[Requiem] December writing challenge

[idony-fae.livejournal.com]

Trick was sitting in the living room on the sofa, half-reading the newspaper, and repeatedly glancing towards the empty fireplace, and the earthenware urn sitting so harmlessly on the huge stone mantelpiece. She flicked only idly through the pages of the newspaper, mainly enjoying the silence of the house and the little noises which quiet houses make. Lorna was out, heaven knows where, or what time she'd be back; though Trick hoped she'd be home again before dawn. She wasn't all that keen on being alone in the house, and even less keen on the idea of leaving to be somewhere else. The two times she'd been out in the last fortnight had taken more energy than she was willing to admit. And she was hungry. Well, maybe Lorna would remember that when she came back, too.

Trick looked up sharply when she heard a shuffling noise outside the house, probably near the doorstep, and then smiled, her entire countenance softening when she heard some muffled curses in a strong Norfolk country accent. Lorna. The turn of the key in the front door, more cursing, and something was flung down on the hallway floor, followed by the front door slamming. Trick uncurled herself, pushing the newspaper aside, the urn by the fireplace forgotten for the moment, and hauled herself to her feet, plodding out of the living room and out into the hallway.

Lorna was on her hands and knees, trying to gather something up into a black binbag. She was dressed for the outdoors in waterproof trousers and a mac, with mud-coated wellies on her feet. She looked up suddenly as Trick opened the living room door, her matted damp dreadlocks flopping around either side of her face.

"Oh, hey. Trick. Didn't think you'd be in... oh." She smiled cautiously, as though not knowing what else to say.

Trick's smile widened. "All right, Lorna. Yeah. I'm still here. What the hell you got in that there trash bag? Please don't tell me it's someone else's remains."

Lorna still looked as though she didn't quite know what to say. "Uh, no. It's just some stuff I picked up..." She pulled the bag open, spilling out a mass of greenery. Fir tree cuttings, wild holly, mistletoe, ivy, and strings of coloured beads, paper and tinsel. Trick just stared.

"What on earth is all that for?" she asked quietly.

"Christmas decorations. This place looks like it could use some festive cheer," Lorna replied, smiling hopefully.

"Christmas decorations?" Trick repeated, astounded. "For Hel's sake, Lorna! What do we need all that for? I ain't celebrated Christmas since I was twelve years old."

Lorna just stared up at Trick, and then down at the bag with its contents spilled all over the hallway floor. "Neither have I."

Lorna stood, kicked off her wellies, pulled off her mac and dropped it over the hallstand. The long old white scars across her chest and arms stood out starkly against her tanned and weathered skin. Trick suddenly wanted to shrivel up and die. She remembered what Lorna had said to her when they met, the years of abuse at the hands of her mother and her mother's boyfriend; the beatings, the touching and the assaults; the vicious knife attack, being flung naked and bleeding into a ditch at the back end of a traveller's site somewhere deep in rural Norfolk. The years spent freezing in derelict houses, on the streets; squatting if she got lucky. Cold. Hungry. Alone and invisible.

Trick's eyes filled with a weird kind of almost-maternal tenderness. She bent down, gathered up the greenery and tinsel, smiled at Lorna and started walking towards the kitchen at the back.

"Come on, then. Let's get this stuff sorted and hung up, yeah?"

Lorna didn't need to say anything. She just smiled with wordless gratitude and followed Trick into the kitchen.