100 word of Peeking - Jenny, Nine & Orion

[strange_natures]

Jenny wakes to the world rocking and a quiet splash, and wonders for a moment where the hell she is. Somewhere dark, and warm; she’s wrapped in blankets, and she can make out the rich, red glow of a fire in one corner of the narrow room. The small multi-fuel stove lights her surroundings, flickering orange reflections from the brass portholes in the upper walls and the small tv set between them. The walls below the gunwhales are lined with stuffed bookshelves, and there’s a couch shoved up against the base of her bed - not a proper bed, the fold-down dinette, she remembers now.

The previous day follows the memory in an abrupt rush: a burst pipe in the flat above hers; no money for a hotel. She’s staying in Jamie’s narrowboat until the damage to her bathroom can be fixed.

No, not Jamie’s. Her brother is dead. She’s at Orion’s.

The grief wells up again, thick as a velvet scarf dragging through her insides, and she wonders - not for the first time - whether she should be trying to connect with the piece of her brother that's still alive, that’s woven into some kind of Frankenstein’s monster. One minute Orion is Jamie; it’s in the cant of his head, an unthinking gesture, his laugh, a turn of phrase. The next he’s something entirely different; an inhuman thing, like that batshit crazy so-called ‘sister’ of his, and the sense of loss hits all over again.

She should walk away.

But even as she sits up she knows she can't. She pauses for a moment, wondering what to do. She should be able to see source of the noise from the front deck, or well deck, whatever it’s called. It’s probably a bad idea to look, but she knows that now she’s awake she’ll only sit in the dark and wonder, her imagination providing far more terrifying things than an otter, or a vole.

There are monsters in the world now. She’s staying in one’s home...

Orion isn’t a monster. She knows there’s enough of Jamie in him to keep him from that. Unlike Nine. Speaking of insane quarter-angel nightmares: Nine is curled up on the couch, snuggled into a pile of blankets and cushions. Sleep soothes away the madness, leaving behind a hauntingly beautiful girl, almost ethereal with her pale skin and curls. The black-tattooed spells that hold her together look like cracks in porcelain, making her fragile. But appearances can be deceiving, Jenny thinks as she slides off the bed and makes her way past as silently as she can manage. Every tiny rock of the boat feels like an earthquake. Why the hell does Orion have to live like this?

She gets to the door without incident, holds her breath while she undoes the locks, but there’s no movement from Nine. Relieved, Jenny slips out into the well deck and closes the door behind her, then unzips the tent-like structure that offers some protection from the elements. A cratch-cover, her hosts call it. It only takes a moment to tie it back so she can look around.

They’re in the absolute middle of nowhere. Without competition from streetlights, the half-moon and stars hang huge against their velvet backdrop. There isn't a cloud in the sky, and every shadow is stark and cold against the bright greys where the light hits the heather and gorse. The canal and the dry-stone walls in the distance are like scars slashed into the landscape itself; the only reminder of humans to be seen.

She shivers and wraps her arms around herself, wondering what the hell she’s doing. If she did hear a splash then surely investigating is the worst thing she could do. She doesn’t know what the hell is out here... She swallows, nerves getting the better of her. Monsters exist. She’s outside, in the dark, and monsters exist.

She’s turning to go back inside when a voice whispers, “Don’t let him see you,” into her left ear, the too-warm breath tickling the tiny hairs. A scream wells up in her throat, her heart hammering in her chest, but a hand clamps itself over her mouth before any sound escapes.

“Shhh,” Nine whispers fiercely into her ear, “he’ll hear you. Mustn’t let him hear you, or you’ll regret it.”

Mustn’t let who hear her? Jenny’s heart falls into the pit of her stomach. What is Nine afraid of? The girl is a monster, a bona fide horror hiding beneath a human shell; wings and claws and a thousand glowing eyes, ready to burst into reality at a moment’s notice. What could possibly frighten her?

“Can’t let him know we’re here,” Nine mutters, ducking down against the steel walls of the well deck, and peering over at the dark water as though something might leap out of it any moment.

“Should we go back inside?” Jenny whispers. She’s never imagined she’d turn to Nine for assistance, but fear is a great uniter of foes.

Nine shakes her head, then juts her chin forwards at the canal in front of them. “Too late. He’s coming. Keep still. Got to hide.”

Mouth dry, Jenny looks in the direction she’s pointing, and sees a dull, purple and indigo glow lighting up the water from its depths. It’s approaching fast. What is that? Her mind desperately searches for something, anything that she can relate it to, a box to put it in, but all that comes up are alien movies. Cocoon. The Abyss. And the rich, violet shade of Orion’s eyes. Cathaginian murex, her mind supplies, remnants of her history degree coming back to her. The dye of emperors, still never replicated in the modern day.

“Get down,” Nine hisses, pulling her deeper into the shelter of the well deck. The solid steel walls of the narrowboat surround them on either side, a comforting barrier. Jenny burrows down as far as she can, wondering why she ever wandered into this horror movie. Why she stayed. The answer is simple: Jamie. What's left of her twin: only a quarter of him, but it’s enough.

But she hadn't known she was signing up for this: two girls in their nighties, huddling in fear from a glowing underwater monster. Even if one of the girls is also a monster: quarter human, quarter angel, half things Jenny doesn’t want to think about.

“If he sees we’re awake he’ll make us help,” Nine whispers, fiercely.

Wait, what? “Help with what?”

Nine points down, but even as she does the boat lurches, and another scream tries to claw its way out of Jenny’s throat. It’s choked off by sheer terror closing down her airways. She wants to look, but her eyes have other ideas and slam shut, her brain trying to protect her from herself...

“Uh, everything okay in here?” Orion asks.

Jenny forces her eyes open. Orion doesn’t sound scared at all. He’ll protect them. Nine says he’s powerful, even if Jenny hasn’t seen it for herself - it’s so like Jamie to not flex. Except he’s not Jamie. She looks up and sees Orion hanging onto the side of the boat, arms crossed on the wall of the well-deck and his chin resting on them, as though rest of his body is dangling in the pool of some exotic resort, rather than the cold, muddy waters of an English canal. She wants to scream at him that there’s something dangerous in the water, but before she can form any words Nine says, “We’re asleep! Aren't we, Ten?”

“Uh-huh,” Orion says. He sighs a long-suffering sigh. “Jen, what’s she been doing to you?”

“...There’s something in the water,” Jen whispers, hoarsely. “Something purple. there was a glow...” Something that will want them to help. Something that glows the same colour as Orion’s eyes...

Orion is in the water. Orion, the genius loci of the Wightbury canals... Her brain shies away from clicking the pieces together.

“We’re asleep,” Nine says, defiant.

“If you’re asleep then how are you out here, telling me you’re asleep...?”

Nine deflates for a moment, but then, with a triumphant smile, she announces: “Sleepwalking!”

Orion just smiles. “Right, well you can sleepwalk yourself down here. Seems like everyone and their dog has lost their mobiles in the next lock.” He pulls a bag hanging from the side of the boat closer to himself. There’s no movement of his arm or hand, only a flicker of purple and blue light that sketches out a sinuous form in the air. A snake or eel, or...tentacle. Jenny feels her mouth dry as he drops a dozen or so assorted items into the bag: mobile phones; keys; one of the metal lever things Jenny’s recently learned is called a windlass. The long, snake-like light makes her stomach churn; her brain screaming danger, but it pales in comparison to the relief and sheer rage.

“You said there was a monster!” she all-but-screams at Nine, ignoring the wailing voice in her skull telling her that aggression is a very bad idea. The echoing scream that there is a monster, just because the eldritch hellbeast happens to be her brother makes no difference.

“Did not!” Nine practically snarls the words, glowing blue sparkles prickling into the air around her and sketching out traces of puffed feathers.

“Yes, you did! You said we had to hide or-” Jen breaks off. Hide or they’d regret it. He’ll make us help. Oh, sweet Jesus. She wants to rail and scream anyway, to lash out, but she swallows it down. Jenny swallows down the fury; it compresses as it goes, solidifying into resentment like a coal turning to diamond; all glittering edges cutting at her insides.

Luckily Nine seems to take her silence as agreement. “See,” she tells Orion. “I didn’t.”

Orion remains impassive. “Uh huh. Jump in, the water’s wet and we’ve got a lot to do. Jen, since you’re up you can grab a carrier bag from under the sink and work on the tow path. One of the hire companies has started sending stag dos down this route.”

“You should sink their boat,” Nine mutters. She strips off her nightgown with a lack of selfconsciousness that Jenny envies, and climbs overboard into the canal, sinking in up to her chest. “S’icky.” She looks up at Jen like a kicked puppy, and whispers, “I told you we had to be quiet”, then lets out a very ungodly squeak as Orion splashes her.

“Less fighty, more cleany.” He turns to Jen. “You heard me: carrier bag, tow path, chop-chop.”

Two hours later, Jenny collapses into her bed. Her bones ache, her back is killing her from all the bending down, she’s chilled to the bone, and far too tired to complain when Nine climbs in beside her and snuggles up. The girl might still be damp from showering off canal muck, but the feverish heat of her skin is strangely soothing. Maybe it’s the comforting glow, maybe it’s being so goddamned tired, but Jenny leans into her, and whispers, “I’ll keep quiet next time.”

“Good Ten, have a biscuit.”

https://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/423037.html?thread=2509507965#cmt2509507965