lifts her neck—it is a necessary alternation, her head narrowly coming to meet his shoulder—to reveal a warm smile, her eyes unburdened by their weight. “No, it’s alright, it’s alright,” she dismisses, waving her hand about haphazardly, “He’s right. But you’re here now.” Alice pulls herself up onto the porch-step, curling her leg and resting her arm on the door-frame so as to steady herself, procuring some much-needed height. If her features had been brightened beforehand, now they were entirely illuminated, her grey eyes conceding to that pooling glow of gold. Alice’s lips part to a subtle laughter as she takes in the cobra lily; pellucid, red and lovely.

“Oh, I remember—they’re brutish things, you know. And you thought the serpent on your robe would be enough to keep you safe from their bite,” she says, with the breath of her vanished self. Transported, if only for a moment, to those Herbology greenhouses—airless and heavy, but nonetheless home. Alice relieves Amos of the plant, his hands suspended gingerly in the air, and she tucks the plant beneath her arm. She inspects Amos’ half-horrified bewilderment at the act, dumbfounded by her willfulness, cradling it as if it were her own child. Alice readjusts her gaze, slinking a delicate finger down the plant’s spine. It hisses in retreat, coiling languidly around her thumb. “You see,” Alice whispers, “Snakes can be easy to charm. All they need is a little love—that’s what really hooks them.” There is something warming, Alice thinks, about his shapelessness; the way his eyes glow and his smile curls aslant. There is something real to it; something raw, something human. “Oh, well there’s your problem—they’re not overly fond of the heat. It makes them lazy, a little... burned out. But then, they hate the winter too.” Alice considers the soil outside for a moment, the vine refusing to relinquish its grasp on her as she strokes its stem. “They’re fussy things. Outside is milder. We could plant it here, out the front,” she pauses, the memory of a simper crawling onto her lips. “Of course, you’d want to consider coming in through the back from now on.”

[aseaofquotes]

Alexandra Bracken, The Darkest Minds

[alongbottomed]

xenophilius →

It had been a rarity, in the world outside of Godric’s Hollow, for others besides Pandora to listen to their thoughts with much sincerity. Of course, they had isolated themself from most of the broader society, only connected by way of owl and the articles they sent away for printing, but still they would not forget easily the way the world had treated their ideas before now. Even here, of course, there were some who still felt that way about their own world, who thought them mad, their ideas laughable, no ounce of truth to them. But no one was quite as outright, and more often than not, people were willing to listen here. Perhaps it was because there was little else to do, and nothing productive to come out of needless cruelty. Either way, Xeno appreciated the way Alice in particular listened greatly.

“Oh yes, they keep themselves well-hidden to human eyes. In fact, I haven’t found many instances at all of others seeing them for more than a few seconds. They flit and fly from sight as soon as they’re found, off to find the next thing they’re needed for. I just know they’re here, though, and to catch a glimpse would be absolutely groundbreaking. To find one and capture it for research, well, it would give me a chance to understand exactly how their magic works,” Xenophilius explains, looking off around the area, as if speaking of them might suddenly make them appear.

Their eyes wander back to Alice, and they nod vaguely. “Yes, yes, that is precisely what they do, although not always in the way one might hope. You see, they already showed us some of their power as I attracted them with my plants, calling the surprise broadcast to us. They found someone we had lost, and gave hint of more, although not as tangibly as I know most would like. But that is the charm of the unconventional. It does not play by the rules of the universe, but goes beyond,” they say with a certain smile. That was what was so thrilling about their research, about the creatures they had summoned, they were beyond comprehension without an open mind.

“Perhaps if we find them, they might bring something that can ease your troubles, as well.”

What she might have given as a girl, hidden away in clandestine holes in the ground, shielded by thick roots, to have someone to listen to her. She’d been a copy of probabilities, of maybes; the rules written in ink, worn by her fingers and smudged on her skin. No matter the lengths she went to, no matter the number of knots she had sedulously wrought herself into, no matter the pink scratches that those broken teacups notched onto her fingers or those pretty chiffon dresses that always found the hems of their chiffon sprayed by mud — Alice was never quite what was expected of her. Her mother had never quite known what to do with the child, satellites apart from her own world of marriage and children, poise and position. What Alice might have given for a friend — it is all she can give Xenophilius now, their eyes wide with incandescent wonder, all too ready to seize the world.

“Ah, I see,” she says, more a reflex these days than a tailpiece of any real meaning. It is her way: to escape smothering glances, to become once again invisible. That is what she is now, in Xenophilius’ presence: paper thin. That is not to say they were in the way of making her feel insubstantial; her words bore no falseness with Xenophilius in the assurance that there was no expectation, no projection but their own. Alice was free to ache, to coil her hair around her fingers in grief, if she needed to. That was of no consequence to them; Alice would bleed for as long as she needed, the tenuity of her affliction met with acts of gentle kindness, of careful consideration, wherever they noticed the suffering.

It is easy to stand here for a moment, hands sunken into her sleeves, all quiet. Xenophilius certainly had more interesting things to offer; what could she give them beyond oblivion? Half of the Order wanted to comfort her, the other half did not know how to act around a woman who had lost so much: Alice was glad that Xenophilius belonged to neither party. She resolves to shake herself from her frozen effort, her cheeks rosy pink from the cold. “Then I guess looking will do no good,” she says, relinquishing her hold on a nearby brush, as if she supposed they might lurk beneath the foliage.

The thought stumbles there, suspended in the air like falling rain. She would not suggest magic — she had not touched her wand since Malfoy Manor, since it fell from her hand and hit the floor with a desiccating thud. Magic was easily unearthed, even here. But Xenophilius has moved on since; they are considering what’s next. There is no easing my troubles, she thinks. Can they resurrect my husband; the war effort; my son? But the words are kindly made, their stare shaped on nobility, tact. Alice meets their gaze, her eyes grey and lettered by artlessness.

“Maybe they will.”

— FIN

[alongbottomed]

charity →

Despite Charity’s prevailing worries, the familiar sight of Alice at the door sends a gentle trickle of calm threading through her busy mind. Her eyes scan the other woman thoughtfully as she follows her into the house where the Longbottoms have taken up residence. It isn’t their home- any more than the house Charity has tried her best to fill with warmth and care is hers. Try as they might to make the village their home, however temporary, it seems as though some key ingredient is always missing - as lost as so many of their loved ones are. Do not make homes of other people - an age-old warning but one of many that Charity has never been able to follow even as she has come to keenly understand the reasons behind it. She had always filled her heart with the brightness of other people’s happiness and in this village so full of grief she often finds her heart feeling as hollow and aching as a stomach deprived of bread.

Charity glances around as they reach the kitchen wondering, Where is Frank? It is a question that has risen up in her many times now, always unspoken. It claws at her throat on the nights when she curls around Alice in an attempt to shield her from the nightmares that leave her shaking with heartbroken sobs of pain. The raw agony of Alice’s screams tearing through the air that first night had sent Charity stumbling through the night shoeless but clutching her wand so full of terror for her friend’s safety that she’d run into the house heedless of potential wards or repercussions. She supposed she was lucky that the danger she found there lived in Alice’s mind instead of in the wand of a Death Eater but she felt anything but as she’d held her weeping friend and cast her gaze around an empty room waiting for a man who never came. 

At first, she’d thought he must be out wandering the village like many of them were driven to do in the dark. But before long there she discovered his much closer whereabouts when he emerged from his study to find her quietly fixing tea in the morning. Whether he had muffled the room or simply blocked out his wife’s screams by sheer force of will she didn’t know - nor was she sure which would be worse - but as time went by either option was beginning to feel unforgivable in her less charitable moments.  

The sound of Alice’s laugh, though stunted and far from the bright tones she remembered from her early days in the Order, brought a smile to Charity’s lips even as her words brought a spike of contrition. Who was she to cast judgment on Frank for his absence when she’d hid in bed and felt sorry for herself while Alice faced the fallout from the vigil on her own without even the comfort of a cup of tea. It’s hard not to slip all the way into the ocean of guilt that laps constantly against the edges of her mind but the last thing Alice needs is to see her falling apart on top of everything else so she makes herself hold her smile and answer her friend, “Yes, please, would you care for a scone?” 

Charity sets her basket on the table pulling out three canisters of various teas, a loaf of bread, a half-dozen eggs, a selection of fruit preserves, and two types of scones- goat cheese with spring onions pulled from her garden and honey. She doesn’t ask if Alice has eaten or if she’s hungry - she knows the shame that forgetting a meal or putting it off can bring and the way that grief hollows you out so that hunger feels inconsequential in comparison. “I couldn’t decide what I was in the mood for today so I’ve brought a selection, I hope you don’t mind me making a making a mess of your kitchen,” she announces instead as she arranges her offerings on the table.

Alice watches her friend hawk-eyed. She recognises the solemn shift of her expression, one which she feels can only be a scrutiny of the silence, of the missing half of a whole. “Frank is out,” she says, with absolute certainty, with a roughness which she quickly shows penitence for. She has grown too used to the eyes of the Order, surveying their difference. Like the creature Argus: all-seeing. It was plain, she knew, as conspicuous as two continents drifting. It has forced her remarks into formula, rehearsed so as to soften these intrusions — Frank is out. Frank is busy. Please, don’t worry, Frank continues to look after me. We look after each other. But Charity is not just anyone, halfheartedly asking after her well-being in the event of obligation. Charity is a friend, a good friend, who deserves the truth — the truth, as much as she can give it, as much as she knows of it. Accordingly then, Alice softens the edge of her comment with a smile, occupying her hands with teaspoons and sugar, making up their teas as each were known to drink them. Charity knew, better than most, that Alice scarcely knew where her husband was. That was not to say that he wouldn’t return later that night, wearied and ferocious, to feverishly tell her of all the had pieces he had unearthed — but she would sit blankly, forcing smiles and participation, and when they parted, the marrow of his words would escape her once more. 

But they would always be honest with one another. That, they owed one another.

Alice smiles gingerly as she watches Charity arrange her bazaar of food, passing the cup of tea over to her once she’d finished. For the most part, their house’s dusty possessions had been left behind by its previous owner — but these teacups, hand-painted and breakable, were a wedding gift. The gift-giver had been courteous enough to present them with the ceremonially accompanying saucer removed, given Alice’s credentials. A private joke, an epigram which had brought the Longbottoms a good deal of amusement each time they used them — they were amongst the few effects she felt a dearth of, far above golden candlesticks and trinkets and all other decorative ornaments their wedding-attendees saw as necessary gifts. Alice’s eyes scan the rich display of food laid out on her counter, always so taken in by its propensity for making their home seem that less bare, before craning her head back towards Charity. With a half-suppressed laugh, Alice nods. “Please,” she says, reaching for one of her scones and pulling it from the basket.

It is hard not to appreciate a sensitivity such as the one impressed in Charity Burbage: with gentle diplomacy, it is a quality Alice cannot help but admire, ever-grateful of its presence. How she does not presume to force assistance upon her friend as if she is a child, incapable of the self-aid that war certainly necessitates — she does not investigate, diagnose or betray Alice’s transparent malady, but rather prescribes tea, lots of it, and home-baked goods. These, she will attest are for herself, but if her friend would like to indulge alongside her, she would certainly have no objection. Alice sees through such ploys, but she will not betray her bearing — her eyes will widen in disbelief on the occasion that Charity invariably leaves her spread behind, and, when reminded of its existence, insist that she has already baked fresh batches. Thus, if her friend did not eat the spread, it would surely go to waste. Frank would be obliged to indulge too; after all, she had brought far too much for one person to eat, and of such small stature, too.

“Oh, no, our kitchen is always a mess,” Alice retorts, dismissing a half-apology with a semblance of truth to her words. Alice lived invisibly; like a ghost, vaporous, with hands straight through her, there is little about her way of living that generates mess. Frank, on the other hand, was written in ink. She feels her stomach echo, and she realises in that moment quite how long it has been since she ate last — a day at least, perhaps two, sustained by listless grazing, if only to allay the hollowness inside. “Make as much mess as you like,” she says as she clears her throat, taking a bite of the scone still in her hands. “I won’t be turning your efforts down any time soon. I was never all that good at baking, you know. Frank was always all too happy to eat whatever sad attempt we could make between us — you’re a bit of a reprieve, I think.”

[indigogypsies]

Someone asked me what home was and all I could think of were the stars on the tip of your tongue, the flowers sprouting from your mouth, the roots entwined in the gaps between your fingers, the ocean echoing inside of your ribcage.

E.E. Cummings