Isobel Brandt \\ Persephone (praxidike) wrote in paxletalelogs, @ 2017-06-07 13:46:00 |
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Entry tags: | persephone, uke mochi |
the past beats inside me like a second heart
Who: Alice & Isobel.
What: Isobel runs into another familiar face, but still can't place it.
Where: Pax Letale.
When: Immediately following this.
Isobel all but rushed into the elevator, hitting the button for the bottom floor before leaning back against one wall with a sigh. As she descended, her confusion ebbed a little. She wanted to find out if Obed's story was true, and if so... the other missing pieces, which could obviously have been answered then and there, but it was all too much at once. Apparently she was missing a whole chunk of her life, of her memory, and she had no idea how to get it back. Just hearing about it... That in itself was strange, having who she was and what she had done dictated to her by someone she didn't know.
Hopefully she could just make it back to her apartment without further interruption, but that seemed not to be. The elevator came to a slow stop and opened on the fourth floor.
Alice had her keys in hand, a shopping list sticking out of her small purse, and baked goods on her mind when the elevator doors swung open and woke her from daydreaming, but she quickly smiled at the sight of her friend. “Hey, Isobel! Are you coming to see me?”
She remained in the hall but took a step to the side to allow Isobel to step out of the elevator. Being the only person on her floor, the likelihood that Isobel was there to see her was pretty good.
Isobel's eyes widened, and she slowly shook her head. "Uh, no, I was...just headed back to my apartment." It was the honest truth. She recognized this woman; the redhead from the photo on her fridge, along with a man. Clearly they'd been friends, maybe, enough for Isobel to keep a photo of them nearby. She could not, for the life of her, remember the young woman's name.
"Where are you headed?" She asked, hoping to change the conversation.
“Oh, I was just going to buy more stuff for cupcakes. I figured I’d make a couple batches of Rafael’s favorite in case he comes over.” She gave a small shrug and her cheeks colored slightly as she stepped forward and joined Isobel in the elevator. “I know it’s not much, but I was hoping it would make him happy.”
Once again, Isobel was at a complete loss. Maybe Rafael was the third person in the picture? Or he could be someone else entirely. That, and why he should be unhappy, was beyond her. She reached for some sort of reply as the elevator doors closed once more.
"I mean...who doesn't like cupcakes?" Nice one, idiot, she winced, unsure if she was being at all passable. "I'm sure he'd appreciate it. Especially if you're making them at home and then taking them all the way to where he lives."
Alice wrinkled her nose and made a small laugh. “Oh yes, all the way down to the first floor.” But her expression sobered slightly and she glanced down. “Or I guess all the way to Gabe’s apartment instead. Do you think he’s… okay with staying with Gabe? I mean, I’m glad he has him but he does seem to get a sort of… spark when he talks about him. And with Gabe being in a relationship…” She looked at Isobel, obviously expecting her friend to have an opinion about the situation.
Panicking, Isobel shrugged. The first floor wasn't coming fast enough, and she had no idea what she could say that would not make it seem weird that she'd forgotten everything.
"I... I don't know," she finally admitted. Was Gabe the man in the photo? "They both live here? In Pax Letale?" She felt like an idiot, a three year old asking repeated questions as though she expected to receive different answers. Her face turned slightly inward, unsure of how the redheaded woman would react.
Alice blinked and looked at Isobel with new eyes. “Yeah, yeah they do,” she replied with a frown. “Isobel, are you feeling alright? I know things have been… well, stressful is practically too light of a word. Can I help you? It’s totally alright, you helped me those few weeks ago when the floors were all weird.” She tried to offer a small smile, a comforting one, but wasn’t sure if it would only scare Isobel off.
It was the confrontation on the Deluxe floor all over again. Isobel tried to mimic the woman's smile, but her eyes still showed her confusion. They passed by the second floor, the elevator doors dinging open to the lobby.
"Uh, it would help if you told me your name?"
“Alice,” the redhead replied with a smile. “I live on the fourth floor and I own a bakery.” She looked at the open doors of the elevator but didn’t budge, her eyes darting between the opening and her friend. “Would it be alright if I walked with you back to your apartment?”
"Uh, sure." With that, Isobel exited first out of the elevator, waiting momentarily for Alice to follow. Her hands started to come together over her stomach, wringing at one another, but Isobel forced them down. A bald headed man dressed in women's clothing glanced at them, smiled, and waved, his other hand wrapped around a magazine he'd been perusing. Isobel smiled and waved back, unsure of just who she had said hello to, and then looked back at Alice. The woman was familiar, not as familiar as Obed, but far less emotionally confusing. "So.... how do we know each other? Because we both live here?"
Alice glanced toward Stefan and back at Isobel. “I’ll answer those questions and any others you have, but first, let’s go inside.” Stefan had never been rude to Alice or even suspicious, but Alice felt in her gut that Isobel’s confusion wasn’t something to display in front of the man.
Lowering her voice as she waiting for Isobel to open her apartment door, she whispered, “We met at my bakery. You came in and brought me a tulip and we’ve basically been friends ever since. And yeah, because we both live here.” She smiled fully at that.
Isobel blinked, but moved quickly to comply with Alice's suggestion. She opened the door to her apartment, held it for her guest to follow, and then closed it behind them both. Then she was standing yet again in an unfamiliar apartment with a person she felt like she should know, but didn't. Isobel turned, looking back at Alice as a hand moved to point back over her shoulder. At least everyone wasn't treating her like a mental patient; she kept asking her questions openly, waiting for the inevitable ones to come back at her.
"What happened in the other apartment? 104?"
“Oh, that’s Rafe’s apartment,” Alice replied, just assuming that Isobel couldn’t remember anything and not wanting to scare the woman. She’d shoot Obed a message or something, or maybe Isobel was drunk or high--not that she struck her as the type of person to self medicate--but with all that was going on, Alice wouldn’t judge her if she was. Taking in a deep breath, Alice began to try and put the pieces together for Isobel. “Someone died in his apartment the other day. Someone Rafe knows, to my understanding. He wasn’t home for it though and he’s pretty upset, understandably, so he’s staying at Gabe’s place--he lives on the ninth floor or something. Rafael is one of our friends. He’s a really, really sweet guy.”
Isobel's eyes widened, the hand pointing over her shoulder flattening to her breast in shock.
"Oh my god," she murmured. Maybe she had hit her head or something, or... She shook her head, moving around Alice to sit on a chair in the dining area. Her eyes went to the table's surface, and then back to Alice. "You don't seem... as surprised as I would have thought. I... I woke up and I can't, I just can't remember anything. Where I am, what this building is, I don't even remember anything in this apartment." She motioned toward the fridge, her shoulders rising and falling. "Your picture is on there. So I knew you were someone important to me, but I couldn't remember what."
Alice looked at the fridge and smiled sadly. She wanted to cross the floor and hug Isobel tightly but felt that would likely not be the best idea. “I am surprised, don’t get me wrong,” she began, looking back at her friend and slipping her purse off her shoulder to place on the counter. “But… at the same time… things have been really stressful for all of us lately and… odd so I guess this isn’t that weird in the grand scheme of things.”
She moved closer to Isobel and grabbed the other chair to sit down. “But maybe you did bump your head. Should I take you to the ER, maybe? Or maybe not…” she thought of her own problems, the wheat in her hair and the seeds from her lungs, but a momentary loss of memory was certainly not as unusual as all that.
Isobel quickly shook her head, negating the suggestion of a hospital visit. It was silly, and it clearly needed to be done, but she didn't feel bad, necessarily. Just confused.
"Obed suggested the same thing, and I said... Was I really engaged to him? And I had a dog?" She asked, changing tack in the middle of her sentence. Her hands came up to rub at her temples, eyes closing tight. "This is.... I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone. I don't remember anything anyone is telling me, even though..." Her eyes moved around the space, before coming back to Alice; she settled her arms on the table in front of her, leaning forward slightly. Her brows knotted together. "It's right here. Can you... Can you just tell me what's been going on? You said things have been weird?"
Alice’s eyes widened and quickly, she looked away. She didn’t want to scare Isobel and she didn’t want Isobel to think she was crazy, but she had to tell her something. “Well… it’s really odd but…” she bit at her lip and looked at the ceiling for a moment. “It seems that everyone who lives here ends up having these odd dreams. Like… of deities, you know like greek deities or deities from other cultures. And sometimes it’s like we all have the same dream, too. Although you and I haven’t shared any…. I’ve shared a dream with Rafael though.”
Isobel's gaze remained where it lay, trying to catch Alice's once more. "Really? Just... I don't even see how that's possible." She leaned back in her chair.
"Is that all? Just strange dreams? That doesn't seem so terrible." She chewed on her lip, contemplating her next question, looking to the table before looking back to Alice. "What about... what have I done? In, I guess, the last week? Just... This is so ridiculous, but who am I, what do I do, that...all of that?"
Alice grew still and she studied Isobel for a moment. She could happily talk about her friend and who she was, but to bring up what else had happened? “You’re from Texas. Your last name is St. Germaine. You grow plants, which sounds a lot less than what you actually do… you have a gift with them. You owned a greenhouse called Spring Growth but it was…” Alice frowned, realizing all at once that talking just about Isobel was just as hard. “It was set on fire recently. You think it may have been by your ex--not Obed, but a guy you dated just after high school. You and Obed were engaged but you broke things off recently, although I’m not sure about the details. You didn’t offer and I didn’t pry.”
She smiled a little, her look otherwise sheepish. “You and Obed lived at his place. You both shared ownership with your puppy Hanni. Your ex, the one who may have set fire to your job, he’s… crazy.” Alice’s eyes widened a little and she frowned. “You have to be careful of him. He came to my job, he bothered Rafael, he’s dangerous.”
And here were all the dirty details Isobel had been hoping for; even as she received them, her eyes widened and part of her wished she hadn't asked. But she would have found out sooner or later, so perhaps it was better to know now.
"Well," she finally said after a long pause, blinking as her brain struggled to absorb the information. It was a lot to deal with. "Has he -- the ex -- has he been around lately? If he... if he did what you said he did, did the police apprehend him?"
“I don’t know,” Alice said in a small voice. “It’s like the moment you least expect it, he pops up.” Alice wrapped her arms around herself as if a chill passed through the room. “I wonder if he did this to you… made you forget your memories. You woke up this way? There wasn’t any indication of forced entry or anything here?” Alice got to her feet and looked toward the windows.
Isobel shook her head, watching Alice move. "How would he do that? There wasn't anyone in the apartment, except for me and for the dog, Hanni." Part of her regretted taking the dog back to Obed; now she was alone, completely, on a first floor apartment. She could already hear her mother sigh with exasperation before launching into a diatribe about how it was unsafe. "I can... I remember Texas, and moving here. Bryan? You mean Bryan did all of that?"
The realization stunned her. The last time she could remember Bryan was living with him in a small apartment and being confused about how their relationship was evolving. She'd been signing up for classes at a local community college...
"But he was so nice..." At least, that's what she kept telling herself. The high school debacle rang loud and clear between her ears, and her face flushed with embarrassment as if it had happened yesterday.
Alice turned to her friend, interest on her face as she gave a nod. “Yeah, I mean… I think that’s what everyone is assuming at least. He’s been pretty awful. Kind of threatening, not just to you but to us as well. And just… he’s creepy. He gives you a sort of… unhinged vibe.” She quivered and frowned. “But if it wasn’t him it could be just all the weird stuff that’s been happening here, like the dreams and…”
Alice fell quiet, her cheeks colored as she looked at Isobel. She was frightened to tell her friend about the oddities of the apartment, frightened she’d not believe her and would tell her to leave and Alice didn’t want to cause her friend more distress.
Isobel caught Alice's gaze, and saw nothing of subterfuge in it. Instead, she wholly believed what she was saying, just as much as Obed had. Finally, she nodded.
"Thank you, for telling me this. I suppose I ought to apologize to Obed as well -- I told him I wasn't sure if I believed him," she said, a smile twinging over her lips before disappearing completely. "I'm still not entirely sure what I believe or don't believe. But I don't see why... why you or anyone else would lie." She fell to chewing on her lip again, her hands palm down on the table in front of her. She'd have to figure out next steps in what was needed to start piecing her life back together.
Alice forced a smile and reached for one of Isobel’s hands. “It’s fine. I’m more concerned about you than anything. Are you going to be okay here? You can come stay with me if you need to. I invited Rafael to stay too, so it could be another sleep over.”
The fact that such things had happened before was reassuring; Isobel squeezed Alice's hand. "Sure, I'd like that. Maybe it'll help me remember more.
"Did I interrupt whatever you were doing? I'm sorry, I... I mean, I didn't exactly plan to lose my memory," she shook her head, pulling her hand back from Alice's.
“It’s fine. I was just going to get stuff to make Rafe some cupcakes. If you’d like, you could come with me? You can help me make the cupcakes too, maybe that’ll help jog your memory. The three of us have had dinner parties before so that may help.” Alice smiled and pulled her purse strap onto her shoulder. “I can tell you more odds and ends about here and see if that jogs your memory.”
Isobel paused, thinking, though her head began to slowly bob. "Yeah, I'll go with you; maybe something around the area might help." She put her hands on the table top, pushing herself to her feet. At that point, she needed something to help. "Let me grab... my purse? Wherever that might be..." Her gaze swung around the apartment, trying to locate the simplest of items. She chewed her lip, wondering if everything was going to be as difficult.
“Here, I can help you find it,” Alice replied with another flash of a smile as she stepped forward and gently touched Isobel’s shoulder and lead her further into the apartment.