Their father had always been on the meeker side, a kind soul, but a rather sheepish one—not the sort of man that handled change well, or with confidence. It was thus no surprise when, following the death of their mother, her loyal husband could hardly bring himself to leave the house, let alone make arrangements for her funeral.
Which was all well and fine, for his children, older and parents themselves, managed to handle the parting well. They grieved, as any child does when losing a parent, but together, the two of them faced the challenge of their mother’s passing with great poise and composure, much to the delight of her many admirers, all of whom seemed to think that the dear woman had raised a pair of well-adjusted, mature children. It was that husband of her’s that they worried about, and after a few months having went by, the children had started to worry too. “Is this normal?” the sister asked quietly, watching her father stare out the window of the sitting room, cloaked in a musty blanket, his expression one of strangest awe. “Normal for him,” the brother replied hoarsely, and he meant it. Their father had been with only one woman in his life, and had been with her for over fifty years. He’d doted on her, boasted of her, celebrating her accomplishments more than his own, and had taken immense pride in having been her husband. She too was a kind thing, but more stern—the parent that they’d feared growing up, the backbone of the family. They had known that without her their father would be terribly said and utterly helpless, but what they hadn’t expected was how very detached he would be. For while he was always a bumbling and absent fellow, he had never seemed so empty. He would spend the entirety of his day gazing out the window, watching the seasons change, hardly taking meals and often falling asleep in the rocking chair nearby. At first, they thought it was the photographs. The windowsill had an assortment of them, many of them depicting the loving couple and their family, beautifully framed and arranged with the well taste that only one as sharp and stylish as their mother could have produced. But then they collected the pictures to replace them with holiday decorations, and he made no protest. He continued to stare. “Dad,” his daughter engaged him one day, kneeling at his side. “Hmm?” he replied, not removing his gaze. “What are you looking at?” He turned to her, and his eyes, unlike his sunken face, were alive with energy. “The candle,” he told her. She looked at it. There on the windowsill was indeed a candlestick, a murky yellow thing in an equally unpleasant holder, so unassuming aside from its rancid color that it was hardly noticeable. It was at the far end of the sill, flickering mildly, its reflection in the window like a fleeting light trapped in the glass. “What about it?” she asked him. He turned back to it, and now, she could see that it had been the source of his raptness all along. “Your mother loved candles,” he said. “This one is the last one she ever lit.” His daughter sighed. “Oh dad,” she said, and she hugged him. A few weeks later, however, and her sympathy had waned—a sympathy her brother had never shared. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he said to her, standing in the doorframe of the dining room; he did not bother to whisper anymore, as they had realized quite some time ago then when in front of the candle, their father was impervious to sound. “How long does a candle burn for?” “I don’t know,” his sister replied, giving a shrug. “Probably varies, doesn’t it? Something to do with the size, the wax—” “This is months though,” her brother interjected. “He has to be snuffing it and lighting it again.” “When? He never leaves it. He’s started taking meals there.” “I don’t know. When we leave, maybe? There’s something more to it.” It was a reasonable idea. Following their mother’s death, the siblings had moved into their old home, largely so that they would be able to assist with matters pertaining to their mother’s death—and with the well-being of their father, which they had predicted would be affected. But they were not always present, leaving for long portions of the day, sometimes both of them, and there was concern that with them not there, his strange obsession with the candle could turn more dangerous. And so, they hired a caregiver. She was a nice woman, young, and eager to take the position. They instructed her to try to engage him; their father was old, but able, and should be cooking and cleaning with some assistance, they reasoned. The hiring did not last long. “What happened?” the sister asked, when arriving one day to the sight of a police car parked in front of the house. Her brother was speaking to an officer. He threw up his arms when she approached. “He attacked!” he shouted. “He attacked?” “She said he was getting too close to the candle. She tried blowing it out, and he grabbed at her!” The sister heaved a sigh and looked to the window from the outside. There, through the pane glass, she could see her father, and the candle. He was rather close now, sitting with his head rested on his arms, gazing at it longingly. “Did she mention if he was lighting it?” she asked. “I don’t know!” her brother spat. “Who knows!? Who cares!? It has to go!” “Let’s call the doctor,” she said, waving to the officer, who held up a pad as he opened the door to his vehicle. Behind him, she could see the neighbors in their own windows, half-hidden behind curtains. “It may be a...different problem,” she said, and her brother placed his hands on his hips. He nodded. Dr. Jones was one of the neighbors, and had known their family for a long time—he’d even attended their mother’s funeral. He was a portly man, sweaty, well-mannered but a little too haughty for their taste; he would have to do however, as they weren’t yet sure if their father would react well to strangers at this stage. “Just get a sense doc,” the brother said, taking the good doctor’s coat. He waved a hand in return. “There’s a lot going on I’m sure, grief, old-age, it can all mix,” he assured them. “Sometimes it goes away, sometimes it’s a sign of something else. I just want to talk to him,” he finished, holding out a hand pompously as he moved by the pair of them. The siblings watched from the alcove in the den as the doctor approached their father, who had pulled his rocking chair to the window sill and built something of a fort around himself, numerous blankets cloaked around the arms of the seat. The candle had been slid toward the edge of the shelf, the covers now a nurturing canopy for man and object both. “Do you mind if I sit with you?” Dr. Jones asked, kneeling at their father’s side. Predictably, he did not avert his gaze from the flame. Dr. Jones maneuvered about the room for a moment, then pulled the ottoman over and positioned himself next to the fort. “That’s a lovely candle,” he said, and the siblings exchanged a tense glance. To their shock, their father turned to the doctor, smiling warmly. “Do you see it too?” he whispered. “I think I do,” Dr. Jones replied, “what is it you’re seeing?” They watched as their father slid his eyes over the flame briefly, then returned his attention to his guest. “Look closer,” he said. “She’s dancing.” Dr. Jones inched himself closer. The room suddenly felt very quiet; pensive. He stared at the tiny blaze for a few moments, and it was hard to know from his expression if he was placating, or himself truly enraptured by it. “Dancing, you say?” Their father nodded. Together they continued to look on, and the siblings exchanged another look, this one more of worry. Their father started humming. It was a soft, melodic tune, the kind that you fall asleep to. And yet, his eyes were widened as he produced it. “I see now, oh yes,” said Dr. Jones. “What do you think she is?” he asked, how one would ask a child to describe a picture they’d drawn. The answer was immediate. “An angel,” he replied, and the brother heaved a sigh. Their father heard. He turned sharply, the blankets hiding his face, but his annoyance still clear. Dr. Jones turned with him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Could you give us a moment?” he asked the pair of them. “I’d just like to have a private chat.” The sister spun around at once, tugging at her brother’s arm. They exited the den and retired to the kitchen, waiting until they were in the corner to engage one another. “An angel?” the brother asked. “I can’t do this-” “Just let them talk, let him explain-” He placed his hands on his sister’s shoulders. “He was never going to be able to do this,” he told her firmly. “We have to do right by him, he can’t take care of himself, he’s attacking people, he has to go away-” “Can you wait five minutes for us to hear something before we decide that?” The brother sighed, then peered out the kitchen window. They did not speak for several minutes, until finally, Dr. Jones entered. “Well?” the sister asked, peeking around his thick frame to ensure he hadn’t been followed. “He seems to be all there,” he said. “What?” the brother snapped. “In terms of function,” Dr. Jones added hastily. “He can count, remember, he knows where he is, the date.” “Okay, and the angel?” The doctor flexed his fingers, giving them an uncertain look. “He has developed more than, I would say, a typical fascination with the candle. And an unhealthy one, at that.” “So what do we do?” the sister asked, earnestly. The doctor moved his head consideringly. “You could do a few things. You could try to rip it from him, but that might do more harm than good. You could try going along with it, too.” “Isn’t that we’ve been doing?” the brother groaned. “You’ve been tolerating it,” Dr. Jones replied, holding up a knowing finger. “Not accepting of it. You could let him feel comfortable with it. If he wants to be near it but has to take his meals to it, then let him take the candle to the table. Encourage it.” “And then what?” the sister asked. “Well, it will die,” the doctor answered, “as all candles do.” “This one doesn’t,” the brother stressed. “Believe me, we’ve waited-” “Oh it will,” Dr. Jones assured him, “they all do, but slowly; expectantly. You see it coming. And that might be precisely what he needs,” he said, now waving his fat finger for dramatic effect. The brother heaved a sigh, but shared a look of understanding with his sister. “Okay,” he said after a moment. “We’ll give it a try.” As it turned out, Dr. Jones had been on to something. The next day, the pair of them made a large fuss over wanting to enjoy the candle’s company themselves, but unfortunately, needing to prepare dinner. And so, their father agreed to carry the candle into the kitchen, sitting at the small decorative table excitedly as they bustled around him. He would then bring the candle back to the windowsill where it sat, while they all ate around it, his children doing their very best to speak of how brightly it shined, how nice it was to eat by candlelight. Their father agreed. This became something of a pattern. If they encouraged him to bring the candle somewhere, he would do it, but immediately return to what seemed its home on the shelf, which, the holidays having past, was now empty aside from it. This wasn’t particularly concerning, however; they had set out to improve their father’s general activity, and had been successful on that count. He would take it to every room in the house now, could get dressed while it sat on his bedside table, and even bath while keeping a watchful eye on it from the tub, careful to not let the splashes of his exit douse it. In some ways, however, it seemed that their permissiveness of his behavior may have been reinforcing his attachment. He’d taken to speaking to it at length, praising its luminance, singing to it comfortingly when placing it down on a precarious surface. They would sometimes hear him refer to it as ‘she’, and on more than one occasion, they noticed, they would see him bring his ear dangerously close to the flame, as though interpreting its soft crackling as conversation. One day, his son came home and found the house apparently empty; neither his father nor the candle in sight. “Dad?!” he hollered throughout the house, storming up and down the stairs and checking each room. “Dad!?” Finally, he found him in the basement. “Dad, what are you-” but then he saw. The basement had been entirely repurposed; the dusty boxes and old furniture had been pushed off to the sides. There, in the middle of the room, stood a shrine of sorts, a variety of household objects stacked atop one another; lamps missing their bulbs, mason jars with withered labels, everything from broken television sets to parts from their old bicycles. It had all been combined into a hulking, metal mess, forced together by coat hangers and shoestring, and, predictably, it housed the candle at the very top, lopsided on a seldom used, fancy dinner plate, still, somehow, aflame. His father was busying himself on the other side of it when he entered, apparently trying to hang old carpets around it. “Dad, what are you doing?” he asked him, after recovering from the surprise. “I had to move it,” his father said, not even entering his view. “Why?” “They were trying to steal it.” “Who!?” Finally, his father poked his head out from behind the shrine, his eyes bulging. “Who is it always?” he hissed. “Those hooligans!” The son threw his arms up, at a loss for words. “Wh-who? Kids? From across the street?” His father said nothing, simply returning to his work. He’d managed to drape a carpet around half of the area, suspending it from clotheslines. “Dad, there haven’t been kids on this block for twenty years,” the son continued, now slowly moving himself into view, so that he could see his father’s back. He turned quickly, sensing it somehow, his eyes narrowing shrewdly. “I saw them looking at her in the window,” he said, “they were whispering, plotting. They were going to take her! I had to move her, she’s a delicate thing!” The son buried his face in his hands, exhausted. “Okay,” he started, “this is—no, we’re not doing this. Dad, you know- you know that mom’s...dead, right?” His father widened his eyes in shock. “Well of course she is!” he barked. “She died months ago. Why would you bring that up now!?” The son stared, mouth agape. “Dad-” he started, but then his father started yelling; it was the loudest he’d ever heard him. “This is my house!” he shouted, his frail body contorting; there was a tremor to it now. He pointed a withered finger towards the stairs. “Get out!” he continued. “Go on! Out!” His son left, wordlessly. He spared a glance over his shoulder as went, not at his father, but at the candle, which seemed to have flared in strength at his father’s growls. He gave it a look of revulsion, then left. The next day, he received a call from his sister while he was at work. Her voice was frantic, her words indiscernible. “Slow down,” he said. “What happened?” “The house!” she cried. “The house!” He arrived to the sight of smoke and fire engines. The house was in ruins; blackened and caved within itself, a puddle of brick and wood surrounded by yellow tape. Its structure only partially remained; clearly divisible stories marked by scorched stairs, the outer shape of its top betraying where the attic had once been. This time, it was his sister speaking with the officer. She hugged him when he approached. He didn’t have to ask what had happened, but he had to know something else. “Where is he?” An officer escorted them under the tape and through the wreckage, burned relics of their childhood littering their path. The entrance to the basement was still intact, surrounded by medical officials. One of them, the medical examiner it seemed, waved them through, and together, they descended into what was left of their basement. The examiner was a tall, hard-faced man with a full mustache and beard. He addressed them as they entered. “The most I can say is that I don’t think he felt anything,” they were informed. “It was the smoke that killed him. The fire seems to have…missed him. Can’t explain how.” Sure enough, their father lay there, intact, not the slightest hint of a burn on him. He was curled up on his side, his arms under his head, almost as if he’d positioned himself carefully. If not for the charred wreckage around his body, he would have seemed closer to sleep than death. “Hey, you can’t go touching things just yet-” the examined started, but the brother paid him no mind. Already, he was digging through the debris near his father’s body, throwing twisted coat hangers and patches of carpet over his head- There wasn’t a candle to be found. He sank to his knees, but then, felt a hand on his shoulder. “Look there”, his sister said quietly, pointing at the wall adjacent their father. Together they stared. It was almost entirely covered in soot, but on close inspection, they could see a vague outline. Wide at the edges, narrow in the body, a circular speck at the very top; it was unmistakable. There, wings outstretched and head held high, etched into the very ash, was the imprint of an angel.
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About MeVekin87 is the author of the Albus Potter Series, a 7-book continuation of the J.K Rowling's Harry Potter books. The Things I Write While You're Asleep |
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