Breaking Chains

Re-united

“Make it quick,” Mr. Thorne ordered. He opened Celia’s door. “I hate waiting.” Samantha didn’t thank him for opening the door or bringing here there because he shut the door behind her before there was an opportunity to do so; not that she would have anyways.

Samantha rolled in to find Celia on the floor. There were open tins and sweets boxes surrounding her on the floor. They held marbles, string, dried flowers, bits of colorful glass, and an assortment of other types of junk. Celia sat at the center of the circle of trinkets his her head bowed with deep concentration. Samantha tapped her on the shoulder.

“Celia?” she questioned.

“Like them?” Celia asked. She delicately transferred a dried flower into another box.

“They are...” Samantha looked at the various objects Celia had scavenged. It was nothing more than trash really and she probably got it from the same place. “Nice,” Samantha concluded.

“They’re my garden,” Celia explained.  She wrapped a length of blue string around her finger and placed the coil in the box with the dried flower. “My only friends before you.” She handled them with all the care of a loving mother and looked upon them as the most precious of valuables. Celia held up a yellow marble.

“From one of my sisters,” Celia told Samantha. She selected a buckle. “From my first straightjacket,” she reminisced. Samantha gave Celia’s shoulder a squeeze. She was losing Celia to her own world again and they didn’t have time for that.

“Celia, it is time to go.”

“Is it?” she asked offhand. She picked up half a playing card. “From Indigo.”

“You can’t take them all with us, I’m sorry,” Samantha apologized. Celia lifted a piece of clear glass.

“From your back,” she said. Samantha got quiet as she stared at the glass; her blood was still on it. Celia shouldn’t have something like that; it was emotionally and physically dangerous.

“Celia,” Samantha said, “you should give that to me.” Celia looked up at Samantha: dull, grey eyes mingled with confusion and sadness. She squinted her foggy eyes as if to try and see better though Samantha was a mere arm's length away.

“I hurt you.” She squeezed the glass in her palm.

“It’s okay.”

“I put you in that chair.” Blood started to drip from her fist but Celia didn’t give any sign of noticing it.

“Celia!” Samantha grabbed her hand and pried it open. The glass had broken skin and caused bleeding but it the cuts were marginal. “Don’t hurt yourself like that.” Samantha took the glass away from her and grabbed one of the ribbons to tie bind her cuts.

“Why?” she asked with dead eyes. “I hurt you.”

“What has Roger been doing to you?” Samantha asked. She looked paper white and flimsier than a house of cards.

“Just treatments. Ice baths, isolation room, no food, minimal water, just treatments,” Samantha said blandly. “But he won’t cure me.”

“Because there is nothing to cure.”

“No, because I’m getting smarter.” Celia smirked. “I see through him...” Her eyes went dreamy again. “Like glass.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” It hadn’t been her fault the window broke. She shouldn’t have been standing around it when the storm was that strong, but Samantha knew Celia wouldn’t have done if she had the ability to understand the consequences. For a while, Samantha would admit, she had been angry at Celia for doing something so stupid but her anger hadn’t lasted. The one good thing this place had taught her was how to let go.

“But it was,” Celia insisted. “You know it, don’t pretend, don’t lie, not you too.”

“I can’t blame you. Mr. Thorne and myself, yes, but not you.”

“I never wanted to hurt you,” Celia apologized

“I know you didn’t. You just didn’t understand.”

Yes, she didn’t understand. Celia never understood anything; she never could. She tried but it was just so hard to keep it up for extended period of time.

“I never understand,” Celia said. She grabbed at fists of her hair and caged her head with her arms. “I try so hard but I can never understand.” God, it frustrated her to no end. It came so easy to everyone else to achieve a level of clarity that she had to try so hard to reach. She was better than she had been in years, more focused, sharper, and yet still too foggy and dull.

“You’ll get better,” Samantha assured her.

“That man died, didn’t he?” Celia asked without warning. Samantha fell quiet again.

“Yes,” she answered finally. Celia went back to her collection.

“Are you going away?” was her next question. For once, Samantha was happy for Celia’s short, unpredictable attention span. And she couldn’t help but note the use of ‘you’ instead of ‘we’.

“Yes,” she said. “But you could come too.”

“What’s out there?” Celia asked. Samantha knew Celia had been isolated most of her life but she never really realized just how little Celia knew about the world outside White Haven. She hadn’t seen buildings, carriages, rivers, or even silverware since she was a little girl. What she did remember was probably minimal; Celia might as well have been a baby.

“Well...there are no walls and locked doors to confine you, and anytime you want to go out to the park or for a ride, you can. The sunlight feels warmer when it’s unfiltered through the glass. There are more colors too.” Here the only colors were greys, off-whites, and the colors of people eyes.

“What kind of colors?” Celia began to box her collection, the majority of which was packed away in two boxes.

“The bright yellows, blues, and greens of ladies dresses. The red and white checkers of a picnic blanket. The creamy white of milk. There are lots of colors.”

“Will you show me them?” Celia asked. She stood and placed a box on the bed.

“Of course, Celia.” Samantha extended a hand out for Celia and Celia came forward to take it. The locked hands and Celia leaned down so their foreheads kissed. “You’ll never have to get treatments, never have to be restrained or locked up, never be forced to eat food or withheld food.” Celia sat in Samantha’s lap and Samantha wrapped herself around the other girl. She felt warm.

“What about Roger?”

“He won’t come.”

“What about White Haven?”

“We won’t come back.”

“And my friends?”

“They’ll leave with you.”

“Where will we go?”

“We’re going with your brother, the blonde one. He will house us.”

“What about Roger?”

“He won’t come.”

“No, won’t he stop us.”

“I don’t know,” Samantha admitted. Mr. Thorne said he would stop get them out and they didn’t have much other choice than to believe him. “Do you trust Mr. Thorne--I mean--your brother.” Celia started to laugh.

“Don’t be silly,” she giggled, “never trust a Thorne.”

I hated writting this chapter. I just couldn't get it how I wanted and I kept on trying to re-write it (which is why this update took so long and is so short) but nothing really seemed right. Unfortunatly that's just how it is sometimes.

Also! The end is nigh! This story is coming to a close soon, just a heads up.