Fairy Tale of New Lawke (NaNoWriMo)

Chapter 2

The man stumbled off the gravelled path, tried to stabilise himself on the bins and fell sideward. Adaline took three steps towards him, offering out a hand. The sight of the five-week-old acrylic nails, too long and untidy, caught her off guard almost as much as the stranger's accident. His hands felt warm in her own as he pulled himself to his feet. Crimson streaked his cheeks. With lowered eyes, he mumbled an apology before turning his back on her. He quickly re-entered her mother's house, not stopping to check if Adaline was following.

Stepping into the porch, Adaline began to feel at ease. The champagne-coloured walls hadn't changed at all since she was a teenager. A projector of their familial memories scattered over the walls in black frames. Her elder brother, with the same green eyes as her father, smiling at an unseen camera, proudly displaying his diploma. Adaline with the ghastly bob that all her friends had worn, wearing a flowing navy dress at her year eleven prom, next to her childhood best friend. She smiled.

Life had been good for the most part growing up in her parents' household. They'd had many summers holed up in caravans, spending untold amounts of money at the arcades hoping to win a cheap nick knack to commemorate their time together. She chuckled slightly, remembering the hideous stuffed rabbit her father had won for her when she was fifteen. The eyes had been questionable, crudely sewn onto the uncomfortably patchy fur. She'd hated that thing, had crammed it into the bottom of her wardrobe swearing to never let a soul see it.

She wished she still had the teddy when her father passed not too many years later. He hadn't been the most affectionate of men and so sentimental gifts were few and far between. Shaking her head, she scolds herself. No use crying over what could have been.

Voices in the living room intruded on her thoughts. Her mother's voice, not quite as silky as it had been in her youth, now had a tremor to it that Adaline had failed to notice a week before when the pair had their regular mother daughter lunch and shopping date. Leaning against the doorframe, she cleared her throat and smiles.

Her mother's head whipped around, eyes wide; it took only a second before her face lit up and she began to stand, shakily holding onto the arm of the black sofa as she does so. Her face, usually made up with rouged cheeks and the MAC Velvet Teddy lipstick that always seemed to seep into the crevices around her mouth, was plain. Adaline could swear her mother's wrinkles had etched further into her fair skin; skin that seemed to be slightly translucent almost overnight.

In such a brief space of time, her mother had become so frail and almost unrecognisable to Adaline. She wondered how she hadn't noticed the subtle changes. Perhaps her grief had truly blinded her to reality, to the fact the world continued to move, unchanged by the loss of one of its inhabitants.

"Adaline! You're here! Let me put the kettle on. You sit yourself down darling," she kissed her daughter's forehead before nuzzling her towards the sofa.

Her movements were slow, almost calculated, as though she were terrified the slightest breeze may tip her over. Adaline gave a small smile, knowing better than to offer to take over. Her mother was a stubborn woman, a trait her daughter had inherited, and so very proud. She wouldn't be seen dead sitting around when she had company to host for, even if that company had spent nine months curled next to her heart.

The sound of metal tapping on porcelain filled the awkward silence between Adaline and the man standing rigidly across the room. Taking a deep breath, Adaline clapped her hands together before rubbing them on her legs. She looked around the room, desperate to not make eye contact with the stranger whose gaze had not wandered from her since she entered the room.

The living room was cosy, trinkets dotted about on walnut shelves; a family picture taken the year before her father passed, a photograph of a fox cub that Adaline had taken herself. She'd spent four hours in the freezing cold with only an umbrella to shelter herself and her equipment from the rain to capture the image. Her breath still caught as it did when the infant slowly emerged from the safety of its den, sniffing the air before clambering out fully. She'd felt so alive that day. So free. It was part of why she had loved being behind a camera so much; it gave her a sense of empowerment she had never felt before.