Dorcas "troubled torturer" Meadowes (electriclight) wrote in blurred_lines, @ 2008-11-23 18:15:00 |
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Dorcas stood in the doorway of the pub in Woking where she had agreed to meet her mother at. The Duke of Devonshire. How… completely irrelevant to everything, she thought, looking up at the sign, which had a portly man in regency dress on it. She herself was dressed in a worn-out pair of bell-bottom jeans and a new wool sweater, green and form-fitting. Her hair was down and neatly combed. She checked her appearance in the window of the pub once more and decided she looked as good as she was ever going to. She had a photograph she’d been sent in the mail tucked in her pocket but she still wasn’t sure that she would recognize her. Not recognize her own mother. It was a strange thought to most people, and it made Dorcas a little uncomfortable. But she pushed it away. She would know her. She could remember the photo, a recent one. She could remember her face. It was cold outside, so she stepped inside of the pub, letting all of her fears and uncertainties wash over her. What if her mother didn’t like her? What if she didn’t like her mother? After all, besides her grandparents (whom she knew she didn’t like), this was all the family she had left. Her mother, a woman she hadn’t seen since she was two months old, was all she had. Just the thought scared Dorcas. These thoughts didn’t last for long. She wasn’t five steps in the door when a woman who had obviously just rushed across the room threw her arms around her. Dorcas, unsure of what to do, awkwardly put her arms around the slender woman, getting a mouthful of her button-down shirt, a whiff of her Chanel No 5 perfume and a bone-crushing hug. “Oh, my baby.” Nervously, Dorcas patted her on the back, still not knowing what to do or say. She pulled away slowly, still not having said anything. The woman – her mother – said, cautiously, “Dorcas?” She was taller than Dorcas was, though not by a lot. Still slender, though Dorcas knew she had given birth to four children. She was wearing a white button-down and a tweed pencil skirt. She looked everything that Dorcas was not. Well-put-together. Professional. Grown up. Standing in front of her with her hair now-askew, her bell-bottoms, and her youth, Dorcas felt… she wasn’t sure the name of the emotion, but she was sure it was something close to a mix of apprehension and fear and inferiority. Finally, she said, “Yeah, that’s me.” “I’m your mum,” she said. Dorcas nodded. What was she supposed to be feeling right now? Sadness? Elation? Hatred? Dorcas felt none of these things as she walked over to the booth Ethel Abrams-Reynolds had been sitting in. She slid into her seat. The thought crossed her mind that she’d just cut off all of the veins going to her heart – her emotional heart – and now it was so dead that she couldn’t feel anything. Not even with regards to her own mother. The mother who had left her when she was a baby, who had always made her wonder if she just wasn’t worth it. The words ‘abandonment issues’ floated through her head, but she shooed them away. Clearly, Ethel was nervous, because as they sat down, she kept rambling. “Dorcas, darling, I’m so sorry about everything that happened. About running away, and not being there, and I wanted so much to say, but I was seventeen and I was scared. And I know that leaving you with your father probably wasn’t the best of ideas, but I didn’t know what else to do, and then, by the time I was ready for you, you didn’t want me, and I tried but you turned me away, and I’m just so glad that – ” Dorcas, finally tuning in to what was being said instead of her own thoughts, cut her off with a wave of her hand. “That’s okay, Ethel – Mum. I already know all of that. I just want a clean slate.” Her mother was crying. It had never occurred to Dorcas, not really, that her mother had regretted leaving her so many years ago. She felt hard-hearted because she didn’t feel a wash of sympathy, exactly. Just realization. She had always thought that it was just her and her father. That no one else cared. That now that Dad was dead, she was alone in a large, frightening world. A world filled with people who wanted her dead. Ethel dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. “I heard that your father died earlier this year. I’m so sorry.” Shifting uncomfortably, Dorcas replied, “Yeah, he did.” Still numbness and uncertainty. After having wiped the tears away from her eyes, her mother was looking at her, and Dorcas couldn’t help but wonder what she saw. Their faces were more similar than she ever would have imagined. The same lips, same eyes. Dorcas shut hers, trying to dig deep inside of herself and feel something strong enough that this situation deserved. Instead, she heard her mother saying, “When did you get those scars?” She had almost forgotten. For half a moment. They weren’t as bad as she had worried they might be. Hestia, Beth, and the DMLE had treated them quickly enough to save her looking completely deformed, but upon close inspection, they were there. Silvery gashes over her cheeks and forehead, one across the bridge of her nose. As she thought of them, she remembered that night, which seemed so long ago and yet was not even two weeks in her memory. The dirty smell of Tabitha Pryce’s body against hers, the slicing of her claw-like nails into the delicate skin of her face, Agnes’s body lying lifeless on the ground, her face contorted and her throat… She had been trying to hold all of her emotions back, but she still found tears burning in her eyes. She tried to hold them back, but one slid down her cheek, and of course, her mother noticed. “Dorcas? Are you alright? Is this to do with what you told me over the phone?” When they had talked, she had explained magic to her mother, who’d taken it better than she might’ve expected. Apparently, her dad had tried to explain, too, but considering the circumstances, she’d mostly thought she was high. It still felt odd to talk about these things to a Muggle. “Things aren’t good in our world,” she explained, using the heel of her hand to swipe away her tears. “There’s a war. Over stupid shite.” She’d forgotten that she wasn’t allowed to cuss in front of her parents – it wasn’t as though her dad had ever cared. “And one of my friends got killed by a werewolf and she tried to get me, too… And that’s why…” She looked up, and the face so similar to hers was paralysed with shock. Obviously, this didn’t sound the same to her mother as it did to her. Words like ‘war’ and ‘werewolf’ rolled off her tongue so easily, and understandably it would be hard to believe. “That’s why I should go,” she added. “I shouldn’t have come here in the first place.” The realization was dawning of her – it was selfish to bring anyone new into her life, especially anyone as defenseless as a Muggle against Death Eaters and werewolves and vampires. It was selfish of her to want love, because she only put people she loved in danger, and if they dared to love her back, it would only be a matter of time before they lost her, anyway. She was selfish, selfish, selfish. She grabbed her bag. She hadn’t even ordered a drink. “Maybe I’ll ring you from the telephone booth again. When the time’s – I should just go.” She rose and began running out the door. She knew that her mother was following her, but she ducked alongside the building, yanked her wand out of her pocket, and Disapparated, back to the Diggle home and let herself in. There was no way that her mum would be able to find her now. She had disappeared into thin air. She didn’t bother wait until she got to the bedroom assigned as hers before she collapsed onto the floor and began crying. |