Who: Hannah and Clare What: Meeting and talking and slight epiphanies Where: Local church and coffee shop When: The day after Sherlock’s return Warnings/Rating: None?
Clare had woken the night before to find herself in the strange hotel, standing in front of a door that bore the numbers 221B. The metal of the numbers absorbed back into the door as she watched, the entire thing shifting slightly to appear like any other hotel room door, though she somehow knew it wasn’t. Her mind tried to ignore the memories she had, the fuzzy remembrance of what had to be dreams of men with accents, one who had come back to life from the dead. They had to be dreams. There was no other explanation. No matter what the writing in the journal had told her
But the strange notebook felt weighty in her hand, where Clare finally realized she had fingers clenched around it, leaving damp prints on the cover. And faintly, just barely, a knot of frustration and sadness settled near the base of her skull, something that felt foreign and strange.
The next morning found Clare climbing the stairs to her church. She never came during the week, never really thought much about it until Sunday rolled around and habit brought her back into the fold. But she was out of her depth, needed a friend to talk to if nothing else, but she’d made none yet in Las Vegas - the two people she’d encountered could hardly be considered friends. One had left her with only a business card, and the other hadn’t even left that, just a ringing in her ears from the gallery’s alarms and a strange feeling in that place near the back of her mind. Uncertain of where else to go, she’d called in sick to work and chosen church, and slipped into one of the back pews, the building mostly empty other than a few devoted that sat or (more often) knelt in the rows closer to the altar. Clare didn’t feel part of them either, and she sighed as she let her sight settle on the cross at the front of the open, echoing space. Her grandmother had always said “let go and let God,” and while Clare had never quite understood that, she tried, hoping for answers to the strange directions her life had taken.
Hannah was at church for much the same reasons Clare was. It wasn’t her church, because she didn’t want her priest asking all kinds of questions on account of her being there when she wasn’t meant to be. Part of preparing for her exorcism involved a whole lot of scheduled confessions and blessings and masses, but today wasn’t one of the days when those were meant to happen, and she didn’t want to raise anyone’s suspicions. Truth was, she’d been feeling real out of sorts since going through that door and seeing the boy with the pretty blonde hair. Now, she hadn’t seen him herself, not really, but she could remember him clear as if she had. And there the was the chat they had on the journals after, the one where he asked her to pray for him. So here she was, kneeling a few feet away from a brunette she’d never met, bowing her head and saying herself a Hail Mary in a quiet murmur.
The gray dress Hannah wore was long, trailing to her feet as she sat back in the pew, and the cross around her neck was a heavy thing, meant to be noticed. It was piety on a chain, and she tugged on it as she looked at the altar and wondered if praying over a dead boy in someone’s mind was really going to do a lick of good. She was losing faith at an alarming speed without her stepmother’s nightly rituals and the heavy strips landing against her skin before bed. She was starting to think she was the same kind of sinner her folks had always warned her about, and she was starting to wonder if maybe that wasn’t real bad. She should talk to John, she knew, about being in the hotel, in that door, but she hadn’t worked up to it just yet. She was worried, too, about Violet being mad at her. She didn’t know why the other girl was put out, but she knew she was, and that was worrisome too. Violet’s influence was real strong, and Hannah was less interested in fighting it these days than she had been once.
After a few minutes of silence, Hannah looked over at the brunette and gave her a sweet smile. “He listening?” she asked of the man on the cross. Her voice was South and syrup and sweet things, and she looked about as harmless as a girl could sitting there, her hands folded in her lap now. “I’m Hannah.”
The soft voice startled Clare out of her thoughts, not expecting anyone to be nearby, much less for them to speak to her. She looked over with a guilty flush to her cheeks even though there was no reason for her to blush or feel guilty. She couldn’t help the natural response, though it at least faded slightly right away when she saw the other girl. The question took her a second to understand. When she did, she shook her head slightly and looked down at her hands. “If he is, he’s not replying. Not that I expect a reply, really. I just... came here because I didn’t know where else to go.” She wouldn’t normally tell a stranger so much, but the girl next to her had a sympathetic look to her, and Clare found herself smiling uncertainly.
Hannah smoothed her long skirt, and she crossed her ankles and tucked them beneath the pew. She was the picture of piety, and only the over-eager glint in her eyes hinted at any real fire within her. Once, that fire had been for the man on the cross and her future in a habit, but these days it was real different. “He ain’t listening to me any more,” she admitted, and she knew it was her own doing. She was breaking all kinds of rules, thinking all kinds of things she shouldn’t, but she wasn’t so keen to stop any more. “But even when he did listen, he didn’t do a whole lot of talking back. If he talks, I think you should worry.” That’s how it all started, see, with a voice. When the woman said she didn’t know where else to go, Hannah turned toward her some. “Is something wrong?” she asked, and the compassion and concern on her face was pure and true, no lying in it.
Whereas Hannah had a certain kind of spark in her eyes, Clare’s were quiet and calm, the gaze of a girl that had yet to see true passion or fire in her life. She didn’t pry too much, not into anyone’s life, but especially not to ask this girl why she felt as if God wouldn’t be listening to her any more. She twisted her fingers around each other in her lap and looked back toward the front of the church. “Bad dreams lately,” she whispered, keeping her gaze turned away from the other girl. It wasn’t a lie she was telling, she still was convinced that even with all the evidence that popped up in the notebook that she tried to ignore (but that was sitting heavy in her purse), that everything had to be a dream. A sense of disbelief and annoyance flared in the back of her mind and made her stomach turn. “I was hoping that coming here might help. Though I don’t especially know how it would...”
Hannah was like something set loose upon the world in recent days. She’d spent a whole long life talking to no one at all, and now curiosity was all boiling over whenever she came near anyone with a story to tell. And for Hannah, near everyone had a story to tell. The woman’s whisper made Hannah scoot just a little closer, and her own voice went conspiratorially whisper-soft in return. “What kind of dreams?” she asked, adding. “I started out having dreams. Real strange ones about things I’d never even know about before. I figured I couldn’t have dreams about things I didn’t know, not all on my own, and it turned out I was right.” She looked back at the altar then, and instead of frowning, like she often did when she thought back on those days. “It ended up being the start to something real good though, the dreaming. It brought me here, and now I got folks that I talk to.” She said it like it was a grand accomplishment, talking to folks. She smiled. “I’ve met three boys recent. Well, two boys and two men.” She was pretty sure that comment required confession all by itself.
“Dreams that... that don’t make sense.” Clare frowned, looking back at the girl again. The things she was saying were strange on their own, and combined with the things Clare had been experiencing, they made her nervous and fidgety. Even so, she found herself turning more to face the girl, words spilling out in a whispersoft hush. “It’s like I’m watching a movie, in my dreams, and there’s these people in London. England! And talking about things I barely understand. How can I have dreams about stuff I don’t understand? It doesn’t seem right. And there’s this hotel--” Clare cut herself off from the ramble she’d slipped into, knowing that dreams could be explained away, but the hotel couldn’t. She shook her head as she bit down hard on her lip, trying to explain the hotel as well. “I think I’m sleep-walking too. I wake up places I shouldn’t be...” She trailed off again, swallowing awkwardly and taking the opportunity to try to change the subject. “You’re the third person I’ve met since I moved here. Other than the people in the office I work at.” Pausing again, she looked back at her hands, still twisted in her lap. “Not that I really talk to anyone. I’ve just run into them.”
Hannah started nodding within seconds, before her companion even managed to mention London. “Mine started like that too. My momma thought I was possessed on account of it, and we went to all kinds of priests. They finally sent me here to wait on an exorcism,” she explained, her voice dropping at the last word as if it was a real bad slur of some kind. “But I ran into folks here that were like me, and I don’t think I have a demon anymore.” She paused, offering cautiously, “maybe you aren’t watching a movie in your head. Maybe it’s the same kind of thing.” She looked around carefully, and then she tugged a key from around her neck. It was nothing special, the key, just a plain old house key, but she held it up like it explained everything. “This opens my door. It’s to a big old wood house that’s haunted by a whole bunch of dead folks.” She waited, and then she cocked her head to the side, brown hair slipping free against her neck. “You got a door?” she asked, because when most folks thought you were a demon there wasn’t a whole lot you were afraid of asking people.
Clare simply blinked at the girl, her talk of possession and exorcisms. She’d gone to church her entire life and never known anyone to actually take anything that far. Even something as foreign as that couldn’t hold her attention when the girl started talking about doors, and when the key appeared, Clare stared at it for a long moment. She was silent, thinking of the key she’d attached to the spiral of the notebook, just as mundane and plain as the one around the other girl’s neck. Drawing a shaking breath, the words began to spill out of her with barely any thought at all. “There’s a hotel that I don’t want to go to, but I find myself there any way. I’ve been there three times now and two of those times... that’s when I think I fall asleep, but I must be asleep forever, because it’s like I’ve missed a whole day somehow. And when I’m asleep...” Her voice dropped softer, afraid that someone would hear her.
“There’s this man. And he’s so angry and so sad because his friend died. Right in front of him. But in my dreams, his friend is back now, but he’s still so angry at him. For being dead and for the things he says - they’re not very nice sometimes. And I don’t understand half of what they talk about, but I know it’s not a normal dream because it’s the same thing every time I fall asleep at the hotel - like the story just keeps going. And when I wake up, I’m still there - at the hotel. I try not to think about it, and I try not to go, but it’s like there’s something that wants me there.” Clare swallowed hard, her mouth dry from talking so much, and shook her head. “And I wonder if maybe I should go to the doctor. Because this isn’t normal, and maybe I’m sick. But there’s this... other thing that makes me wonder if I’m not, so I’m confused and I was hoping that maybe there would be answers here, though I don’t even know why I thought that either. Maybe I was hoping my Gramma was right and that praying would help.”
Hannah was starting to get the feeling that all the folks wandering around Las Vegas’ sidewalks were like her. Back home, she’d been the strange one, the one hearing voices and speaking tongues and being all kinds of wrong. An aberration, her momma had said, the switch in her hand and that look (like the fiercest of God’s angels) on her face. But here she just kept finding more and more people with folks in their minds, folks like her, and she smiled some as the woman began talking about the hotel. The slumbering, that wasn’t like what Hannah experienced, but it could make sense if the woman didn’t want to go on through to the other side. Hannah figured they might be helpless to resist going, and it didn’t surprise her none to learn that was likely the case.
It was the story about the man that stole Hannah’s attention, though. It was like a story in a book, nothing like her own experiences through the door, and her eyes went all wide and brown, saucers of attention in her young and innocent face. “Going to a doctor won’t help none,” Hannah finally said when the woman went quiet. “You ain’t the only one, neither. There’s lots of us, and near as I can tell the doors and the folks in our minds, they’re all from television or books. Mine’s a teenage girl, and she died in this house in California, and she’s in love with this real bad blond boy.” She smiled then, a young, young smile. “He’s real pretty, the boy. But he’s dead too. My key opens a door in the hotel, and it takes me back to that house. When I’m there, I’m her, the girl in my mind. I bet you’re that man, the angry one. And since you ain’t gone back to the hotel yourself, then he’s taking you while you slumber. He probably misses his people,” she offered helpfully.
Clare listened to the girl with wide eyes of her own, shaking her head because everything the two of them said shouldn’t be true, shouldn’t even be possible, but the way the other girl talked about it, it felt right. “John,” she ended up whispering. “His name is John. He’s a doctor. And he was a soldier, but he got hurt so he had to come home. He got a roommate so he could stay in London, and then they became friends, even though not many people like his roommate. They... do detective work, but something went wrong I think, because his friend jumped off a building. Right in front of him. And died right there.” Clare swallowed hard, ignoring the sudden sense of indignation in the back of her mind, somehow focused on the fact that she was telling this girl everything. “But now with whatever is going on, his friend is back, but... things still aren’t right. So he’s still angry, and now he’s hiding from him-” She cut off, her eyes going wide, like everything had just clicked into place. “You’re hiding!” Her voice wasn’t quite a shout, but it carried through the silent church and caused the other parishioners to turn to look at her. She slapped both hands over her mouth, eyes even wider in shock at her outburst.
Hannah’s eyes went wide with shock at the outburst, but a second later the shock dissolved into a fit of girlish giggles. If there was any doubt that she was just a girl, it was chased away right then, in that church pew, her hand on her lips and a smile trying to fight its way past the restraints. People around them looked real put out, and Hannah stood in a quick swish and swirl of thick, uncomfortable fabric. Her hand left her mouth, and it found Clare’s, and she tugged, trying to get the other woman to her feet before the nuns came hollering and stamping their heavy black feet. “Outside,” she said, motioning to the sun and brightness beyond the confines of the church. If they were going to talk about the folks in their heads - which Hannah very much wanted to - then it should be where the Lord couldn’t hear.
Clare couldn’t help her own giggles, a strange release from the confusion she’d been carrying around since the journal had arrived for her. This girl was a little strange, but everyone in this town was strange, and at least she was friendlier than the woman in the park and not as unsettling as the man in the gallery. She let herself be pulled outside, her own skirt hitting her legs just below her knees, stifling her laughter until they stood in the sunshine, heavy doors closing again behind them. “Oh! I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to shout like that. Especially not in church!”
The sunlight streamed down on them, and Hannah felt like the whole wide world was smiling. It was that easy sometimes, just a good laugh and someone nearby that understood. She came to a stop on the sidewalk, and she righted the cross around her neck and tugged at the uncomfortable shift beneath her dress, making it sit right before she talked. “I think that was exactly what we both needed,” she said with all the honesty of someone who hadn’t learned a whole lot of lying in her lifetime. She looked across the street, where a small coffee shop was just in sight, and she nodded toward it. “Maybe we can have some sweet tea, and you can tell me all about who your man - John - about who he’s hiding from.” Something in her eyes said she wanted to talk too, and that if this woman opened up, she would too. “You can call me Nan,” she said. “My stepmomma does, whenever she ain’t cross with me.”
“Oh, he’s not mine.” The blush came fast and dark across Clare’s cheeks at the thought that anyone could be considered hers. Especially someone like the man from the dreams. Or whatever they were now. “I mean. I guess if that’s what’s going on - like you said - then he’s in my head? But he’s not mine.” She shook her head at that thought, but it quickly shifted to a nod at the thought of getting something to drink, and she began walking toward the small shop. “Nan.” She smiled at the introduction. “I’m Clare. Just Clare, no one calls me anything else.” Another quick blush as she looked at her feet. “I mean, the man I work for does. But that’s just because he can’t remember my name. He called me ‘office girl’ a few times the other day, though, so I think that might stick for a while.” She made a slight face, thinking that ‘Clare’ couldn’t possibly be that hard of a name to remember, but she knew he was very busy. Maybe too busy to remember names. It didn’t matter, either way, even though that place at the back of her mind flooded with exasperation. She frowned at that, wondering if her actually acknowledging these strange events meant that she was going to have that weird feeling in her head from now on. She hoped not.
Hannah led the way across the street, the thick fabric of her skirt clinging to her bare legs all the way to the ankles. “Well, it’s Hannah. Hannah Montgomery, but my stepmomma liked Nan.” She didn’t say what her momma had liked, because she had no real idea what her momma had liked, and it didn’t really matter none. “Who’s he hiding from?” she asked, the naturally curiosity of the very young in the question. She didn’t argue about whether or not the man belonged to Clare (Clare, she thought, fit the woman beside her just right). “My girl, her name’s Violet, she’s got so many feelings all bottled up that I think she’ll burst one day.” Hannah thought maybe teenagers were like that, but she’d never been one of those, and she wondered if it lasted a real long time, all that being upset. “But she’s dead. Maybe she’ll feel better once she gets used to that. I think she ain’t really settled into it yet, being dead.” And it was a strange conversation, maybe, settling into being dead. She opened the door to the shop, and the cool air from inside rushed over both of them.
The thought of having someone dead in her own mind made Clare shiver, though she could likely pass it off as the chill from the shop’s air conditioning. “I don’t know if I could handle someone dead. It seems... scary. John has a lot of feelings too, but they mostly seem bad.” Her voice was quiet and a frown creased a line between her eyebrows. She may have not been entirely convinced of the things that were going on, but the thought of anyone being as unhappy as she’d dreamed John to be made her sad as well. She paused in her thoughts as she approached the counter, looking over the menu board and finally settling on a hot chocolate, even though the Las Vegas air was warm outside the door. It seemed like their conversation was a hot chocolate type of situation. She shifted a glance over at Hannah - Nan - and smiled softly. “Go on, I’ll pay. As a thank you for listening to me.” She hadn’t missed Nan’s clothes, not that they looked to be in poor quality, but combined with the cross and the talk of churches and exorcisms, something made Clare think that maybe Nan didn’t have a lot of extra money for drinks with a stranger. And while she wasn’t rolling in money herself, her job paid enough. There was a soft sense of surprise that slipped through her mind like a wave of heat off the pavement, and she frowned. I’m not stupid, she thought at it, feeling ridiculous, I notice things.
Hannah looked as pleased as she was by the other woman’s offer to pay. She hadn’t started working that new job yet, and the nuns didn’t give allowances. She didn’t even think of asking her stepmomma or her daddy, because they’d want to know what she needed money for, and that would just lead to all kinds of bad things circling overhead. She was considering asking John, on account of her thinking he would help like that, but she hadn’t worked up the courage to do it just yet. She walked ahead of Clare, and she slid into a booth and asked for a tea, real cold and real sweet, and then she settled in for a nice, long talk. It involved leaning against the booth table, the talk, and whispering quiet enough that it wouldn’t scare folks around them. “She was scared at first, about being dead, but now she’s just real sad and real angry. The boy she loved, he did bad things to her momma, and she’s all torn up about that too. She ain’t bad, but I think she draws bad things like bees to honey.” She sounded worried about all that, because she was, but it was a wide-eyed worried, because it was all new, and everything new was real exciting these days. “You never said who he was hiding from. Or, rather, why he was hiding.”
Clare followed along, settling herself as well, and biting absently at her lower lip as she listened to Nan talk. She shook her head again in disbelief. “How can you handle that all in your head? It all sounds so awful.” She kept her voice soft enough to keep those around them from overhearing, and she took a long breath before starting her own story again. Or... John’s story, at least. “His friend. The one that he lived with and who jumped off the building in front of him. I get the feeling that his friend is... strange. Not like other people, at least, and that it was all part of something bigger that I don’t know about yet. But his friend ended up dying right in front of him on the street, and it’s messed him up really badly, even now that his friend is back. And I don’t know how that happened and neither does he. But they don’t talk, not really, not like normal people, and his friend doesn’t understand why John’s so angry and confused, and so I think neither of them want to deal with it. And I guess his not dealing now is staying in my head and not going... to the hotel?” She frowned at the last part, sounding confused. None of it made sense to her yet. Not at all.
Hannah’s face took on a truly scandalized expression, and she stared a second before dropping her voice even more. She was practically leaning across the table now, her bottom off the booth and her forearms bearing all her weight. “Were they lovers?” she asked, as if two men being lovers was the most taboo and thrilling thing she’d ever possibly heard tell of.
Clare blinked a few times, as if she needed a chance to process the question and the intrigued body language of Nan practically draped across the table. She blushed at it, but it was likely that she would have blushed at the question no matter who it was regarding. In her moment of confusion, distinctly for the first time, she heard in the back of her mind a very English, very male voice: I’m not actually gay! The comment bade her blanch pale again as quickly as she’d flushed, and she shook her head, swallowing hard as she tried to find her own voice. “He’s not... John likes women. Dates them. They’re not... the two of them... they’re not together. Like that.”
“Oh,” Hannah said with evident disappointment, and she sat back just as the waitress set her tea in front of her. “Then they’re just friends. I guess it’d still be real terrible to see a friend jump off a roof in front of you,” she conceded, though she didn’t have anything to really base that opinion on. She’d never had any friends of her own, and she didn’t know how strong someone felt for a person like that. Hannah was all kinds of nothing, and it showed in the confusion that crossed her features as she tried to make sense of it. “Did he tell him that he was mad and hiding? I know it might seem like it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, telling someone you’re hiding on account of them, though. Maybe you should tell him? I talked to someone through my door once.”
Clare accepted her hot chocolate with a shy smile for the waitress, using her spoon to scoop a tiny dollop of the whipped cream thoughtfully. Her next words came accompanied by a frown. “I don’t know. I’ve never had a friend like that. It’s like they’re both the only friend the other one has. And other people think they’re together, but they’ve never...” The frown was still firmly in place as she trailed off, looking over at Hannah and shaking her head. “No, I think they barely ever talk about anything other than their jobs. Hardly ever about anything important.” Hannah’s next suggestion surprised Clare into blinking again without words for a bit. She finally let out a breath and shook her head again. “No, I don’t think... his friend is kind of... awful? I don’t think I could talk to him at all.”
Hannah didn’t like the way kind of awful sounded, even with all the uncertain pausing, and she frowned into her tea. “What do you mean, he’s kind of awful?” she asked, her nose crinkling as she asked the question. She imagined all kinds of terrible things, like people that kicked kittens and pulled tails off lizards, and those things seemed all kinds of terrible to her. But, somehow, Tate killing a whole bunch of kids didn’t seem quite as bad, and she realized she was taking a turn for the worse. If she’d been good - really good, like she was meant to be - she would have run right over to church when that thought hit, but she didn’t. She swirled her straw in the dark tea, and then she sucked the plastic tube between her lips. Alright, killing folks was worse than kicking kittens, she decided, and she blinked innocently at Clare as she waited for a response.
Clare’s face wrinkled into a frown, trying to pull memories and recollections out of what she’d thought were dreams. “Awful like...” She sighed, trying to find the right words for what she’d dreamed - seen. “He doesn’t seem to care. About anything. He’d been dead and when he came back to life, he was rude and... mean. And blamed John for it, and...” She shook her head once, hard, like she was trying to clear the thought from her mind. The hints of emotions that still lingered in her mind didn’t make talking about it any easier. “It wasn’t right. Someone shouldn’t be like that...”
“What’s his name? The real terrible one?” Hannah asked, because now the man just sounded like a plain villain, and she was imagining and sneer and a real villainous laugh. “We should maybe warn folks about him if he’s real bad like that,” she said, which was mighty hypocritical, since she wouldn’t go telling no one about Tate, even if she maybe should.
“He’s not terrible, though,” Clare defended almost immediately, along with the whispered insistence in her mind. “Not like someone that has to be warned about. He’s just... rude. And doesn’t seem to care about feelings. Even about the people he knows. It’s like he’s...” She paused, searching for a way to put it that made sense. “Feelings-broken. He’s smart though, so smart. But dumb about some things. Normal things. Have you ever known anyone like that?”
Hannah shook her head, but she hadn’t really known anyone like anything, and it showed on her face. This was all new to her, even the sweet taste of the tea through the straw, and even the sky outside (darkening now) seemed like something completely new and unexpected. “I still think you should talk to him some,” she advised, as if she was anyone to be giving advice. “He might not know he’s hurting the man you got in your mind, your demon, and he might not mean to. When I talked to Tate, he was real sweet about things. This man, he might be real sweet to you too,” she reasoned, still idealistic enough to think she’d be able to find the good in most folks, if she just looked long enough. She slurped her tea down, and she nodded toward the door. “I better get on, but you contact me on the journals?” she asked. She did want to hear how things turned out, and it showed on her expressively bright face.
Clare had her hands wrapped around her mug of hot chocolate, and while she was still uncertain about talking to John’s friend - Sherlock, that’s what it was - she nodded. Part of her thought that maybe it would just be easier to go back through the hotel door and let John deal with it on his own. Yes. Maybe that’s what she would do. She nodded again to Hannah and gave her a small smile. “Okay. I don’t use it much. But... I’ll figure it out. Let you know.”
Hannah reached across the table, and she squeezed Clare’s fingers in her own pale ones. It felt weird, handing out advice to someone, but she smiled honestly. She was supposed to be in Las Vegas on account of bad things, but she was starting to feel better about everything with every single day. She nodded once more, and then she hopped to her feet in a swish of thick fabric. “Thanks for the tea,” she added, before slipping out of the booth.
Clare was startled at the contact of Hannah’s fingers, but the quick squeeze made her smile, something warm but not felt since she’d left Ohio and her family. A sort of belonging and understanding. It was startling how much she hadn’t realized it was gone until it returned again. “You’re welcome.” The words came out as almost a whisper, and she smiled more as Hannah stood and made her way out of the restaurant.