Day Four: Past/Future

Day Four: Past/Future

It’s tucked beneath dusty, moth-eaten layers of scarves and cardigans. Virtually intact, despite the poor material and clumsy stitchwork, after ten years of neglect.

Robin picks up the coat, and, in a fit of whimsy, puts it on.

It comes down to about her middle back, tight around the shoulders, the cheap clasp so worn and tired she can’t get it to close around her collar. Tufts of her short dark hair peek out under the hood. It’s a comical contrast to the rest of her outfit: a simple black dress without filigree or fanfare, the sort of thing you wear to fulfil an obligation and go home without a fuss.

The funeral had been a simple affair. Their grandmother was nominally religious, so they buried her in the small, tidy graveyard of Saint Charles’ and mumbled half-hearted prayers beneath the flat gray sky. Their mother (so thin and grey, face lined and eyes hollow—when had she changed?) gave a eulogy, and each one of the family mutely took a handful of grave dirt to toss into the open grave. Still makes her sick, those neat little pits, leading to the embrace of empty earth.

Not like flowers. People are put into the ground like something cursed. Buried forgetting-deep. Like something you never, ever want to see again.

Robin found herself staring into the hungry dark for a full minute before Ruby tapped her on the shoulder and led her back into the church for the wake.

There weren’t many people there. Strictly family, Grandmother had said. Robin looked at the pale, solemn faces of her siblings, and at the mildly uncomfortable faces of Ginger’ girlfriend and Carmen’s fiancé. Neither of them had ever met Grandmother, couldn’t understand the hole in their partners’ hearts. Still, they did what they could, offering small comforts and holding to their partners’ arms as if afraid they’d drift away like balloons.

Rose sat by a stained glass window depicting Salome and John the Baptist. She looked, as usual, far, far away. Her hair was even longer than it had been when they were kids; nearly down to her waist. She’s growing it out for some charity or another, Carmen had said.

Rose noticed Robin staring and smiled. She seemed so serene in this place of death. Being a hospice nurse would do that, Robin supposed. She nodded at Rose without a word.

Elsewhere, Ginger and Ruby were talking quietly over a plate of aggressively okay cold cuts. Ginger was still well and truly the shortest of the family, and even heavy-duty leather boots wouldn’t fix that.

Ginger shifted their weight from one foot to another, practically sparking with nervous energy. They’d told Robin once that they really only felt at ease on the park trails, cataloguing plants or saving hikers or whatever it was rangers did. Robin can believe it. Ginger was never made for cities and smog.

Ruby also looked out of place, face riddled with piercings, hair buzzed to nearly nothing. She and Robin haven't spoken in almost a year. Ruby just sort of vanished once she left high school, only popping into her siblings' lives for a handful of nights before heading back out for some alone time with her demons.

Robin isn't sure what Ruby does. Maybe Ruby isn't sure either. She looked healthy, at least. No signs of old habits.

"You okay there, space cadet?" Carmen asked. She looked weird without dye in her hair. Apparently her office wasn't a fan of hair dye, or piercings, or tattoos, or anything that might offend the faceless board of directors and their old fashioned values. Apparently not working unpaid overtime offended the higher-ups too, as did taking full lunches, talking too often, or existing too loudly.

It's good money, Carmen always said. Better than we ever had growing up. It's not the best job, but it'll help make sure my kids don't grow up like we did.

"All good," Robin said. "Well. Apart from the obvious."

"Yeah."

"She lived a long life."

"Could've been longer."

Robin wasn't sure what to say to that, so she said nothing at all, and waited by the pews as Carmen went back to talking to Scarlet by the door, where the latter had been watching the weather. Looked like it might rain. No good, trying to drive in that.

Ever sensible, Scarlet. Sensible classy loafers, sensible refined dress, sensible short hair. A sensible job; a music teacher, with occasional gigs on the side. A sensible compromise between reality and aspiration.

Robin looked around the room again. Her siblings went about the grim business of packing up a wake. No one was crying; no one was a stranger to tragedy.

At Grandmother's house, the siblings searched the rooms and halls (too many for such a small building) for belongings to put into storage. And here, Robin found the coat. One put away in a dark forgotten place ten years ago, hoping the dust of passing years would smother Robin's nightmares.

Ten years have passed. Robin still dreams of teeth.

She hugs the coat to her chest. In spite of all that coat has seen, she doesn't want to part with it now. Her grandmother's last and greatest gift. The last thing Robin has of her, now.

It'll look weird in her dorm room, she supposes. A hand-stitched children's coat amidst band tees and overpriced sweatshirts in the closet she shares with a perpetually exhausted chemistry major who never does her laundry.

Well. People put weirder things in dorms.

Robin sighs and hugs the coat to her chest, wondering if she can smell a hint of onions and wine, her grandmother's sharp but not unpleasant smell. Instead she just smells dust and fiber.

She stuffs the coat into her bag, and gets back to sorting the remnants of her grandmother's life.

Day Seven: Free Day!

Ginger admires the bloody topography of their skinned kneecap. A worthy war wound, and it doesn’t even hurt. Well, it does, but only a little.

They stand back up, dust themselves up, and let out a glorious howl to the sky. The wind tousles their hair as they push their feathers back into place and prepare to run again. They bounce on their heels, taking in a gulp of earthy forest air.

And they run.

Trees and flowers rush past. The dirt presses into their feet as they laugh and roar against the rushing wind. They imagine the cold weight of a stolen crown in their hand, the fading cries of the palace guards trying and failing to keep up with them. A peerless thief, fleeing the scene of the crime with a priceless—possibly enchanted, possibly cured, possibly both—artifact.

They feel the endless freedom of the forest.

And then they slam head-on into a yelping, sister-shaped roadblock.

“Ginger!” Carmen gasps, and Ginger, prone again, feels an odd sense of pride that they clearly knocked the wind out of her. “Ginger, you little freak, what’re you doing out here?”

“What are you doing out here?” Ginger counters as they stand up. “It’s not even your turn to go to Grandma’s.”

Carmen doesn’t answer, becoming very interested in scrubbing the dirt out of one of her heels.

Heels. Honestly. Carmen’s not made for anywhere wild. She staggers to her feet and stares daggers at Ginger.

“Honestly, can’t a bitch get ten minutes out in the woods by herself? How small is this place that I run into you, of all people?”

Carmen runs a hand through her hair, pulling out a twig and snapping it between her fingers.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Ginger says. “Why are you out here? Why aren’t you shoplifting at some dumb mall or something like that?”

“Okay, first of all, that was one time,” Carmen says. “And second, who made you king of the woods? Why do you get to say who comes out here and who doesn’t? Maybe I like the quiet. You don’t know. You’ve never been quiet in your life.”

“Warriors aren’t quiet,” Ginger snaps. “Warriors make their presence known.”

“Do warriors also blunder into their sisters while running like maniacs through the woods?” Carmen sneers.

“It’s called a tackle, dummy. You shoulda been watching your six.”

“My six?”

“You know,” Ginger replies. “Your, like, back or whatever. It’s a military thing.”

Carmen laughs. Ginger flinches instinctively, but the look on Carmen’s face is more fond than dismissive.

“You’re so weird,” Carmen says, shaking your head. “Besides, you hit my side, not my back. So I should’ve been watching my nine.”

Now it’s Ginger’s turn to laugh.

"What?" Carmen asks, half defensive, half amused. "It's like a clock, right? So my back is my six and my side is my nine."

"Whatever, dummy," Ginger says. "I'm gonna go find more pebbles." They pause. "You can come. If you want."

Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. Why'd they even say that?

But instead of laughing in their face and strutting off, Carmen just shrugs and says:

"Sure, why not? Got nothing better to do in this grubby place."

They go to an unfamiliar place, an odd little bend in the trees that leads to a long-dry creek bed. The stones are smooth, despite the long absence of the water that made them so. They shine dully in the late afternoon sun. Ginger fishes out the choicest river rocks while Carmen points out the ones that look like butts. Ginger finds one, a dark, almost purple rock in the rough shape of a heart, and finds themself shoving the rock into Carmen's hands.

"Aww, Ginger," Carmen says. "Ya big sap."

"Shut up," Ginger says, turning from Carmen to hide the smile on their face.

day 6: black, white, red

immediately wanted to draw rose at the graveyard after reading the prompt

The Path Week 2023 - Day 1: Grandmother or Girl In White

I decided to sketch GIW :) I will finish it as a full thing… one of these days…

tw burning alive

day 2: favourite death

this is very self-indulgent but i thought of the car crash interpretation but with ruby dying not immediately but in a fire caused by the crash

(self-indulgent because i love drawings fires)

I love how we apparently all saw this prompt and went “okay, ten year old Scarlet with infant Robin”