they won't need no lie detector, all they'll have to do is make me look into my mother's eyes

[spirit_of_vitriol]

The first weeks of class had been a whirlwind--new classes, old friends, the struggle of putting aside the summer's idleness--but Flavia had been grateful. It provided a welcome distraction, after all, from the dilemma she'd been feeling since she'd arrived at Feely's door to see the piano from Buckshaw in her living room.

Feely believed, and continued to believe, it was the only object from home in the entire city. Flavia knew that wasn't true. It hadn't even been true the very day Feely arrived.

It was why she'd returned to the art museum, to the bench still situated just in front of Vanetta Harewood's mysterious portrait, looking at each of the painted figures in turn. The tow-headed girl toting a book of fairy tales, so obviously Daphne; the swaddled infant, Flavia herself in a christening gown now surely boxed up in a closet somewhere in Buckshaw; standing to the right, a younger Ophelia, just as primly self-possessed as now, though still enough of a child to have been captured in oils, toying with a cat's cradle. Harriet, at the very center, looking over them all with bemusement and something Flavia dared to believe was love.

She should tell Feely. She should never tell Feely.

Flavia tapped out a message on her phone, jabbing her thumb down on the SEND button before she lost her nerve.

feely please come to the art museum
i'll be outside on the steps
it's important

Comments

[likeblueblazes]

Back in Buckshaw, Ophelia would hardly ever answer to such a summons from her youngest sister; even now, glancing down at her phone after getting out of class for the day, she's tempted to shut her phone and pretend she never read the message. But she finds herself rereading Flavia's text, riveted to the screen as though physically unable to look away. A strange feeling begins unfurling in her stomach. As Flavia's sister, it's not an unfamiliar sensation, but it still rattles.

She arrives to the art museum after fixing herself up in the nearest mirror, an expansion of her vanity and also as a means to attempt to calm her nerves.

"Well, here I am. What is so important?" Ophelia asks once she spots her youngest sister, hands on her hips and a haughtiness to her tone that she doesn't quite feel.

[spirit_of_vitriol]

Flavia had so given up on the idea of Feely even responding—an idea that brought her no small, shameful amount of relief—that when her sister actually does stride up the museum steps to where she’s sitting, she can only blink up at her in confusion. The delay does, at least, allow her heart time to stop racing so completely.

“I already paid admission,” she says at last, handing over a small tin lapel tag emblazoned with the art museum logo. It’s a lie; the number of people who left their tags resting on ledges or the side of trashcans make it easy for anyone to convince museum staff they’ve paid to get in, but Flavia doesn’t care. She and Feely oughtn’t have to pay to see their mother, anyway.

Getting to her feet, she turns and walks inside, trusting Feely will follow—out of exasperation, if not curiosity. She leads her sister through the lobby entrance and past one or two galleries. She stops just before the entrance to what she’s come to think of as ‘Harriet’s exhibit’, in a spot she knows affords no view of the painting inside.

“I got something from home, too,” she says, her voice quiet. “I didn’t know how to tell you about it, but if you go round the corner you can see it yourself."

[likeblueblazes]

"Well that is thoughtful of you," Ophelia says, taking the tag as Flavia hands it to her. The unease in her stomach manifests so that she finds herself becoming distracted enough not to question the idea of Flavia purchasing her ticket for her. Back in Buckshaw, this sort of gesture inevitably led to Ophelia waking up with a pox or rash the next morning from merely holding such a ticket.

"So what's all the fuss about anyway?" Ophelia tries to keep her voice uptight and impatient; as detached as one of those debutantes in one of Daphne's novels. "I do have other things to be doing, you know." But even to her own ears, her voice falls flatter than it normally might.

She follows Flavia because her nerves refuse to settle. Each step forward seems to rattle them more; she barely acknowledges the crowds of people that pass them by as they head further into the museum.

"What exactly did you get from home?" She turns to ask Flavia as she points towards the exhibit. Ophelia's chest tightens and her feet turn into lead. She wants to move forward, but she finds that she really can't.

[spirit_of_vitriol]

She wishes Ophelia would just go; hadn’t it been enough that Flavia brought her here, just to the entrance? Her sister had been taking steps away from her all her life, from the soft padding-away of her stocking feet after she’d locked Flavia in the closet to the click of her heels as she hurried to the door to welcome Dieter in for tea. Ten more wouldn’t be any hardship, for either of them.

“Something I can’t explain,” Flavia says. Then, hating how dramatic and unclear that had sounded, “A painting.”

“A painting I can’t explain,” she finishes. “Please just go in, Feely.”

[likeblueblazes]

"Fine, if it's that important," Ophelia says with a roll of her eyes. Ever since the loss of their mother, distance has widened between them like a river flooded with rain; hearing her father, their neighbors, the vicar - everyone in the village, really - comment constantly upon how much Flavia all but appears to be Harriet incarnate drove her to hold her nose up and ignore her younger sister. She hid her own pain in the scorn she lavished upon Flavia, through locking her in closets and telling her cruel lies about her birth.

Darrow trapping them both together has significantly altered Ophelia's regards towards her sister; living in separate buildings brings out the worry in Ophelia. Finding her sister in several frightening circumstances has cooled the resentment within her.

And now there's something in the way she says she can't explain a painting that makes Ophelia gulp and her heart clench inside her chest.

So she moves forward, and stops before an image that could only have come from home.

"Oh," she says.

She doesn't even realize she's crying.

[spirit_of_vitriol]

The instant Feely goes around the corner, Flavia has to suppress the urge to hunker down with her fingers in her ears, like someone cartoonishly waiting out an explosion. But there isn't the shouting and screaming she'd expected; just a quiet, broken Oh that sends her heart flying to pieces and her feet dashing to her sister's side.

"It just showed up and I didn't know what to do," she says. "I kept visiting it, hoping maybe the answer'd be there on its own, but it never was."

[likeblueblazes]

If there were a piano close at hand, Ophelia would certainly be pounding out one of Schubert's melodies; as none such pianos do exist nearby, she settles for clenching her hands inside the pockets of her jacket, instead.

As much as she taunts Flavia by holding memories of Harriet over her head, truthfully, Ophelia has trouble distinguishing her memories from her dreams. Unable to move her gaze from the portrait, she tries desperately to remember the afternoon in which they all sat down to have the painting done.

She takes a deep, shuddering breath when she realizes that she can't remember that day beyond playing with Daphne.

"I didn't realize it existed," she whispers. "I thought I was imagining the memory of sitting for it for all those years ago."

[spirit_of_vitriol]

It would be easy, so easy, to remind her sister that Flavia doesn’t even have memories of Harriet to confuse with imagination; that all she’s ever had were the stories and falsehoods Ophelia and Daphne chose to share. Easy to remind her that those stories never ended—or began—with reassurances of love or affection, just the information that the cold, stark peaks of the Himalayas were preferable to staying in the life of a loathsome little girl nobody could care for.

It would be easy to remind Ophelia of these things, but all Flavia wants is for Feely to take her hands out of her pockets, so they could face this if not side-by-side, at least hand-in-hand.

“What…” she begins, then stops, surprised at the fractured way the word sounds, said aloud. “What do you remember?"

[likeblueblazes]

That Ophelia doesn't reply immediately with some boastful taunt speaks to the sheer power of the portrait on the wall before the two of them. She can't keep her gaze from it, their mother in the center, holding Flavia while Daphne and herself stand by her side. Even without their father present in the picture, they appear so much the normal family; the kind of family like Ophelia's friends all seem to possess.

So when Flavia asks her what she remembers, she finds herself so unguarded as to answering before she can help herself.

"It was warm out, I remember that," she says in a voice barely above a whisper. "You wouldn't stop babbling, 'like a little brook,' Mummy used to say. I don't think any of us wanted to sit still. It was too nice of a day out not to run around and play."

[spirit_of_vitriol]

As she listens, Flavia searches the painting for clues; something in the quality of the light, perhaps, or the way they’re all dressed, anything to corroborate the things Feely is saying. Even now—perhaps especially now—she can’t quite manage to simply believe her sister, after a lifetime’s worth of lies. “At least we know I’ve always had quite a lot to say,” she murmurs; a stupid joke, but the only one she can think to make.

[likeblueblazes]

Ophelia is so entirely unprepared for the joke, still caught up in her moment of vulnerability, that she laughs before she can help it. It's an odd feeling, the one that settles in her chest. Not quite happiness, and yet, not quite regret, either. "Even as an infant, you never could shut up," she quietly agrees. "I imagine you were babbling about some great poison in babyspeak, even then."

[spirit_of_vitriol]

Hearing Feely laugh so unexpectedly shifts something loose in Flavia's chest, like she'd let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. Shuffling a bit closer, she rests her head lightly against her sister's arm, looking up at the painting. "I probably was," she murmurs. "Some great discovery no one remembers me making, because nobody could understand baby talk."

[likeblueblazes]

Ophelia will certainly deny later that her hand doesn't move to rest on Flavia's shoulder when she leans against her; they're hidden away from the outside world for the time being, so who would notice? But for the moment, she feels her own tension ease from her, staring up at the portrait of her family with her youngest sister by her side. "Perhaps you'll crack the code on baby speak when you're a brilliant chemist." The words slip out of her; she doesn't mean to voice them aloud, but nor does she have the energy to recall them. For now, she's content to settle for the peace burgeoning between herself and Flavia.

[spirit_of_vitriol]

“Right after I’ve finished A Treatise Upon All Poisons,” Flavia promises. Realistically, she knows she ought to discount, to second-guess, the warm words coming from her sister; it’s been a long and trying afternoon for them both—Feely especially, and even de Luces are prone to sentimentality on rare occasions. More than likely, Feely will be back to hating her in the morning.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about this before,” she whispers, chancing the comment in the truce that seems to have formed for now between them.

[likeblueblazes]

"God help all of the governesses when that happens," Ophelia muses, though considering the age in which they live currently, she doubts that sort of profession remains. "Or nannies or whatever they're called these days."

She ought to be bitter that Flavia kept this from her; kept this secret the way she's held onto Harriet's appearance her whole life. But Ophelia finds herself too drained by the day, especially happening upon this painting. She might save her ire for another occasion, but for the moment, she settles for honesty, instead.

"I don't really have any ground to stand on, do I? With all of the stuff I've kept from you over the years," she says, her tone neutral. Part of her wishes she could be angry in this moment; the rest of her is basking in the brief peace they've found between them.

[spirit_of_vitriol]

“You really don’t,” Flavia says, surprised at the lack of rancor in both her voice and Ophelia’s. Another product, clearly, of the day’s happenings; one that would pass as soon as it had begun. “You and Daffy both.”

As she says the name of their missing middle sister, Flavia wishes she was here with them—even as she’s glad whatever forces operate Darrow have caused her to stay away. Daphne would’ve completed their trio, even as she formed the wedge that would push Flavia and Ophelia apart and back to the roles they’d played back home. Any other day, Flavia might’ve hated Daffy for it, but today, she almost pities her.

“I don’t even know how tall she was, or—or what she sounded like when she laughed."

[likeblueblazes]

Ophelia ought to bristle at her sister's response, even though she had been the one to admit it first and her sister was only confirming the truth to her admission. Yet here in the museum, before the portrait of their once whole family, she finds she doesn't have it in her to argue, or even turn up her nose in an exaggerated gesture of irritation. It's the sort of peace that never lasts; she knows that, just as suddenly as it's settled over her, it will vanish once again.

"Daffy," she says, letting out a low breath as she shakes her head, glancing up at the middle child of their family, she with the truly golden hair. She does feel an ache, not having Daphne among their numbers in Darrow. But then, with her absence, her relationship with Flavia has vastly improved. She wonders how long their fragile truce could last, if the last of the sisters were to show up. "You know, if she were here, neither of us would ever see her. She has so many books to catch up on."

"I remember her being tall," Ophelia admits. "But maybe I was just small. And I can't remember her laughter, either."

[spirit_of_vitriol]

"The library'd have to rename one of those alcoves with the big chairs by the window the Daphne de Luce Reading Nook, just because she'd stay there so long she got squatter's rights or something," Flavia agrees, laughing softly as she imagines Daffy imperiously requesting another stack of books or pot of tea from the librarians, before sinking yet again into her novel. If anyone could pull off a stunt like that, it'd be her sister.

As Feely speaks, Flavia looks at Harriet's painted figure, wishing somehow she could come alive again, even for a moment, to settle all the questions they'd never know the answers to.