[ quentin doesn't remember the last time he was home. he's lost track of how many years it's been, all of them and all the places he's been blurring together in some inconclusive narrative. he's not even sure he can call this place home anymore. that's the side-effect of wandering, perhaps: there's really no such thing as roots anymore.
but with eternity laid out at his feet, however unwillingly, one can't expect him just to sit quietly. he can't let himself grow brittle and gray like everything else. quentin collins might have his secrets and skeletons - and what collins doesn't - but he won't let himself be shoved in the closets of collinwood. better to separate himself from it entirely than be swallowed whole.
but when the mood strikes him to pop in, as it sometimes does, maybe it is like he never left. maybe he does know the hallways and the abandoned wings like the back of his hand. maybe, with the flickering lights inside and the gray skies out, familiarity can be comforting. maybe. ]
[ Lila Kyle does not ponder about how long it has been since she was last at home. There is no home to go back to — no pale yellow nursery, no manicured lawn, (no dead things in the driveway, smudges and smears, all red and black in the noonday sun). There's no Brad either and no baby left in her belly. Just a tumor that doesn't wither or grows, that neither lives nor dies but demands to be fed. A hole bore straight through the very center of Lila; a hole with no bottom, no beginning or end, making her a void, a black space, from head to toe.
She forgets this, of course, for the sake of the baby. (The baby that isn't a baby at all, but the memory of one, the hope of one, all shriveled and small like the rock that sags down her gut; empty as she is.) She imagines that the world has not ended, that the people haven't died and that society has broken like waves dissolving into mist against the virus' stony shore. A monster or a corpse, those are the only choices left, though Lila pretends there is another way.
The house with the pale yellow nursery and the gory drive is long gone, abandoned and given back to the earth, but Lila imagines this place with its stone walls and its wooden rafters and candlelit windows is that house, is that home. (Lila's home. Here at Collinsport.)
As to where the family has gone, the one that gave this town its name — who can say? Those that haven't been ground into bonemeal are given over to the virus and lose themselves to the flocks of the Twelve. But not Lila, who wanders aimlessly through the overgrown garden in a nightgown she found in the master bath. No, her blood is special and so she remains.
At the sound of the gate creaking upon its rusted hinges she turns, her voice light. (Honey, I'm home.) ]
Brad— Brad, is that you? [ One would never guess from the tone of her voice that the world had come to an end. ]
[ the fact that it's deserted comes as a shock. the collinwood of quentin's memories has caretakers, people putting in blood and sweat for the estate's upkeep. periods of negligence, of course, but the good-hearted and meticulous family of 1850 and 1972 seem to have disappeared without a trace. the town doesn't miss them. the town is too quiet and slow and nearly empty to miss them, but quentin doesn't think about it. the world itself is physically there, isn't it? and it will be there, and as long as it's there, he'll be there as well. whatever affects them doesn't affect him.
and all of his attachments in collinsport, maine left him long ago. perhaps the witch still lives, perhaps not; either way, quentin knows better than to go seek her out. knows better than to find her and let her put a collar on him like some lapdog. a century of that was too much, and having an acquaintance isn't worth giving up the sweetness of the freedom he has now.
he hears her first, voice trailing through a window mysteriously left open and rusted to the point where it won't shut anymore - the water stains on the carpet show the majority of the damage. and then he turns and sees her and his feet carry him backwards and for a moment he can't breathe.
she isn't kitty. that he knows. she isn't kitty or that sweet governess or even the woman whose portrait still hangs in the drawing room, crooked and paint peeling. but it's still with trepidation that quentin approaches the window once more. he leans forward, allowing his head and shoulders to hang outside, and he holds the windowpane up with one hand should the rust disappear and it come crashing down on him. ]
[ He returns home and though some of the faces change — the family, the gardener, the folks in town (those that refuse to remember him and those that refuse to forget) — the building remains very much the same. It's a testament, if not to the family that built it and the name that supports it, then to the very rock out of which it was fashioned. Some of decor evolves and some of it remains stubbornly rooted in the past: a lamp disappears from one room only to reappear in another a few decades later. The photographs on the mantle cycle through one generation and the next but the portraits that hang on in the library and the main hall grow dusty and faded with each passing year.
He returns home and the old gardener has taken sick so the bushes have grown wild and unruly in the yard. There is one less maid and a new nanny — a sweet, pale-skinned girl with brown eyes that laugh even when her mouth doesn't. When Quentin crosses her path, she is in the garden, catching butterflies (with an uncanny ease) with a net. ]
Another Collins? [ she asks without turning, his footfall just within earshot. ]
[ of course he is; he takes it for granted the way he can push through the doors and stroll through like he never left. he'll introduce himself to the new family - as his very own descendent, lest he give all the surprises away - and fall back into the fold with perhaps a bit to much ease, wooing them with stories of far-off places and old, old family legends that couldn't possibly be true. he'd think the same if he hadn't been there.
whether they're aware of the supposed curse, he doesn't know. quentin won't ask; it's not a topic to discuss over dinner or in polite company or anywhere, and perhaps they all think it's folly anyway. instead, he stands watching the unfamiliar woman, hands in his pockets, before he makes his way over to her with a lazy gait. ]
Quentin Collins, as a matter of fact. Don't think I've seen you before.
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no subject
but with eternity laid out at his feet, however unwillingly, one can't expect him just to sit quietly. he can't let himself grow brittle and gray like everything else. quentin collins might have his secrets and skeletons - and what collins doesn't - but he won't let himself be shoved in the closets of collinwood. better to separate himself from it entirely than be swallowed whole.
but when the mood strikes him to pop in, as it sometimes does, maybe it is like he never left. maybe he does know the hallways and the abandoned wings like the back of his hand. maybe, with the flickering lights inside and the gray skies out, familiarity can be comforting. maybe. ]
no subject
She forgets this, of course, for the sake of the baby. (The baby that isn't a baby at all, but the memory of one, the hope of one, all shriveled and small like the rock that sags down her gut; empty as she is.) She imagines that the world has not ended, that the people haven't died and that society has broken like waves dissolving into mist against the virus' stony shore. A monster or a corpse, those are the only choices left, though Lila pretends there is another way.
The house with the pale yellow nursery and the gory drive is long gone, abandoned and given back to the earth, but Lila imagines this place with its stone walls and its wooden rafters and candlelit windows is that house, is that home. (Lila's home. Here at Collinsport.)
As to where the family has gone, the one that gave this town its name — who can say? Those that haven't been ground into bonemeal are given over to the virus and lose themselves to the flocks of the Twelve. But not Lila, who wanders aimlessly through the overgrown garden in a nightgown she found in the master bath. No, her blood is special and so she remains.
At the sound of the gate creaking upon its rusted hinges she turns, her voice light. (Honey, I'm home.) ]
Brad— Brad, is that you? [ One would never guess from the tone of her voice that the world had come to an end. ]
no subject
and all of his attachments in collinsport, maine left him long ago. perhaps the witch still lives, perhaps not; either way, quentin knows better than to go seek her out. knows better than to find her and let her put a collar on him like some lapdog. a century of that was too much, and having an acquaintance isn't worth giving up the sweetness of the freedom he has now.
he hears her first, voice trailing through a window mysteriously left open and rusted to the point where it won't shut anymore - the water stains on the carpet show the majority of the damage. and then he turns and sees her and his feet carry him backwards and for a moment he can't breathe.
she isn't kitty. that he knows. she isn't kitty or that sweet governess or even the woman whose portrait still hangs in the drawing room, crooked and paint peeling. but it's still with trepidation that quentin approaches the window once more. he leans forward, allowing his head and shoulders to hang outside, and he holds the windowpane up with one hand should the rust disappear and it come crashing down on him. ]
What're you doing out there?
no subject
He returns home and the old gardener has taken sick so the bushes have grown wild and unruly in the yard. There is one less maid and a new nanny — a sweet, pale-skinned girl with brown eyes that laugh even when her mouth doesn't. When Quentin crosses her path, she is in the garden, catching butterflies (with an uncanny ease) with a net. ]
Another Collins? [ she asks without turning, his footfall just within earshot. ]
no subject
[ of course he is; he takes it for granted the way he can push through the doors and stroll through like he never left. he'll introduce himself to the new family - as his very own descendent, lest he give all the surprises away - and fall back into the fold with perhaps a bit to much ease, wooing them with stories of far-off places and old, old family legends that couldn't possibly be true. he'd think the same if he hadn't been there.
whether they're aware of the supposed curse, he doesn't know. quentin won't ask; it's not a topic to discuss over dinner or in polite company or anywhere, and perhaps they all think it's folly anyway. instead, he stands watching the unfamiliar woman, hands in his pockets, before he makes his way over to her with a lazy gait. ]
Quentin Collins, as a matter of fact. Don't think I've seen you before.