Pastel colours were in style here. Innocent blues and greens decked out the houses all mixed with that ever-present white giving the street a whimsical feel like some early-morning hallucination. As Ruth staggered through the meandering suburb she could not help but feel insulated from the outside world. Safe from the grime and the weight of adulthood. After all that had happened this limited world was a comfort.
Perhaps this poor woman had never really been ready for the shadowy world of ambiguity that her friend called home.
I promised myself that I would not pass judgement on this story, not until the end, but we are very close. Now I have broken the narrator’s silence there is no going back. Regardless we must continue.
A hint of smoke drifted in the afternoon air. Ruth had a moment of panic before realising that it came from behind the looming townhouse at the end of the road covered in cheerful red paint as it was engulfed in flames. Thankfully it was just a barbecue blazing in the obscured garden accompanied by the sound of shrill laughter and the clattering of cutlery. This was it; the Lapham family home, and it looked as if the Summer Solstice celebrations were in full swing.
Standing with his legs apart on the marble porch after a small turf of neon grass was an almost gaunt figure still wearing a suit. It took Ruth a moment to recognise her brother on his glistening perch. He surveyed the two quickly as they approached realising that only one was of the clan. But before Malcolm could open his mouth he was cut off by a shrill voice from behind him in the doorway.
“Ruth! Darling, so glad you could make it.”
Emerging into the sunlight was an almost skeletal figure of a woman. Her thin pale skin seemed almost translucent, pulled back into a wide smile. Another relation. Everything about Ruth’s mother seemed taut and spindly. The old woman’s piercing eyes darted from her daughter to the scruffily dressed Jennifer who was desperately trying and failing to fade into the background.
“And who is this?” Sarah Lapham asked, still with that stretched smile.
There was a moment of silence as Jennifer seemed to consider making a break for it before Malcolm, finding his tongue, interjected:
“This is Doctor Weaver, another psychologist and colleague of my sister,” he explained smoothly, “we met in passing only this morning.”
Jennifer nodded rapidly as if hoping to hammer in the lie with her chin. The head of the Lapham Tribe looked this newcomer up and down with a curious glance.
“A psychologist? How very impressive. You must meet all sorts of strange people in that line of work. Ruth has told me about those that are devoid of emotion, of empathy.”
“They are more common than you might think,” Jennifer replied, almost choking out the words, “but it is easy to mistake an absence of feeling for a surplus of it. Not all of us can express our passions healthily. We are only human, after all.”
“Most of us,” the matriarch agreed. She seemed to consider this for a moment, keeping an eye on Jennifer, before spreading out her hands. “Excuse my rudeness. Welcome to the party; please come inside.”
They followed her beckoning into a scene with the appearance of domestic tranquility filled with the chaos of any summer house party. Screaming children chased each other through halls with high ceilings, ducking between the legs of adults who were trying to keep up a polite posture. Through a distant set of radiant glass doors a wide garden could be seen dappled fondly with the day’s last few shards of sunlight.
Their host could not stay with them for long.
“Places to be, people to meet,” she dismissed them breezily, sparing Jennifer one last narrowed glance before turning to a white-suited gentleman by the door, “Cousin Alabaster, so good to see you…”
Throughout this fleeting introduction Malcolm had been hovering nearby looking uncomfortable in his business attire.
“Thank you for getting us in,” his sister said abruptly, “you know how mother is.”
Malcolm frowned. “You should not have come. Not both of you.”
A barrage of small, smiling faces came rushing towards them, weaving in between the other guests before hurrying out into the garden.
“Jennifer, why don’t you go play with the children,” Ruth suggested, “show them a magic trick or something?”
The elf knew when she was not wanted.
“Sounds good.”
Once the outsider was gone the atmosphere seemed to relax a little.
“It’s been a long day and I don’t want to cause a scene,” Malcolm half-whispered.
“We’ll be fine.”
“No,” her brother snapped, “can’t you see? Our mother never forgets a face.”
Their attention was caught by a practised laugh from across the hall where Sarah Lapham was entertaining a ring of polished guests.
More than anything else Malcolm seemed self-conscious. Worried and worried further by how anxious he looked, more so that Ruth would have expected.
“Just… just don’t let things get out of control, all right? I don’t want to see this happen to you again.”
Malcolm had always been truthful and struggled to shake the habit around his family. His sister nodded and hoped that would be enough.
She glanced away hoping that her eyes would find a distraction from her thoughts, but she was not in luck. Out in the garden Jennifer knelt on the grass surrounded by a flock of children showing them some parlour trick. Everything about the ragged, vibrant woman stood out from this formal gathering and she received many odd looks as Jennifer pulled something from her pocket. Ruth was too far away to make out any details.
But I was not.
“Who wants to see a magic trick?” Jennifer asked the children as she revealed a deck of cards. The small humans besides me looked up in awe and I tried to mirror their excitement. Imitation is one of my specialities.
If Jennifer had been paying attention she might have recognised me from only a few hours before when I had been led by Ruth’s hand up to her table disguised as a bleary-eyed child. It was a simple but effective illusion. Nobody seemed to pay children much mind, especially not Jennifer who was perpetually distracted by her own untamed thoughts.
Even as I watched her shuffling that tattered deck I felt a jolt of excitement course through my form. This was it.
“Pick a card.”
It took a moment to realise that the wizard was talking to me. I looked down to see a crooked spread of gold and blue cards arranged in Jennifer’s hands and offered in my direction.
Now. Do it, I told myself, squeeze the life out of her before this polite, arrogant crowd who think themselves safe. I had been waiting for just the right moment to strike after breaking free from the wizard’s paltry concrete cell. It is not the demonic way to lash out like animals. We are moulded from fear made animate in the world and any action we take is designed to maximise the terror on which we feed. I had been waiting for so long, watching this strange individual’s lonely life from the shadows.
“Don’t be scared,” Jennifer encouraged in that bright way of hers, “pick a card.”
Despite myself I reached out a small hand and took one.
The joker.
“Drat, I was meant to take those out at the start. Let me try again...”
And just like that the moment was gone. I felt the energy leave my system as the group’s attention turned elsewhere. That was not supposed to happen. For the first time in my existence I was at a loss.
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