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

[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.