a framed and frozen moment, so far from perfection

[spirit_of_vitriol]

In the past week, Flavia had made enough of her own observations into the vision stones--purely, of course, in the interest of science--to begin a rough classification system.

There were the good: what had to be her very own laboratory, with her in a lab coat, running tests and making notes; a much older Flavia (is that what Harriet might've looked like, if she'd ever grown old? she'd wondered) dressed in a sweeping gown and sitting on a dais as a tuxedoed gentleman spoke about her illustrious career, before the audience rose almost as one, applauding as the man at the podium turned, holding out a medal; herself as a teenager, in robes and a mortarboard now, addressing the crowd as Darrow High valedictorian.

There were the bittersweet: a train pulling to a stop at the station, a foot still clad in a climber's boot (though no less graceful for it) alighting on the platform as a woman both unknown and wholly familiar to Flavia stepped into a new world; watching Ophelia in a pure white gown practically floating down the aisle, eager to shed her mantle as Flavia's sister in favor of Madame Prouvaire (or was that Dieter, of all people, waiting up there by the priest?); a glimpse of her room in Dimera looking terribly empty, boxes and bags stacked in the hallway and Father waiting stiffly by the door to take her home with him.

There were the unexplainable: a pair of children, asking some unseen entity when Mummy would be home; Flavia as an adult, clad all in black and standing watch as a sandy-haired man (was that Gavroche?) put his ear to a vault door, fiddling with the combination dial; a beaker full of something strange and glowing, spilling onto her hand--and her eyes sparking, moments later, with vast, equally strange power.

All of them provoked their own set of questions, filled in details of what her future might hold, or what she hoped might never come to pass. But even the most disappointing of the things she'd seen are things she'd prefer, compared to the sight in front of her now.

"Dogger! Dogger, help me!" she hears herself scream, her voice whipped away to nothingness by the howl of the winter air. Somehow, she's on the roof of Buckshaw, in the middle of a snowstorm. There's another figure there with her--not Dogger, she realizes, someone more slender, a woman she's never seen--someone struggling to free themselves from the chimneypot. The woman practically snarls as the Flavia in the vision leaps over her and lands clumsily in a snowbank. This Flavia waits, summoning her strength, before dashing into motion again, running along the roof towards the door to the stairs. Just before she can hurl herself into the warm golden light of safety, another person arrives, equally unknown and equally as menacing.

Flavia skids to a stop, her feet sliding for purchase on the roof tiles for a long minute, before she regains control and reverses course, dashing back the way she'd come. The figure in the doorway follows behind, its tread more careful but still fast enough to close the gap between them, until--

"Val!" the woman stuck to the chimney (and she is stuck, Flavia can see now--glued in place by some substance) cries. "Get me out of this!" The man--Val--stops, turning his head slowly towards her. Using his distraction to her own benefit, Flavia scrambles onto another of the chimneypots. Val takes a step towards the woman, only to trip and fall over something buried in the snow.

It's almost a triumphant moment, until he gets up again, clutching a pole Flavia recognizes as part of Buckshaw's wireless aerial, its ends now broken into sharp and jagged points.

"Prod her! Knock her down!" the woman shouted. She could almost see the cords straining in the woman's neck as she screamed--whether from excitement or fury, Flavia didn't know. "Do it, Val!"

With a last look at the woman, Val resumed his trudge towards the chimney Flavia clung to. She could hear ragged, frightened gasping--coming from inside the vision as well as right where she sat on the Petros Park grass, transfixed. Val got within pole length of her and stopped, jabbing out and entangling the end of the pole in Flavia's sweater. "No! Please!" Flavia says, broken and pitiful, speared like a fish on a hook. One hard shove, and she's falling, tumbling off the chimney and onto the ground, Val using the pole to keep her at a distance and himself free of her wildly flailing feet and fists. Dragging her ever closer to the edge of the roof.

A moment passed, the two of them standing on the battlements. Maybe Val was summoning the courage--or the cowardice--to toss her over the edge. Maybe whatever hold the unknown woman had on him was breaking; Flavia dared to hope that he'd bring them, quite literally, back from the brink at the last minute. Before he could do anything, she sees herself twist round, disentangling the pole from where it had lodged in her sweater.

Val jerks backward, in surprise or out of a desperate attempt to regain control, Flavia's not certain; whatever the reason, it's his last, most fatal error. His foot slips on the gutter, sending him shooting, flailing off the roof. A minute later, Flavia hears a crunching thud. If there'd been time, she might've cheered to hear it--but before she can say a word, she sees herself slipping just as Val had, sliding closer and closer to the roof's edge.

Her feet slip out from under her. One pale hand reaches out, grabbing the leaded gutter. For one breathless moment, her fingers find purchase, a grip so tight, she can see the beds of her nails go stark white. Then the gutter, old and brittled by cold, crumbles; she goes plummeting downward.

With a shriek, Flavia flings the stone sphere from her lap, sending it rolling across the grass. The sun may be shining; there may be flowers in bloom just steps away, but all she can feel is sickening, terrifying cold.

Comments

[theyralfo]

Without missing a beat, Anathema stopped the rolling orb with her foot. Looking down at the thing with a distasteful expression on her face, she tutted. These things had been springing up all over the city, causing nothing but trouble. Having been given good sense and a knack for foresight she hadn't actually picked up one up. But it was the principle of the thing.

Giving it another nudge with the toe of her boot, she moved her attention to Flavia and hastily moved over to the little girl. A wave of cold and fear rushed towards her, making her wince even as she settled beside her.

"Deep breaths. Just remember to breathe. It's not real yet. Or ever."

[spirit_of_vitriol]

She's going to be horribly sick, or burst into gales of tears, or perhaps even both at once. If Father was here, she thinks, he'd be terribly disappointed I was letting the side down so badly. Even more disappointed than he'd be if he knew she'd died--there were certain things the English just didn't do, after all.

As Anathema approaches, Flavia thinks it's the woman from the vision and flinches, just for a second. If anyone could've found a way to escape the crystal ball and spring into life, she imagines it'd be her, whoever she had been. Quickly enough, she recognizes her; tries to follow her instructions and take a breath, shaky and uncertain though it is. "It felt real," she says. "Realer than anything else those things showed me before."

[theyralfo]

Without waiting to be invited, Anathema slid a reassuring arm around the girl. Her own remembered futures were rarely personal, most of them spread out and happening other people. There was a curiosity that came through them. Like eavesdropping on something significant that meant little to her, so she jotted it down and waited. It had been the same for Agnes, which helped a bit, as did having a decade or so of it under her belt.

"That can happen," she agreed with a nod of her head, scowling at the stone. It was one thing to upend possible futures on people, but to do so without giving them any sort of training was just rude. "But it's all right now. You're here, that's over there. It's a long way off yet."

She thought a minute before adding the last bit. "Do you want to talk about it?"

[spirit_of_vitriol]

She allowed herself to lean into Anathema, accepting the reassurance. After a traumatic experience, Flavia thought it might be permissible, even briefly. She nods, thinking that Anathema might not be correct; the Flavia in the vision hadn't seemed much older than she was now--maybe if she'd stayed back home, she was already dead. A maid whom there were none to praise, indeed. She hoped her funeral had been utterly smashing.

Taking a deep breath, she says, "I was back home, at Buckshaw. I was on the roof, and someone was chasing me."

[theyralfo]

Another nod and reassuring pat was given as Anathema listened thoughtfully to the girl. Her own visions had been like memories, clear at times, but also muddled. There was always a finality, a certainty to her remembered futures that she'd long ago lived to experience them without real feelings.

It also helped that most of them didn't have much to do with her.

"I see," her understanding tone was genuine and well meant. "Are you positive that you were you and not someone else at that moment?"

[spirit_of_vitriol]

Flavia nodded, more than a little frantically--though Anathema's constant, steady reassurances were doing wonders to calm her racing pulse. "I heard myself screaming," she replied, her voice trembling to recall it. "I was calling for--for someone I thought would help me."

Dogger was only a man, she knew, but the way he always seemed to appear right when she needed him, for advice, for rescue, even for a cucumber sandwich, had always made him seem more like a wizard. She didn't want to think about what his failure to appear on the roof of Buckshaw--somewhere so accessible, so close to the beating heart of all of their lives--might portend.

[theyralfo]

"Oh pet." Her tone was not condescending, the term used affectionately and matter of factly, as if was the most natural thing in the world. In fact it was, even if it wasn't exactly Anathema's nature in the first place.

Her own nature was to be steady for those she cared about, especially in the face of the odd and the alarming. She'd be steady for those she didn't care for also, but that was besides the point. Flavia was a sweet and somewhat peculiar girl, which endeared her to Anathema.

"Well, the good news is that I know how to deal with that sort of thing. It's hard to remember scary futures. I can't make it go away or make you forget it, but I do know a helpful little trick," she dropped her voice conspiratorially. "Would you like to come along with me and get it?"