Previously on Wings of Light:
--- *** ---
"Maddie, what on earth is going on? Shh, shh, you'll be good! Maddie, you can tell me anything! I'm your older brother and I'm the sole man that can hear your pain and roar."
"It's not about me, Roman, but it's about my friend and I told her boyfriend about her secret journal, where she wrote a couple of suicidal, ridiculous paragraphs which have nothing to do with what kind of a person she's except sometimes she's sometimes angry with Edward for when he doesn't have his regular breastmilk."
--- *** ---
"Edward only cries and fusses whenever he doesn't receive his regular breastmilk per a few hours at least or he needs some attention and affection. He's a specific baby. He doesn't trust easily strangers and he's quite bashful around them, you know! Except for Maddie when Jude and your sister met for first time."
"It's show time. How sweet! How about to go back to eighth page?"
--- *** ---
"Instead of paying a visit to psychologist nearby in Vermont, you consulted with my younger sister Anna. She's definitely the big-shot in psychology and spent a handful of hours on the phone to help you and considering the time you've spent on the phone, listening to your pain and worries even the nightmares you used to have, she truly cherished every precious second of listening to your desperate voice until she advised you what you shall do to overcome your fears and nightmares."
"I was thinking sometimes I was actually a pain in the neck for yar sister!"
--- *** ---
"Bleach and beer! The bleach reacts with alcohol or acetone to form chloroform. This chemical is potentially dangerous and it can knock you out even cause a fatal death or at least, an organ damage."
"Damn! His organs waved the white flag early and I'm still blaming myself I didn't wake up earlier to ensure him a transport to the nearby hospital,"
--- *** ---
"I-I'm trying to protect you and I'm far crying from gossiping and prying, Judy! Doesn't it hurt you how much I gave from myself and so as Tim did to prevent these childish dilemmas? The suicidal thoughts which every adolescent struggles with. Choosing Cayden as an ex-crush of yours over the family and the friends you've and sacrificed every ounce of themselves you to be as safe as houses. You think I'm some kind of a traitor and prying in your personal stuff in a New York minute? No, I'm the one who helps."
"Good day, ladies!"
--- *** ---
"Come on, Jude! I know what you're exactly coveting."
"Are ya truly sure ya want this?"
--- *** ---
"Love you too, my cupcake! Harry!"
"Holy!"
--- *** ---
A small village, somewhere located in Springfield, Vermont with a small quantity of population, scaling the measured sum of numbers from newborns to seniors inhabiting the outskirts of Springfield. The mid-winter was whistling and chanting its own ballad over the small city of Vermont with the lavish snowfall. The fresh, mintily sweet winter air wafting across the surroundings' nostrils even inhaled quietly and treasured pearly after staying inside the four-wall rooms of their properties where the air was stiff as if the window hasn't been opened for days to come fresh air.
Ultramarine sedan was pulled off in the depths of the village, whilst car's rigid wheels persistently waded through the freshly cleaned path. Horde of children in visible age in elementary school were playing on the snow, whilst their parents were seating on the oakwood bench, supervising their rays of sunshines. Silver-ashy daylight light filtered their exposed fleshes and weathering them with tempest of invisible chilliness, blown by the frost wind, dancing its own dance in the small village rhythmically. The monotonously frequent buzzing of the car engine tingled symphony of pressure for the adults, seating on the oakwood bench after transfixing skeptically their orbs on the ultramarine sedan.
All of a sudden, the vehicle halted in stop in the middle of the path, subsequently Martha and Sebastian hopping out as Sebastian carried in his rucksack products for delivery such as cosmetics, poisoned alcohol and chemicals, outspread inside liquor. The extra weight, burdening with pressure and fatigue was rather an exercise for the infamous serial killer's older brother, accompanied by his nephew. The young woman was donned in charcoal black attires of stealthness with mask, masking her porcelain, youthful complexion and the solely perforated areas of her rigidly ebony mask were her cherub, appealingly roseate lips and her big smoky quartz jewels, glimmering thousand patterns of chaotic rancor and stormy vengeance.
In the meanwhile, the middle-aged man managed his glove-clad mammoth, stiff and veiny hand to slither down to his nephew's shoulder, clawing with his gloved fingers, posing heroically past the vehicle and glimpsing at each direction, whereas the elementary scholers averted their eyes from their recently crafted snowman to peer behind them and meeting the both adults' eerily disquieting gawks, blankly and glassily surveying the mannerism of their facilely readable body language and facial expressions, choking on their babbles.
"Who are those?" One of the boys pointed with his gloved, pudgy hand at the approaching minions of the infamous Vermont serial killer with their big-headed, steadily slow gaits, measuring the strides from the sedan up to the horde of children.
"I-I don't have any clue, Benjamin!" The first young girl's attention was shifted to Martha and Sebastian, her ivory, starkly childish teeth gnawing on the raw spot of her chapped lower thin lip, flickering up at their much taller figures. Blush tinged the speechless infants' chubby, well-carved cheeks and flush infecting their necks. "Who are you?"
"Hey, both of you," At the moment, the both parents of Benjamin attempted to draw the strangers' attention, emphasis puncturing their wariness though the middle-aged removed his rucksacks from his back, in order to unzip one of the pockets to rummage it for abundance of poisoned chocolate bars for the infants. "Over there!" Only the brunette turned to the older adults with grimace, twisted across her young-looking, parchment complexion and hissing balefully quiet, antagonizingly, whereas her glove-clad petite, weathered hands were curled in unattractively balled fists. "What on earth do you want from our children? Get out of here." The hostile sternity, puncturing the other man's utterance amalgamated with the young lady's feline, vindictive hiss, droning her cherub rosy-coloured lips and the unzipping sound interweaved with the background noise as the middle-aged was hunkering against his backpack and managing to insert his hand in one of the unzipped pockets, fumbling enveloped exquisitely galore of high-quality, molting chocolate bars, absently grazing the gloved pads of his fingers with thin fabric and consequently yanking them altogether from his backpack, zipping the pocket defaultly.
"Stay away from our children!" Great deal of amalgamation of desperation and ire spotlighted the older woman's scorn, whereas her husband managed to wedge his lips in a pensive, doubtful purse. "Cat got your tongue?" The attempts of the both overprotective parents to protect the group of five children were nothing a brilliantly bare fiasco, intensifying the atmosphere even when Martha and Sebastian scarcely peeled a single word to vouch their admonitions, factly, their fearlessness stifled their tongues to conjugate the lurching remnants of syllables and vowels on their tongues and constructing their own retaliation even with a few words. "What are you waiting for? Go!" As soon as the middle-aged gentleman lugged up the rucksack on his shoulders after pushing his bulky muscular, strong arms with the tightened straps, supporting his shoulders, the brunette strolled up to the older adults vindictively. Stilling her balled fists lightly bounced with the half-hearted, ominuously strong stomps, mapping the snow with tracks of her footsteps barely tilted and ducked their heads, glaring at the young lady.
"You think you can give us the frights of our lives?" Baring his teeth, he opted to manage to grip the young woman's wrist, although her surreally youthful nimbleness, indicating her swiftness in evading unfriendly and foreign physical contact. The heart rates heinously increased with the drums, throbbing vehemently in their chests and the pulsations into their ears. "Think about-" All of a sudden, the brunette's slim, long as flute stings fingers managed to reach for Benjamin's mother throat, headstrongly wrapping her fingers around the delicate, alabaster skin of her neck and clasping with entire strength, adrenaline pumping into Martha's veins and coldhearted dominance flaming her smoky quartz embers. The unorthodox grasp of fingers, curled around Benjamin's mother neck lingered onto the alabaster skin, whilst Travor grabbed Martha's wrist forcefully though it mortified him the peculiar strength and agile in the brunette.
"Get your foul hands off my wife!"
"It's so tasty!" The second girl of the beehive of infants' rejoice didn't fell from her round, sculptured with baby fat complexion after munching the first scrumptious, molting bite from her chocolate bar, whereas her siblings were savoring from the insatiable brown sweet, fluttering shut their eyes in tiny slits. "Yum!" In the interval, the Italian compatriot's cocoa brown irises were fixated on the beehive of children as if they were in seventh heaven. What it was oblivious for the youngsters was that their favorite brown sweet was venomed viciously. Cocksurely smug, crooked smirk blurred the iron-boundly textures of misery and angst, brightening the saturating hues of merriness, adorning his light-heavy wrinkles uncommonly.
"Is that all what you can do, milksop?" Vilely infernal snigger clicked the roof of the brunette's mouth, her lips parting in the scoff during the failed attempts of Travor to stop her from choking Willhemina, hardly maintaining an adequate eye contact with Travor as a shadow was casted as a curtain across the young lady's masked face, gritting her teeth. "To the daughter of the outstanding celebrity of Vermont?" The snigger looped in an unvarying soundtrack of agony, tingling a requiem in the both adults' ears until the children' final moments before losing conciscousness and thumping backward on the snow like bluntly, ruthlessly tossed sack of potatoes, afterwards designating the position of their marked territory with mouths opened in a wide O and stung widened embers, blankly fixated on the hoary winter sky. "Try again, milksop!" The huskiness, sardonism of the young woman's snigger didn't fade away until Travor smacked a blunt slap across the stranger's masked attributes, dazzling her as the gloved fingertips of her dainty fingers brushed faintly, delicately the slapped area, seared in cherry blush cheek and unwrapping her fingers from Willhemina's throat haphazardly, subsequently trying to catch her breath with fantastically monstrous efforts, reclining on the bench, whereas Travor drew her in a tight, comforting doting embrace as his muscly, potent arms secured her middle, his chin perching on the top of her head consolingly and stilling his glare at the young woman.
"I don't know you, but it's better for you to go before I call," Travos's ferocious hiss, buzzing his pale, thin lips, whilst hearteningly cradling his wife's head as her parchment, yet young-looking complexion was buried in the crook of his arm, evading maintaining an adequate eye contact with the brunette. The brunette's mouth was gaped in a complacent, huge grin, decorating her masked face, whereas her fingertips managed to gently, dearly massage the bruised area. "The police for letting this culprit poisoning the kids with those chocolate bars!" All of a sudden, Sebastian's hoity-toity gait stipulated in the impending destination. His nephew and the parents of the envenomed youngsters. Mammoth, unamusingly balmy hand managed to reach for Martha's alabaster shoulder blade, thereafter clawing with his fingers and tilting his head to press a feather, sweet peck on the top of her head. Martha pursued for her uncle's gaze, thus offering him a vainly smug, brilliantly outlawed smirk, curling upon her rosy-coloured, oddly chapped lips, mewling a hum. "You the both creeps! You better stay away from us! That's the last warning!" The impassibility, smugly sedating their bones and muscles didn't break their triumphiantly rejoiced facial expressions at all.
--- *** ---
A half an hour after the vehicle's explosion in the middle of the road, the former holy woman entered back at home to check on the two-month kitten and her son, in case, if they're peckish.
Once the the former holy woman was in the living room with Stephen, seating on her alabaster lap cozily, his tiny, slender body was assaulted by the delicate elvish, creamy hands of Jude, petting his head downward to his tiny, short-haired fuzzy tail and kneading with fingertips his spine, whereas her seating posture adjusting in reclining on the leather sofa and managing to transfix her honey brown jewels on the television screen which was currently broadcasting the afternoon news.
"Just minutes ago a car explosion situates in the middle of the road in central Vermont's countryside, in fact, the bomb was planted in the luggage carrier of the car just minutes before the explosion!" In the meanwhile, the mellowness of Stephen's satisfied and cheerful purs slipped from his strawberry-coloured, wee tongue, clutching shut his eyelids in tiny, curved slits and molting in the pure, humongous affection he earns from his foster owner. The recent journalist whose monologue was punctured with vast emotion and professionalism tingled a requiem to the middle-aged woman, glimpsing to the charcoal black kitten and mimicking nuzzling with her dainty button nose's tip against his fuzzy, fluffy head. The amalgamation of heartache, sunk in the misty ocean of oblivion and melting in warmness and sheer affection and innocence swaddled lukewarmly her flimsy heart, cramming vehemently frequent in her ribcage. "The victims of the car explosion are two as they're both females. A woman in the beginning of her fifties and one of her grandchildren, presumably an elementary school student! Shortly after the woman loses and grieves over her son's death." The two-story mansion submerged in a luster hush with exception the humming television in the living room, resuscitating the domestic atmosphere with modicum of life. Meantime, the blonde flickered up her smoky quartz jewels at the television screen with the both journalists, announcing the breaking news. Her roseate, plumpish lips managed to zip in a thoughtful, resilient purse and still manipulating her slimily long as piano keys, pale fingers cradling and stroking the smooth softness of Stephen's frail skeleton. "The incident happens just after the middle-aged woman finishes her shift as a booking agent in the hotel and a day after visiting her son in the morgue. Last but not least, the perpetrator is still unknown!"
Suddenly the Bostonian's solely free hand reached for the remote control alongside her pelvis, in order to turn off the television after acknowledging the breaking news about the car explosion after the bomb played its own cards right with delaying the preys' exceeding reaction to save their own lives or at least attempting to alter anything for themselves just before the fatal epilogue.
"I'll be right back, sweetheart!" When she lifted up her rear from the leather sofa, consequently the Bostonian lugged the charcoal black cat to sit and relax on the convenient furniture, stroking from his head downward to his tail gingerly, softly and lingering her smoky quartz irises on the pet with a vaguely woeful, benevolent smile, glimmering across her porcelain, alabaster complexion and texturing softness of mild sorrow, factly, she witnessed the vehicle's explosion of Louise and her granddaughter. "Stay here and relax!" Afterward the former sister of the church ambled up to the kitchen after walking away from the living room and giving galore of attention and affection to the pet and the hygiene was exceedingly important even when after interacting to Stephen and granting him everything he must be provided. The woeful smile still lingered, spread across the former nun's cherub, naturally mauve lips. Meanwhile, her hazelish-brown, dispersed with silvery daylight light bathing the kitchen in natural light with the widely opened curtains, mirrored profoundly deliquesced pools of hazelish chocolate, mirroring the realistic manipulated reflection of her vision with the turned faucet and the fat jet water, streaming the kitchen sink's ground and soaking her marbled, petite hands after kneading between her fingers.
The frost climate, dashing overspread like plague in the entire household peebled the braless armored bosom's soft fat nipples, pricking underneath her convenient, plain bloody red sweater and indicating the sensitivity of her body to the mid-winter climate, cusping with the anomality of the body temperature. A fistful of rebellious gloosy gilt tresses bounced piled up on her dainty shoulders whilst lathering up to her frail wrists marbled soaped foam, gloving her knuckles, fingers and overall hands. The featureless, crystal lukewarm running jet water, splashing its own cataract slapped the marbled soaped foam from the former holy woman's elvish, creamy hands, easening the comfort and smugness. Afterwards the jet water vanished after the turned faucet and lowering her hands to the towel, ushering the fabric to drench with the daubed hands, the Bostonian walked away from the kitchen as she draped lazily one of her pantaletots from the coat hanger, swaddling her shoulders in the extra weight cloth to shield her against the mid-February frosty climate.
Once the middle-aged woman swung shut the front door after dashing from the corridor up to outside, her fragilely slimily long fingers managed to squeeze the lapels, striding up to the Victorian style, exquisitely lacquered iron gates and nudging an elbow to push one of the wings indolently. Her hazelish-brown embers were fixed perpendicularly and after her petite-frame strided away from one of the gates' wings, Jude shifted her attention to the burnt car. Timidly opening her mouth in a soft O, the remnants of the car explosion still haunted her to bones with scrutinizing from several yards distance each meaningful detail in the corner of her eye. The corpses were already collected from the once burnt vehicle. Solely what the middle-aged lady could notice from distance even when her footsteps were leading to the ashy, godforsaken car an ashy stuffed animal, glassily transfixing his gaze on the walking petite-frame.
The cold and the snowfall weren't problematically slowing down the blonde. Adrenalline pumped into her veins and the capillars were scorching with overflowing glacial lava, feuding her body temperature even when a winter coat was securing her frail skeleton. Snorting the crispily fresh winter fragrance, wafting across her nostrils with delicateness, throughout she maintained a sufficient proximity with the forsaken vehicle and examining warily the details even peering inside the back seat's broken window until suckling on her lower lip between her pearly ivory, still firm teeth the raw spot of her lip, contemplating the stuffed animal.
--- *** ---
Once the former priest shopped for a wedding costume and it was packed in a shopping bag, thereafter he put it in the luggage carrier and pulled off the cab up to the flowerstore, in order to behold Madeleine for awhile and afterwards get back at home.
"You've given me a true love and ev'ry day I thank you love, for a feeling that's so new, so inviting, so exciting. Whenever you are near, I Hear A Symphony! A tender melody pulling me closer, closer to your arms! Then suddenly, oo, your lips are touching mine. A feeling so divine 'til I leave the past behind." I Hear a Symphony by Supremes was lowly droning on the piano, whereas the Michiganian's spider frail, alabaster fingers were hooked around the book's covers about flowers, plants and gardening, scarcely averting her stare even from the yellow sheets of papers. In the meanwhile, the door swung opened and Madeleine dumped shut the book on the bureau after readjusting her seating posture with crossing her other leg, darting her honey brown pools to the former priest and vaguely beatific, shining smile perched on her rosy-coloured, plump lips momentarily.
"Tim, it's good to see you!" The Michiganian's hand reached for the mug of orange spiced tea, pooling the brittle's material up to the rim, nabbing lazily the handle and lifting up the mug to gulp a tiny sip from the hot liquid. In the meanwhile, the older man approached Madeleine's bureau, his colossal, veiny hands were inserted in his slacks' pockets, thieving an amicable, benevolent smile in return whilst maintain an appropriate eye contact with the young woman. "I've been expecting you so far."
"Hi Maddie! Just a small journey in town for looking for a wedding costume." The young woman ushered with her solely free hand the free seat on the other chair alongside her, subsequently the British compatriot didn't neglect her offer meekly, agreeably.
"That's fantastic! Did you find something that caught your eye?" Elated lisp punctured Madeleine's elation to pay utter attention to the British compatriot's recent news which he's spilling the tea, sipping from the cup of orange-spiced tea, jumpcutting to an appropriate pause. Meantime, her childlikely ecstatic smile brightened, her caramel brown irises were alight by the daylight silver light, filtering the flower store's interior.
"I did, but it's inside the car."
Suddenly lukewarm silence immersed the flower store's interior and the both adults barely daring to interrupt it while the Michiganian was sipping from her cup of orange-spiced tea, her fingers lingering on the porcelain handle. The British aristocrat's cocoa brown orbs flickered up at each corner of the interior, surveying in a scrutiny the minor, almost sightless details glimmering past his gaze.
"I see. Can I see it just for awhile at least?" At the moment, the older man managed to bob his head in a solemn agreement, throughout heaving their frail skeletons from their seats and softly clearing his throat with an inward, dry cough, abrading his voice from rustiness and hoarseness. "Just before your wedding!" Her fingers unwrapped disappointingly around the mug's handle, whereas her roseate, tea-stained cherub lips parted in the scoff, returning the former priest's amiable stare.
"No wonder why I'm not at home right now!" The Michiganian emitted a sharp exhale, coursing fresh oxygen at the top of her brittle, marbled lungs and inhaling nonchalantly, instinctively the pristinely inveigle's flowers and plants fragrances, wafting across their sensitive, flexible nostrils.
"I'm lost in a world made for you and me. Oo love me. Whenever you are near I Hear A Symphony play sweet and tenderly! Ev'ry time your lips meet mine my baby. Baby, baby, I feel a joy within,don't let this feeling end,"
Once Madeleine and Timothy walked away from the flower store and seeting a foot outdoors, consequently the former priest strolled up to the parked cab's luggage carrier and plugging the key, his pristinely strong, meaty fingers manipulating and working on the silver key with a single click and a few turns unlocking the boot in a jiffy, while the juvenile blonde was accompanying him and maintaining a handful of inches proximity, landing her hazelish-brown pools on the widely opened boot and the former man of the cloth reaching for the packaged wedding costume which was merely neat and suave.
What the former holy man purchased from the wedding shop was neatly groomed and immaculate suit with cleanly oyster-white shirt, beneath the charcoal black blazer. In addition to the suit was scarlet tie, matching superbly with every fragment of the wedlock outfit.
"What are your thoughts on it, Maddie?"In the interim, the British aristocrat pursued for Madeleine's stung widened smoky quartz jewels in awe, admiring the recently purchased wedlock outfit and muffling a reverent gasp, warmly chanting the vowels and syllables. The older man's complacent, candid grin begrimed the rigidly rough textures, cradling the delicate skin of his berry-coloured lips. "Do you like it?"
"It's just pretty flawless." A heavy sigh flushed her nostrils, tuckling with her brittle, spider palish fingers a fistful of attractively glossy, silken strands behind her petite ear, eyeing the outfit whilst nibbling between her ivory, youthfully firm teeth the raw spot of her lower plumpish lip. "With each second I stare at this amazing wedding suit, it grows on me more and more!" What the young lady's vortex of thoughts depicted was the wedlock's costume cladding Timothy's muscles, contouring his masculinity and his anatomy's agitation, affecting his humor to spend the rest of his days with the first ever woman he's ever fallen in love and the last one to share altogether their own inheritance and paraphernalia not only with themselves, but also with their ray of sunshine. "I'm sure you'd bring Jude a heart attack and kicking the bucket once she sees you dressed in this or at least finding your little secret." Merriness accented the juvenile blonde's snicker, scratching her throat after manipulating her hand to reach for the former priest's broad, muscly shoulder and swatting it amicably, featherly.
"I'll try my best to keep in secret this costume until the wedding day, you know!" Even when the Michiganian seized her lips in a pensive, attentive purse, the beaming smile didn't fade away from her parchment, young-looking complexion. "And make sure to not tell her about the costume. I don't want to throw her for a loop, Maddie!" In the interval, the younger lady casted a mischievous, promising wink, managing to nod her head in a solemn agreement, keeping in secret about the wedlock outfit as her cherub, naturally mauve lips popped up.
"No sweat, sir!"
"You're quite jubilant, Maddie!" Even when the former holy man contemplated the high spirits, oozing of the Michiganian and questioning them, all he could think about the emanation of her high spirits were the impending wedding which he hasn't even planned with his rare bird when it's going to be situated. The peculiarity, interweaving with pure merriness, purring through his English lilt, whereas the Michiganian managed a modest, nevertheless, affirmative nod and opting to obscure the shadows, casted on her parchment, youthful complexion to glimmer rigid patterns of darkness due to the slap she earned from her own mentor yesterday. "Why's that so?"
"I'm just ecstatic your wedding is a carrot and stick and quite soon situated, I guess!" The young lady's northern lilt accented her utterance, clicking boldly her tongue and grinding it against the roof of her mouth, emphatically winking at the former priest after retrieving the packaged wedlock suit back in the luggage carrier and shutting the door and locking it. The unpredictable haphazardity in Timothy's quietness startled the young lady, biting her strawberry-coloured, wet tongue and approaching timidly with quiet strides in a couple of footsteps up to the older man after he bowed, ducking his head and crystalline tears welled in his brittle eyelids, blinking the fresh dew and sniveling, solely distinctive for him until Madeleine didn't maintain closer distance with him, acknowledging his upsetness without glimpsing at his face, bedimmed with tear-patched texture, staining the dryness of his facial skin. "Timothy, you okay? I didn't mean to act irrationally, but I'm just gleeful you're trying your best with Jude to build your own future and the relationship you've," Muffling the resonance, scratching Madeleine's throat, she cradled Timothy's head in the palms of her creamy, elvish hands, pursuing for his smoky quartz jewels. "Built together through the weeks and months even the years if that makes sense. I didn't sip my mind I've thought since the beginning of my friendship with both of you how you're going to step at this phase of your relationship." Thereafter the blonde's fingers traced his jaw's curve until grappling his chin, tilting his head to meet his stare, whilst her rosy-coloured, plumpish lips reproduced a lulling tune of shushes.
"She will think I'm joking with her!" Meantime, the blonde's cherub lips zipped in a ruminative purse, harking attentively the former clergyman's tearfulness highlight in his retaliation. "She will consider it done it's for Fools' Day joke." Heavy sigh flushed his nostrils, struggling to inhale the sigh and the oxygen coursing through his breathing organs, biting his lower lip to stifle the snivel and daubing with brittle fingertips the trickling waterfall of tears.
"No, no, of course, she wouldn't disbelieve you, you know damn well, Timothy! We know her damn well and she'd burst in tears if you propose her directly or she finds out about the wedding costume somehow without your knowledge." At the moment, the young woman combed and racked his chestnut, crispily soft hair through her spider alabaster fingers, murmuring the whisper in her Michigan lilt and pressing a tender, feather peck on his temple to provide him warmness, platonic affection and comfort. "Do you think she's sincere when she slapped me?" All of a sudden, the British aristocrat's ducked head snapped tilted, stung widened in shock his cocoa brown embers, blazing perplexion and mild ire, still glimmering the last drying tears, refraining to trickle down on his cheeks. "The day before after we discussed the diary and that suicidal shit. She didn't have any malicious intentions except persuading me how much she despises the eavesdropping and somebody putting their noses in her own damn business."
"I know her meaningfully well! It's against her nature prying and involving yourself somewhere wherever she might not grant you a warm welcome."
--- *** ---
Once the front door's ring droned monitorly, all of a sudden the former pious sister of the church disappeared from the second floor after cascading the polished stairway with the infant, swaddled warmly and scooped in his mother's secure, alabaster arms. The humdrum of drumming feminine, docile footsteps against the notoriously creaky stairs kept Frank's wits about Jude's arrival within a handful of seconds.
When the former sleazy jazz nightclub singer stepped beside the front door and freeing one of her arms, in order to turn the rusty key in the keyhole and unlock the door, afterwards it clicked and swung opened at the former policeman. In the interval, the infant's huge, unblemished honey brown irises were fixated on the both middle-aged adults in awe and vaguely beaming at the former policeman.
"Hi!" The both middle-aged adults greeted kindheartedly one another as the blonde stepped aside, in order to give bigger scale of space to the widower, who entered inside the two-story mansion and stripping off the winter pantaletot from his torso. "Welcome back, Frank!" As soon as Frank got rid off the pantaletot and hooked it on the coat hanger, the former licentious nightclub singer shut the front door, whereas her solely free arm bounced and rocked Edward Ralph, eavesdropping incessantly his jubilant, silver-tongued babbles and cooes.
"That's tremendously sweet of ya, Judy! As always!" Meanwhile, they walked inside the kitchen and their shoed pair of feet trampling the tepid flooring and seating on the kitchen table together. The middle-aged woman's mouth opened in a huge grin, cradling her jaw's muscles and flexing them gingerly. "How are ya with the little one?"
"We're fine with my lovely cherub angel!" Assuringly benevolent smile glinted across her spread lips after softening the grin while the former police officer couldn't help but emit a vibrant snicker, lurching in the back of his throat. "Would ya care for a drink or anything to eat during yar stay before the night shift?"
"No, thanks! I just ate and drank a half an hour ago with Andrea and her daughter Cassandra at Andrea's home." Once the widower emphasized the both women's names, the former pious sister of the church quirked a dark, thin eyebrow elegantly and recalling the day before when she met the customer, whose name was Cassandra. "They haven't always been in good terms unless my friend's boyfriend death which took its place yesterday at her house and poisoning himself after mixing bleach and beer together." In the meantime, the Bostonian managed to gnaw between her ivory, still firm for her age front teeth the raw, delicate skin of her lower lip, averting her gaze from Frank for a split second, in order to not fully neglect her ray of sunshine.
"I know! I'm indeed sorry to hear about your friend's boyfriend death and I pray my heart out he's on much better place." A sharp exhale surged fresh oxygen from the top of her fragile lungs, moistening her lips after spiraling her lips in the axis, managing her petite hand to caress warily, dotingly her son's soft, dark hair and combing the hairs between her fingers' knuckles with mild tickle. "Cassandra came into the flower store yesterday and she told me she was buying flowers for her mother." Suddenly the middle-aged man's lapis lazuli pools flickered widened, licking his lips and stifling another mischievous chuckle, dying on his tongue tip. "Blue ones! And she told me why she's exactly buying them."
"Oh, I know that kiddo in blue Cassandra! She's pretty arrogant with her mother about the job she's doing it for like years."
"Are ya trying to tell me," Bitter lump seethed in the former sleazy nightclub singer's throat, throughout the throat muscles constricting in the lacking physical activity and flex, while her only free hand's fingers gently cradled the infant's frail, pudgily tiny fingers. "Cassandra and her mother aren't getting along? Isn't Cassandra's mother something like a drug dealer or a serial killer?"
"Impossible!" Firmness punctured Frank's riposte, enveloped in contradiction's darkness, thick ebony layer of seriousness coating his exclaimation. "She's a hooker and trying her best to survive with the money the clients grant her per an hour." Bittersweetness forcefully grimaced the Bostonian's facial attributes in an armor of steel and distress once she acknowledged the young woman mother's occupation and how morbidly parallel was to Jude's past with the one-night stands, selling her own flesh per an hour for a certain quantity of money to square her striving for survival. A disappointed frown flattened downward her cherub lips at last. "But to assure ya, Judy, she isn't a horrible person and whatever ya may picture behind her notorious identity," In the interim, Jude lingered her caramel brown pools on Frank's magnificently truthful, trustworthy lapis lazuli pools. Sheer abhorrence flaming her indiscernibly ebony pupils once acknowledging Andrea's infamous occupation.
"No wonder why they aren't getting along as a mother and a daughter, Frank!"
"Judy," All of a sudden, the security guard spotlighted his old friend's name with sharpness, puncturing his exclaimation, whilst Judy furrowed her dark, thin eyebrows momentarily and squinting up at her ex-employee, gulping a salty lump in the back of her throat with an ease. "Ya used to be in the same condition as Andrea until ya joined St. Andrew's church and became a nun, right?" She managed to bob her head in a strong, agreeable agreement as she glanced down at the baby, checking on him and rocking it to drift off asleep sooner than later, whereas his serene cooes and babbles, unzipping his cherub baby-pinkish lips. "Right?" Even when the former holy woman was distracted with her baby son, the security guard slightly nagged, sharpness accentuating the enquiry.
"That's right! But I just," Stutter dripped from her lips, her tongue hesitantly conjugating the words and constructing a proper utterance flawlessly, abrading with pure smoothness in her northern lilt.
"Just what?"
Overstraining silence arched between the both adults which they've endured for a half a minute without peeling a single word, unzipping their mouths with exception the soundtrack of silver-tongued, cheerful cooes and babbles, playing on a loop in the kitchen's background. The heart rates increased rapidly, unrealistically affecting the middle-aged woman's flimsy heart drums in her chest and pulsations into her ears. At the moment, Frank moistened his pale-pinkish lips after twirling his tongue to lick them swiftly, surreptitiously.
What it flabbergasted the former devotional member of the clergy was that Andrea who just grieves over her boyfriend's loss was her business was involved in selling her own body for a certain sum of money, in order to survive somehow. Nevertheless, Judy wasn't very fond of ladies whether younger or older who reminded her about the somber fragments of her past's puzzle which they share in common altogether.
"I'm just not very fond of ladies whether girls or women, who're finely sharing this in common with me. I don't want to remember about that filth and feeling muddy ever again."
"Judy, since when ya became that judgmental?" The widower's berry-coloured, soft as velvet lips parted in the rejoinder's scoff, deflating critically the former sister of the church even when allusions of sarcasm darkened his enquiry. "I perfectly comprehend what ya have been through like fifteen years ago or so and mudding yar path to accomplish peace with yourself, however," Stoicness contoured Jude's facial features to refrain the sobs to break her facial expression in a jiffy and narrowing her eyebrows whilst tilting meekly, humbly her head to maintain a stable eye contact with Frank. "Everything will be fine! Everything is fine! I've never judged ya, based on yar past and whatever shit ya have been through." Suddenly he protracted one of his arms due to his effacious sagacity, highlighting his attributes and body language mannerism, his mammoth, smooth hand rubbing Judy's shoulder blade smoothily feather, tenderly. "It's so wrong considering Andrea as an inferior creature even when ya have never spoken to her unlike her daughter."
--- *** ---
Shortly after Cassandra left work and came back at home, she hasn't left her bedroom which she shared it with her husband David, whereas David was in the grocery store and Andrea was sitting on her round, well-carved knees, brushing the carpeted flooring of the living room, transfixing her midnight black jewels on Kathy and Jack who were with their rag dolls. Silvery light sifted in the living room, penetrating through the widely opened curtains of the large-sized window.
Even when the prostitute attempted to spend the rest of the day as a solemnly took vow without pouring a heavy rain of twin chubby tears, staining her facial skin and bursting out in uncontrollable sobs and distract herself by spending more time with her grandchildren, overwhelmness over Harry's demise still inundated her ocean of thoughts, unable to escape the sane's madness on her own.
"How was school today, sweethearts?" Andrea's posed question resuscitated her grandchildren's vast enthusiasm, flickering up their big round eyes at her to meet her platonically loving gaze, offering her a benevolently guiltless, childlike smile, flourishing upon their mouths. Meantime, her dainty fingers were resting on her mid-thighs, admiring Jack and Kathy's fellowship, expressed platonically as a brother and a sister.
"It was good, Nana!" The little girl drew in a scooped embrace her favorite stuffed doll, swaddled warmly, cozily in her pudgy arms, whereas Andrea heaved a heavy, elated sigh, coursing its oxygen from the top of her brittle lungs, returning her grandchildren's benevolently unblemished smiles with a radiant, sympathetic, tattoed on her yet youthful, parchment complexion. "Our teacher doesn't give us a lot of homework."
"That's amazing!" Beaming, girlishly ablaze giggle grinded on her tongue and dripping from her mouth, whilst tuckling a fistful of silken aureate strands behind her petite, sensitive ear. "Spill the tea about the teachers! Aren't they just wonderful?"
"They're eventually are except for our physical education one!" Again, the middle-aged lady's radiant, woefully optimistic smile darkened spread across her plumpish, naturally mauve lips, her fingertips tracing gingerly, idly her well-carved cheekbone, still all ears to hearkening Jack and Kathy's daily life stories about their school, teachers and homework. The little girl didn't avert her stare from her grandmother, sanguinely healthy blush tinging her chubby, hypodermically seeded with soft baby fat cheeks at the thought of her least favorite teacher.
"What about her, honey? Is she mean or something?"
"Very mean!" The young boy's sharpness in his snap indicated his fatalistic seriousness, shooting an expressiveless gawk at the single motherwith an eerie flat line, smeared across his full profile. "She's bugging me off to bones and doesn't allow me to play with my sister except the boring football."
"Well, I'll try my best to keep in touch with Ms. Giligan, nevertheless, just try your best to not frustrate that old hag, because it's going to be when the pigs fly to stop her anger, solely if you don't bug her off!" Her trembling, palish fingers managed to lazily reach for Kathy and Jack's crispily soft hairs to caress and stroke them, dedicating her entire affection and selflessness to them, providing them the necessary consolation, love and warmness as two of her most beloved people, filling a surrealistically humongous room in her heart. "We'll be good if you just don't play any games with your physical education teacher and just do your own job!"
"Mhm, you're absolutely right, Nana!" The symphony of the youngsters' mirth, accentuating their timbres in unison tingled angelic hymns to the prostitute. "What's mattering with mom?"
"I'm certain something is bothering her but as soon as I acknowledge what exactly bothers her," Meanwhile, her dainty, alabaster fingers yet lingered on the youngsters' satin heads, admiring the youthful softness of their hairs, squinting up her indiscernible midnight black orbs at them. "Everything is going to be fine! It's going to be a serious one. So you better stay here and play with each other!" Shortly after manipulating her dainty fingers to comb and rake delicately their satin heads, thus the single mother got up from the carpeted flooring and aimed to Cassandra's bedroom, striding casually and managing to fashion her hand in a balled fist, in order to rap on the door a handful of times to draw her daughter's attention, keeping her wits about the imminent moment to welcome one more uninvited guest in the room. "Cassandra! Sweetheart! May I come?" Sharp exhale surged at the top of Andrea's lungs, glancing down at her shuffled feet, uneasily fidgeting her fingers after slithering from the door's wooden material downward to the door handle.
No answer, nor anything vouched and approved the blonde's impending destination visit, whereas her front yellowed teeth nipped the raw, delicate skin of her lower plumpish lip. Then the bedroom's door swung opened bashfully and peaking askew once the hooker stepped inside, noticing her daughter seating on the edge of the king-sized bed with turned back, hardly maintaining an eye contact.
In the interim, the brunette hesitantly didn't even move a single muscle, nor turning her back to face the recent visitor in the room which she shared it with her husband David. Her quivering vanilla hands were perched on her lap, her swan as flute stings fingers snatching her woolen ocean blue skirt, grazing with the pads of her fingers the rigid fabric, snorting an inward sniffle, ducking her head, in order to not allow anybody notice her tear-stained, porcelain complexion.
"Cassandra, tell me what's wrong! What kind of disgrace I've been for you all over again?" What the older woman's authoratitative rhetorical posed question begged for was for the brunette's response immediately, her feminine, meekly subtle footsteps stumping silently against the carpeted flooring in a monotonous choir. "Just tell me what bothers you, at least!" Timidness spotlighted the middle-aged lady's reprimand after seating sheepishly alongside her only child's edge of the king-sized bed, barely averting her stare from the ducked head. "It will be just between both of us. Nobody will be hurt. The kids won't know, because they're quite young to be messed up in such trashy mess." The quietness, swaddling in a sheer chilliness stretched between Andrea and Cassandra, while Andrea ushered one of her hands to reach for Cassandra's shoulder blade, consequently kneading gently, consolingly the flesh beneath the rough sweater's fabric and her other hand reaching for one of her quivering hands to yank them in a tight, soothing grip. "If you want me out of the room, I'll flee in a New York minute."
"I thought at first you poisoned your boyfriend by mixing the bleach with beer, but once your old friend Gus, Nikita and Lydia saw me on my workplace, in case, after dealing with Harry's corpse and the dirty job was done," The young lady's Vermont lilt accented her tearful voice, she surreptitiously melted in the prostitute's comforting hand squeeze and shoulder blade massage, biting her lip to mute another sob to break her facial expression, whilst the prostitute was all ears, ruefully beaming. At the moment, the older lady's heart sunk in oblivion and heartbreak at the false charge as if she's the one to envenom her ex-boyfriend and succumb in its toxicity, overflowing in Harry's body. Due to the fact, Cassandra scarcely trusted and believed her own daughter, subsequently it lead her to picture galore of scenarios and comteplating inwardly her mother in ominous situations with malicious intentions of harming other people's lives. "I realized it wasn't your fault at all. You were deeply asleep and he mixed the bleach with his own beer and you woke up on the morning after next to his cold corpse. I don't know why, but I'm not accusing you to be the one who's responsible for his death. I'd never consider you innocent unless if it's was Gus, Lydia or Nikita. It's the only case where I truly believe you're simply blameless." All of a sudden, the young woman's facial expression broke in a sob, reclining on the blonde's shoulder, whereas Andrea managed to cradle her face after one of her hands maneuvered to reach for her chin and tilting her head. Meanwhile, Cassandra fluttered her eyelids shut in tiny slits, allowing the rich stream of twin obese tears trickle down on her cheeks.
"At least you believe me or them that I'm completely innocent! However, I'd never dare to poison or commit homicide in the name of my reputation or yours."
"I was completely wrong in the whole time. Since the beginning of that saga. Since the beginning of my childhood for distancing my own ass from you to not being scoffed by my peers that my mother is selling her own body to provide for us something sufficiently affordable." Andrea daubed with the pad of her swan thumb the crystalline, ugly tear, dripping from her daughter's lower eyelid, lulling shush in a whisper.
"Do not cry, my love! Do not cry! I'm planning to work whether in the library as a librarian or otherwise in Jude and her protégé's flower store, selling plants and flowers!"
"Are you serious?" Suddenly the young lady's eyelids snapped opened like blinds, squinting up her dark embers at the hooker, tears rimming yet in the pools.
"I'm deadly serious. More than anything! I'd do it for you and for myself," Thereafter Andrea threw her both alabaster, lean arms around Cassandra's middle, scooping her in a kindhearted, firm hug, absorbing mutual warmness, muffling her velvety Wisconsin lilt. "Think twice how blissful we're going to be from now on even when I'm trying to cope with Harry's death." Meantime, Cassandra buried her tear-stained, parchment face in the crook of the Wisconsian's arm, drenching her blazer with her own uglily sticky heavy rain of tears. "Our reputations will be recovering from everything especially mine. It's blemished with the filth of the current occupation which doesn't appeal me anymore." Heavy sigh flushed her chest, the heart drums throbbing against Cassandra's brittle ribcage in synchronicity. "Why you're still crying? What tears you down?"
"I'm deeply regretting for those years when I tried my best to avoid you even kick you out of my life and everywhere even keeping Kathy and Jack away from you!" Cassandra found her own flimsy heart tearing off as an extravagant cloth on thousand of glassy pieces, swamping her ribcage's steel armor with bittersweetness due to her haughtiness and contempting selfishness to neglect Andrea through the years, in order to not ruin her own reputation or her family's at least. Furthermore, Andrea wasn't like in her twenties to rely on the free lifestyle's inflammation anymore and sooner or later her days may be reckoned. Briefly, it might be even the hooker's final day breathing, exhaling and inhaling, moving any muscle, manipulating her bones and peeling a word which might imprint to the last people who're going to eventually behold her just before the divine power numbers and pages up the book of her life. "I'm tremendously...tremendously sorry for everything, mom! I know how much I don't deserve your forgiveness and everything you did for my fucking sake and I was just giving you a cold shoulder."
"Of course, you will be forgiven, Cassandra! I'm glad you've matured enough to understand that no matter if I'm the president of the United States, "The uncontrollable, impulsive sobs made Andrea shrug her dainty shoulder until they broke off the embrace to admire one another's facial attributes and vaguely sympathetic smile was inked on the older lady's face, brightening scintillatingly her facial attributes. "The meanest nun, the clumsiest employee in a factory or the most infamous hooker in town, you're part of me and you've still a hope to spend even your final moments with me until my last breath. You're my favorite one of a kind baby girl and you're still my baby girl even if you're in your twenties. "
"I know but I'm still deeply regretting for my stupidity and selfishness even ego to avoid anything against our family." In the meanwhile, the brunette numbed series of fugly sobs by nibbling her upper plumpish, roseate lip with reluctance. "I'm a coward!" Asperity foregrounded the fugly nickname snorting a sniffle, her nostrils struggling to inhale adequately the fresh lilacs' fragrance. "I'm an incarnat-"
"You aren't a coward, Cassandra! You aren't." All of a sudden, the single mother snapped at her daughter, cutting her off curtly with strictness, foregrounding her optimism, cusping with the realism and plastering dryly the last drying rain of tears, soaking the brunette's alabaster, chubby cheeks with delicate fingertips. "Don't you ever dare calling yourself a coward or something else that isn't even associated with your true self! Everybody ain't a saint, honey!"
--- *** ---
--- A Several Hours or So ---
After the former pious members of the church had a dinner with their own ray of sunshine and calling Madeleine to babysit their love child, in order to Timothy to surprise his own rare bird by pulling the cab to a godforsaken, sheathing in its ancient remnants and ruins, it didn't take them longer than an hour for Timothy to pull off the cab up to one of the desolated, formerly functioning institution's façade, located in the woods.
As soon as they hopped out of the vehicle and they were equipped with letter opener, flashlight and a few remarkable items for their abandoned building's journey, what the former aspiring Monsignor instructed was his girlfriend to walk behind him and escorting him, whereas he was the one leading their small, humble group inside the former hospital's remnant which may be a possible home for homeless strayers, drug dealers and drug addicts even for psychotic murders, kidnappers and molesters. Moreover, the building was thirteen floor-clad and their only light source was a flashlight, gleaming at certain target to illuminate the pitch-black darkness, preventing them from beholding anything clearly.
Within a quarter an hour after towering the floors' stairs and arriving on the roof of the abandoned former hospital which was built in the late 90s of the previous decade and being dilapidatingly desolated in the mid-fifties, due to the lacking staff members to take care of the patients from newborns up to seniors, expecting their final moments on their death beds. Last but not least, the former facility is also a home of the patients' ghosts, lurking in the darkest corners and seeking revenge from the uninvitied guests for the unrequited peace whether due to the one of the most sadtistic doctors who used to cure them or their corpses being stored in the morgue days or weeks later after their unpredictable demise. There were cornucopia of urban legends about the desolated place which speculated once somebody has stepped inside the remnants, consequently bad luck with something haphazard befalling in their lives whether losing somebody beloved, being involved in a road accident, losing their property and fortune or anything else that might speak the inflammatory language of trouble.
"What's this place?" It wasn't the initial, nor the last time which the former devotional woman of the cloth was posing the same question, excessively tingling a featureless tunes into the former ambitious Monsignor's flexible ears, whereas their heavy footsteps drummed against the stone, dilapidating stairs, leading to the roof after exhausting the muscles and bones with excessive physical pressure and heavily inhaling the reek of drugs, tobaccos, garbage, human waste and strong liquor, wafting across their vulnerable nostrils. In the meantime, the former sleazy jazz nightclub singer's long, slim as piano keys fingers trembled whilst the gentle winter zephyr was fogging and playing with their exposed fleshes.
"It's a secret, my rare bird!" When the both adults escalated the last stairs and set a foot on the roof after stomping swarm of garbage, butts of smoked cigarettes and galore of remnants, they maintained scarcely an inch proximity, distancing their figures as the moonlight dimly gleamed and the flashlight clicked turned off. Notwithstanding the childlike, strong-willed curiosity of the Bostonian, the former clergyman didn't want to rush with the secrets and surprises by exposing them unless the special moment emerges.
"No shit with that abandoned hospital's shit and taking me somewhere where we might die in a New York minute if ya consider that's the-"
"Sh, shh, Jude! We aren't here to die. You haven't even heard my story's version." After muffling Jude with a forefinger, grazing her cherub, naturally mauve lips and chanting a lull to keep her quiet without an ado, she managed to roll her hazelish-brown pools emphatically, dramatically.
"What story?" Salty lump bubbled up in her throat and subsequently she maneuvered her throat muscles to flex with a gulp, exhaling abruptly, while pursing her lusciously plump lips, ogling her hazelish-brown irises at the younger man with nocturnal's shadow casted on his facial skin as a curtain.
"I know you won't take me serious at all, but," Suddenly one of his colossal, veiny hands fumbled in his slacks' pocket until something velvety was grazed by his brittle fingertips and snatching it in a balled fist, attracting his girlfriend's attention with a glance for a split second. "But I've always thought about the tough times we had together like that jealousy over that serial killer stuff, Maddie's overprotective nature over us as partners and the nightmares and mental breakdowns which weren't your fault at all. Sometimes I'm a burden for you or at least I feel like, however, I'll never give up fighting for you and for what's the right, Jude!" Meantime, crystal, translucent tears swamped the Bostonian's frequently blinking in choir eyelids, stifling an inward sob to reproduce its own ode. "Jude! Thanks to everything we've been through and fighting for you and our family, I've never stopped loving you! You're a celestial creature and my rare bird since the day I laid my eyes on you and found out how pearly unique you're eventually!" What the former licentious nightclub singer sensed was the anticipating heart attack to hit her shortly after her boyfriend's confession, alluding a proposal.
"Are you truly being honest with me before having a heart attack?"
"Needless to explain myself, sweetheart!" The honeyed timbre, accentuating the former holy man's somber, pearly snicker, lingering on his tongue brought a radiant, luscious smile, spread across the blonde's rosy-coloured lips as if her honey brown pools were alight at her lover's honesty. "Jude, you're my rare bird, that's true! It's undeniable how much I deeply regret for putting you through the mess which you don't deserve! You're the first ever and last woman I want to spend the eternity with! My only universe, my world, the glistening stars in the most starless, darkest sky and the love of my life, the most gorgeous woman I've ever laid eyes on," In the interval, Judy daubed subtly the drizzle of tears with fingertips after swallowing hard during the confession, approaching her lover with shy steps, finding herself molting in his sincerity. "Judy Martin Howard, will you marry me and spend the eternity with me?" He kneeled beside her, opening the crimson velvet box with the proposal ring which wasn't enormous, nor excessively compact.
"Ya don't have any idea how much I want to spend the eternity with you, Timothy! You're the sweetest and the best thing has ever happened to me along with Edward and the fresh start we've started together." After the ring slipped on her finger, grazing the delicate skin with smoothness, throughout she threw her alabaster, lean arms around his upper back, encircling him in a tight, warm hug, whilst sensing mammoth, secure hands securing her middle and burying her face in the crook of his neck. "I will marry you at any cost and thank ya for being always next to me even when I've been through the biggest mess in my life! And the ring is undeniably gorgeous but not as gorgeous as ya, my love!"
Author's Note: I'd like to apologize for postponing with the updates and the sloppy chapter, nevertheless, here we go with the updates finally and I opted to update it as soon as possible!
What do you think about the proposal? Do you think Maddie is going to be forgiven by Jude about the slap? Do you think Jude and Timothy's wedding is coming soon?
I hope you liked and enjoyed the chapter! :)