The House in the Woods

Chapter 17

Apollo went to go find Astera, so I wandered out to the lawn.

Everyone was still busy working, but I knew without anyone saying anything that they knew what had happened. Lei flashed me a concerned smile when I first walked out.

"Are you alright?" She asked quietly.

Everyone carried on, but I knew they were listening. I nodded and smiled as wide as I could.

"Yeah, everything's good." I paused. "Do you know where Jannosh is?"

"Right here." He said quietly, his voice rumbling from behind me. I turned to look at him; his right arm was still in a sling, but other than that, he was still the same. His light eyes met mine, and they were worried.

"Will you sit with me?" He asked, gesturing behind him.

There was an umbrella set up, exactly like the first time we spoke. I smiled weakly. "Jannosh, there's no sun today."

"Yes, but there will be rain." Jannosh took my hand with his good one and led me there. It was far from where everyone was working, which I think Jannosh knew I would want.

He didn't let go of my hand after we sat down. I stared down at our hands; my small soft hand was dwarfed in his huge rough one. I missed my father terribly in that moment.

"You are worried." It wasn't a question.

I nodded without looking up. Jannosh raised his free hand to lift my chin; when my eyes met his, they looked sorrowful. "Why?"

I felt like crying, looking at his lavender irises. "Everything's gone bad since I've gotten here, Jannosh. Everything bad that's happened is because of me!"

He was quiet for a moment. "Would you like to leave, Miss Lilah?"

I shook my head miserably. "But it would be the right thing to do."

"It doesn't matter if it's right." Jannosh rumbled. "If your heart is here, no one would like you to leave."

We were quiet again, looking out at the trees. They didn't feel the same anymore; they were portals in which Ted Roscoes and Abaddon Ambrosias materialized through. The trees were like sentinels in the sunlight; in the gloom they were tombstones.

"How did you and Myrnah end up here?" I asked suddenly. "How did you end up staying with Apollo?"

Jannosh didn't answer for a while, his eyes trained on the tree line and his mouth serious. I thought he wasn't going to answer, but then he began to speak.

"I was born in Russia in 1891," He started, "and Myrnah was born two years later. We didn't meet till a couple years after. Our families were similar; upon our births they hid us from the outside world, fearing for our safety. In both our cases, someone became suspicious and discovered us."

Jannosh was absent-mindedly tracing lines on my palm; I don't think he realized what he was doing.

"We were both taken to the university in Moscow, where we underwent numerous tests. No one had ever seen anything like us before; what generated our eye colour? Could it be reproduced in a mass scale? They weren't unlike researchers and doctors today - except this was more than a century ago, and the methods they used weren't conscious of human rights like they are today. Myrnah and I were brutalized, and even at the age of seven, I knew this was terribly wrong."

He paused as a clap of thunder sounded in the air. There were exclamations of dismay behind us; they would have to wait out the rain if it started pouring. I barely noticed - I was trying to imagine Jannosh and Myrnah as children, with wide, innocent eyes and soft skin and knobby knees.