It smells like dust and earth.
Musty, memories lingering on the walls like layers of old paint - a reality this house may never know.
“-sides? You know better, that's why you left! Because everything about them is sides! Where does it end?”
“‘Picking sides’. It's clear why this upsets you, and it isn't because a side was picked. It was because it wasn't yours.”
“Don't you dare fuckin’ say that. Don't you dare put words in my mouth. You promised-”
She can hear them up the stairs, through the crack in the cellar door.
She doesn't like it when they fight. Voices tight, almost whispering, a private conversation she isn't meant to hear. Adults rarely realize the breadth of which children listen.
She remembers earlier, when they took her in. Not too long ago, but long enough that the days begin to blur. A false sweetness, a fake sincerity.
Tightness around the eyes, smiles that never quite reach. Something that was broken long before she came.
Something that may have never been whole.
She isn't the only one trying to eavesdrop. The subtle shift and scrape of metal catches her attention, pieces that scrape but never slide seamlessly.
The click of strange feet on wooden floors.
The way he moves, she knows he's meant to be silent.
Like her instructor, prowling behind bowed heads, carefully choosing his prey.
He has been forced into uncomfortable spotlight, and she has lived her entire life in danger.
He's as pretty as Renaissance, the newest chapter in the large picture book she's being read.
Art is escapism to her, for all she is still learning the word.
He is soft and pale and pretty, harsh outlines softened by his odd coloring, and everything shrieks for her to flee.
The tail shifts. It scrapes. It is Art Deco forced into Abstract Expressionism, and it warns her that she cannot be seen.
They warned her to stay away.
Both from the big abstract bride outside, and her deceptively Renaissance pilot.
There is a flash of white- no, platinum blonde. A lacy dress, almost reminiscent of a pinafore.
He sees the girl in the kitchen- she's smaller than she should be, her age ambiguous, frozen in place.
For a moment, she is someone else.
Eyes wide, in delayed fear.
Almost as if she's not sure she should be afraid.
It's almost as if she's an uncomfortable facsimile of a child, someone who had only drawn perfect creatures attempting to mold something into a shape a human would recognize.
He is reminded of them, and he doesn't know why.
And in an instant, in that brief second of consideration, she's gone.
Scrambling up the stairs, the hushed voices in the cellar ceasing with the sudden commotion.
In the next moment, so is he.
