3. Downpour
Lydia walked slowly, feet trudging, the tip of her shoes dragging sludgily in the dirt. She trudged along the side of the road, pressed close to the trees, reluctant to leave their whispery, gossipy branches. But she had to face the future, and she would rather face it on her feet, fighting, than laying down in the backseat of a car.
She smiled at the sudden thought of Beckett, bittersweetly. To think of a time when she might've been like that: cheerful, full of reckless innocence, ready to take on the world. Now she wanted to curl up like a pillbug and sleep in the sewers. Beckett had been fresh air on cool skin, sun-kissed and golden. He was good for her. He had given her the strength to go home, to dance a little harder on her way through the woods.
Lydia turned up the road, waiting with docile patience as a slow car lumbered before her. When it had passed, she followed in its muddy tracks. As she walked, civilisation slowly began to poke its way out of the woods. First a sign, then a tall wire pole, then a few cans littered in the street. Lydia picked up the cans, cradling them close. She'd find something to do with them.
Soon enough, houses bloomed like purple ivy, chained together with roads and small alleys. The town of Wellspring was small, no more than two hundred people at most. It looked like a storybook: shades of purple colouring the town, swinging weathered signs advertising honey cups and knitted shawls. Lampposts gleamed every few feet, and if it were night, they would have twinkled like stars. In the afternoon sun, they reflected gold in bits of gleaming light. Banners and paper cut outs hung from strings across Main Street, reminiscent of a dollhouse lovingly decorated by childish hands.
Lydia passed through the town, a ghost. Peoples' eyes slanted away when they saw her, gliding over her, the way the human eye does when it sees something unpleasant and small. She knew she was not easily ignored. Months of a gnawing hunger and empty stomach had taught her to occupy a space, to take up room just by existing. If people couldn't forget you, they couldn't forget to feed you. But in Wellspring, starving creatures went better unnoticed: they slunk away to another poor town and haunted them instead.
Main Street began to taper off, branching out into Poplar Street, Swift Street, Macadamia Street. Lydia twirled like a compass needle, drifting down Plum Street. In that bottle-green car, she had glanced over Mrs. Pomatter's shoulder, following the red inked lines that the old lady had drawn for herself. The path was simple enough. Up the road, turn onto Main Street, follow it until Plum Street. After that, it was just a matter of chugging onwards until you reached the smallest house. Lydia had memorised that map, carved the path into her brain because she knew she was prone to forget, then threw herself from the moving car with a burst of exhilaration.
Plum Street was a quiet place. Something about its relaxedness, the way the road sagged into the earth, the way the houses leaned towards each other, gave the whole street a worn, comfortably tired feel.
As she passed each house, she glimpsed in the windows. Bay windows, curved ones, circular port windows, square windows, jaggedly shaped windows, all kinds winked their glass panes merrily at her. The only common trait among them was that each and every window was as large as possible. Privacy didn't seem to be a concern in this well-worn little street: everybody knew everybody, and they were all family. Children ran to set the table, husbands lit candles, women wiped the sweat from their foreheads, dogs and cats cuddled in the darkening light. They seemed to welcome the intrusion, call to the rainy orphan that stood beneath the darkening sky. A far cry from Main Street, which seemed determine to forget her.
One house was brighter than the others. The light in the window was dim, but the purple walls were painted with bright rainbows, cheery flowers, nonsensical patterns, and dancing peacocks. A string of lightbulbs framed their circular window, and inside, Lydia could see three sisters gathered around a small table. The youngest one was chatting animatedly, puncturing her sentences with wild gestures, nearly toppling over. The brown, textured buns atop her head bounced with every motion.
The eldest, with long braids and a serious expression, plated bow-tie noodles on the youngest's plate, nodding patiently as she listened. The middle sister twisted her finger in the many bracelets that covered her arms, eyes glowing as she leaned in towards her younger sister, captivated by the story, slightly teasing with her interest.
Lydia turned away from the scene, heart sour, distinctly left out from a world she hadn't even entered. She clutched her metal cans tighter to her chest. Their Crayola house with their lightning bug jars and small table buckling under the weight of their conversation. It was easy to tell herself that she didn't care, but it was far harder to believe it. She could easily picture herself at that table, an arm around the middle sister, matching bracelets on their wrists, as she teased the eldest for being so serious, teased the youngest for being so happy. Laughter was such a luxury.
Dangling on the fence outside of the three sisters' house were a few loose strands of thin rope, probably left over from a hanging lantern or decorative string of lights. Lydia unwound them from the fence, then knotted them around her cans. She tossed them over her shoulder, the clanking rattle of the metal clashing together comfortingly riotous.
Lydia clanged and clinked her way along, hoping she disturbed all the happy people the way they disturbed her, then feeling bad about it.
The next house was hers. Or, her grandmother's, at least. It was small, squat, two meagre floors. The French door was propped open, every window was pulled up, and citronella candles danced their fiery belly dance in the sills. The stairs were cracked and filled with different shades of silver cement, and potted plants filled nearly every corner of the space. The house seemed to explode with greenery, bushes gathering around the base of the house, vines tangling from the roof, roses bursting in cherry red bloom from a trellis propped against the wall.
Lydia yearned at the stairs, longing to rush inside, to throw her arms around her grandmother and to sink into her bed, wrapped in a quilt that smelled of honeysuckle and sunshine. But something dark, twisted, held her back with an icy grip on her arms.
Instead she slipped inside, as silently as possible. She did not want to see a kind face, she didn't want to hear her name coming from a strange woman's mouth. She didn't want pity or kindness or anything warm.
She didn't want to be comfortable, because that was when the hurt crept in.
Her grandmother sat at the kitchen table, a round surface covered in letters and plants and clumps of soil. Reading glasses perched on her nose, her thin lips mouthed as she read the letter in her wrinkled, firm hands. Her hair was swept with grey strands, but still mostly black, and her cheeks were sallow and thin.
There was no way to sneak around her, and up the stairs. Besides, she wouldn't even know which room was hers.
Lydia cleared her throat, standing awkwardly wide in the entryway, mud clumped thick on her shoes, taking up far too much space. Her grandmother looked up, eyes narrowing at her behind her glasses.
"You're late. Where have you been?"
Lydia was almost delighted. No sickeningly soft welcome, no rushing into arms. Just curt acceptance, explicit expectations, and explanations to give. What she was used to.
"I wanted to walk through the town," she explained, slinging her cans back over her shoulder. They clattered loudly, annoyingly.
Her grandmother sniffed, glaring at the glittery metal. But she didn't press. "In the future, don't waste my time like that. Or Mrs. Pomatter's. She nearly had a heart attack when you jumped out of her car, and she's eighty."
Lydia nodded contritely. "Sorry."
"Your room is upstairs, second to the stairs. There's a bathroom and closet inside. We'll take you shopping for some decent clothing tomorrow after Hade comes," her grandmother said crisply, turning back to her letters.
Lydia slid out of her shoes, and carried them up the stairs. If she wanted to sneak out, she wouldn't wait for the old lady to get to bed. Her cans clinked together at every step, her socks digging into the carpet of the stairs.
She glanced at the pictures on the wall as she walked up. Pictures of her mother, her father, their wedding day. A few photos of her, even, as a baby. She never remembered visiting Wellspring, but that coffee table was the same as the one she glimpsed in the mudroom. The rug was the same. Everything but her was the same, it seemed.
It was lonely. Lydia wasn't sure what the old woman did, but surely she had more than just a dead family and an ungrateful granddaughter? Surely, surely, she didn't sit around reading bills all day and counting up the debt?
Lydia opened the door to her room. The walls were an eggshell white, bare and slightly peeling in the corners. The bed was plain, just a wire frame and a canvas-coloured bedspread. The pillows were slightly musty, stiff from disuse. There was a good-sized closet on the wall next to the window, which overlooked the backyard and the woods beyond. The closet, after quick inspection, held nothing but a few mothballs hanging from a railing and an old, empty hatbox. She would give it to Beckett tomorrow. The whole room smelled like plaster and chicken noodle soup.
She tossed her shoes in a corner, hung her metal cans on the lock of the window. Her bags, left in Mrs. Pomatter's trunk, were sitting sadly in a dark corner, sagging against the wall. Lydia felt a twinge of guilt at the thought of her grandmother lugging the heavy purple trunks up the stairs, but shoved it aside.
She knelt, throwing the largest one on its side, and unzipped it. After rooting around, she pulled out a bottle of coffee-scented perfume and sprayed it in a large misty arc. The particles settled, drifting down like rain, and the room felt a little more welcoming.
She exhaled, slumping to the floor, leaning her head against the wall. She was hit with a sudden wave of exhaustion, flushing over her in a heat. This was her life now. This mundane, beige room was her future.
Lydia swallowed back a sob and shut her eyes, letting herself nod off. The floor was hard, digging into her tailbone, and the wall felt both damp and unforgivingly dry at once. But it was better in sleeping in a bed she did not know. That felt too intimate, too trusting, too final.
She fell asleep under the window, the rush of rain beginning to pour down, breathing shallowly the smell of plaster, chicken soup, and fading coffee.
Water drizzled down the glass window, streaking down in teardrops and rivulets, streaming along the sides of the little house at the very end of Plum Street. The forest shook and danced with every splash of water hitting its leaves, the plants in the gardens straightened up and raised their arms to gather the droplets. Cars hurried their way home, bicycles pattered along quickly, cows and horses trudged back to their barns with sleepy unconcern.
Below Lydia, in that little house at the very end of Plum Street, an old woman sat at a table, head in her hands, surrounded by a pile of bills that she could not pay, and wondered if her granddaughter could ever love her as much as she did.
And somewhere, a few miles away, surrounded by damp and misty fields of crops and cattle, a family of ten gathered on a porch and watched the rain pour. And the littlest one, curly gold head leaned against his mother's leg, drifted between sleeping and awake, dreaming of that lost, lonely girl he met in the woods.
And still the rain poured.
author's note!
a shorter chapter, but it's just lydia, so it's okay </3
hope you liked my little cameo!
also if you want, you should listen to the music at the beginning as you read. it's weirdly therapeutic. i'll try to put longer videos that match the vibes so they last for however long you take to read the chapter! and i'm gonna go back and change the ones for the previous two chapters, too.
hope you enjoyed!
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