Remnants VI: Revelations

Remnants VI: Revelations

For My Sanity: I don't own Harry Potter, Dear Dumb Diary, Dork Diaries, any of the Fairy Tales mentioned, and I especially don't own Twilight. I also don't own Staples Business Depot. Any opinions expressed in the following part are sorely those of my characters, whom I do own, and any resemblance to any of the authoresses opinions may or may not be coincidental. I make no profit from the books mentioned in this part, or from mentioning Staples. That was easy. Enjoy!

Hand in hand the two girls walked in relative silence out of the parking lot and into Restaurant Square, as it was so aptly named. Both were mulling over their encounter with Derrick as they headed towards a small orange brick cafe. The front porch was of decent size, and half filled with hungry patrons. The low hum of jazz music laced with the sounds of cutlery scratching the plates, glasses clinking and the murmur of people chatting as they ate made for a very friendly atmosphere.

"Hi there and welcome to Saucer’s! How's it going?" The hostess asked, watching the two girls approach the stand outside the doors.

"Oh, just peachy," Stated Danica, a forced smile on her face. "Table for two, please."

"Inside or out?"

Danica glanced at Claire.

“Can we sit outside?” She asked.

“Of course.” Danica turned her attention to the hostess. “You heard the lady,” she said, smiling.

"I sure did. Outside it is!” The hostess laughed, and looked at Claire. "Would you like a kids menu?" she asked.

Claire nodded and watched the hostess grab a long black menu and a piece of paper about the size of a place mat, along with some crayons. They weaved through the small crowd enjoying one of those rare, warm October days on the porch of the cafe and were shown to a small table towards the side of the porch, slightly secluded from the other customers.

“There you go! We have a special Chef’s Soup today,” the hostess began, listing the specials as she was trained to do. Danica listened intently; Claire—realizing that she didn’t really need to listen—grabbed a crayon and started to colour in a picture of a tea cup named Saucer.

Done with the specials, the hostess assured them that their waitress would be there shortly and departed to seat the next guests. Murmuring a "thank you", Danica went back to staring blankly at the menu. Currently her thoughts were on how infuriating Derrick was and why exactly it was he kept trying to remind her of the one night she so desperately wanted to forget.

"I like that Derrick guy," said Claire, as she coloured the teacup's eyes a vivid blue. "He's funny. But I think he cheated," she murmured, turning her attention to the smiling brownie asking her to help find Saucer's way to the grumpy Kettle.

Danica looked at Claire curiously. "He cheated? How?" she asked.

Claire, attempting to make the grumpy kettle happy, shrugged. "I dunno for sure, but I was counting the questions we each asked and I think he went over the four he was supposed to ask cause I asked a bunch first. And he never answered my questions either. He’s still funny, I think. Even though he cheated,” she stated, giving up on Grumpy Kettle and connecting the dots on Tammy the Teapot.

Danica smiled. Funny indeed, she thought sarcastically, turning her thoughts away from Derrick (his ego would explode if he knew how preoccupied with him she currently was) and towards which sandwich sounded better. Finally choosing Saucer’s Grilled Ham and Cheese Sandwich, Danica decided that it had been a very productive morning. Claire now had a decent amount of clothes that fit her properly (and left room for her to grow into) and she seemed to be doing so much better than yesterday when she first came to the door.

Had it really only been yesterday? Danica wondered, giving the red-headed waitress who had finally appeared her order and asking for a cold, tall Pepsi. The girl nodded, asking Claire next.

"Hmmmmmmm...I think I'm going to have...chicken fingers. With French fries," Claire said, colouring Tammy a bright yellow.

"And to drink?" the waitress asked, as the resounding snap of the yellow crayon breaking on Tammy's handle reached their ears.

"Apple juice, please. And a new yellow crayon. The evil teapot broke mines," Claire said, glaring at the teapot.

Laughing, the waitress promised to be right back with the crayon and drinks, assuring them that the meal would be ready as soon as possible. Danica picked up her napkin, closely watching Claire. A section on the kids menu was blank, except for the colourful font on top saying:

Challenge yourself! Saucer loves his sister, Tootsie the Teacup. Who do you love? Who are you fond of? Draw us a picture, right here!

What interested Danica about this were the figures Claire was drawing. A relatively tall obviously female stick figure with disproportionate arms was at the top. She had black lines—Danica assumed that was hair—and two big violet spots—eyes, the brunette corrected herself—on the round circle that served as the smiling face. There were other stick figures, too: a tall one with brown curled hair, a stick man with brown hair all over the place, an older looking stick man with three straight lines for hair and glasses, another female stick figure with grey hair and streaks of black in it, and her personal favourite, the stick figure with a big smile and a big brown ponytail with a white bow on top.

As Danica observed Claire's drawings, Claire looked up. Putting her crayon down, she looked at Danica like a lawyer would look at a client and said, "Yeeeeesssssss?"

"What're you drawing?" she asked.

"People."

"Well, I can see that. I mean, who are you drawing? Here, have some of the bread, it's tasty," Danica replied, as the smiling waitress brought them warm bread and butter, plus a new yellow crayon. Happily, Claire ate the bread and used the new yellow crayon to get her revenge on the evil teapot. After munching for a few minutes, Claire looked up at Danica's curious gaze.

"Well, it’s not done yet, but I’ll tell you anyways. This one here with the bow is Fran, cuz she's a nice lady. And these two here with grey hair, except for the one here with the black in it, cuz I guess she isn't old, are your Mommy and Daddy. What do I call them?" Claire asked slash stated, all in one breathe.

Danica shrugged. "They are your great aunt and uncle, even though they're only in their fifties, so I guess you can call them Aunt and Uncle, even after you're legally adopted," Danica replied, buttering her bread and wondering why Claire drew Fran of all people.

She paused for a minute, mulling the titles over. “Aunt and Uncle. Okay. This here is Chrissie, cuz I think she had pretty hair, and this guy here is Derrick, cuz he's funny even though he cheated. This one here with the funny hat is the nanny that took care of me when my Momma got sick—" Claire cut herself off abruptly, realizing what she had just said. She quieted down, staring at the stick figure with the purple eyes and the black hair gloomily.

"And this one here is my Momma," she said, quietly, a tear running down her cheek. Awkwardly, Danica looked at the little girl. She bit her lip, thinking for a moment before placing down her knife and bread and gently taking the little girl’s hand.

“If you need to cry Claire, cry. It’s alright to be sad. It doesn’t make you weak or anything, you’re only human and you’ve been through so much. I think, before we can start putting together all those pieces of yours, you need to let it all out. You know what I mean?”

"I guess,” she sniffled. “I-I know it's okay to be sad, but it's hard cuz then when I went to live with my father, it was never like that."

“He sounds like an awful person and not fun to be around at all. Tell me about it all, Claire.”

"I could only cry when he wasn't looking or out, cuz he was a meanie and said that my crying scared his friends. Who were all girls who didn't like to wear warm clothes," Claire said as the tears ran freely down her cheeks. Danica got up from the table and scotched to Claire’s side, embracing her.

Happily, Claire accepted the warm hug and cried quietly for a bit. And as she sat there, crying into Danica’s sweater, Claire realized something.

She was perfectly free to cry. It was good for her. It helped.

In fact, she could feel anything, be as loud as she wanted to—and she accepted that. Claire realized that this girl in front of her, and her parents—people who had only just entered her life—would always be there for her, would accept her any which way no matter what.

Claire realized that maybe it was finally for sure going to be okay.

Her tears slowed, her shaking subsiding. Once she knew her cousin was feeling better for sure, Danica handed Claire a tissue to wipe her eyes and blow her nose.

“Alright?”

Claire nodded, giving Danica the used tissue. “Alright.”

“Good,” Danica said, sitting back down.

“Now I gotta finish my drawing. Hold on,” Claire said, picking up the crayon once more. Several minutes passed, Danica watching her cousin intently, when finally the crayon went down.

“It's all finished now! Look here, Danica, this one with the black hair that's everywhere is Duncan, he's a cute-ish boy I met at Fran's shop, and he had really blue eyes, they were too blue and he mentioned school too, and this one's my favourite here, it's you, see the curly-ish brown hair?"

“The resemblance is uncanny,” Danica said, smiling.

“That’s a funny word,” Claire commented. “Uncanny…”

Laughing as their drinks came, Danica and Claire had a lovely little lunch. Claire happily munched her fries and sipped her apple juice, prattling on about all her thoughts and feelings. Whenever she brought up Derrick, Danica nimbly avoided the question and switched the subject. They talked about school, how far she'd walk, and Danica gave Claire a bunch of information on her parents.

"So, Uncle is a lawyer?"

"Yup. He's a pretty good one too, but he has a bad sense of humour. Bad in a good way, if that makes any sense. Badly timed, I think," Danica said, sipping her after lunch coffee and going through the dessert menu.

"OH! Chocolate cake!" Claire yelled loudly, excitedly clapping her hands in her seat. Danica laughed, grinning as she recalled the moments like this back when she was Claire's age.

Claire demanded chocolate cake from the waitress, who was more than happy to oblige. As they waited for the chocolate cake, Claire slurping her apple juice, Danica continued talking about her parents.

"Your Aunt is a baker. She runs her own nice little bakery not too far from here, actually. She recently cut her work week in half but trust me, that hasn’t been going well at all. She loves it too much to stay away.”

"Is that why her chocolate cake was so yummy?"

"Of course. She loves baking, and boy can she bake."

The dessert arrived, and a moment of silence passed as the two females ate the large piece of chocolate cake in front of them.

"What do you do?" Claire asked suddenly, her mouth full of chocolate.

"Pardon?"

“Auntie makes cakes and Uncle does lawyer things, right? So what do you do?”

“Well, right now I’m a waitress at one of the chain restaurants in town. I’m not really sure what I want to do just yet, so I’ve been saving up to take some courses on stuff that interests me. Then I guess I’ll see from there,” Danica said, shrugging.

“I’ll make ideas for you if you want,” Claire said. The cake had been nearly demolished and now both girls battled for the last piece.

“Thanks you,” Danica said, her fork defeated as Claire popped the last piece into her mouth and smiled. They got the bill and headed out, Danica running through her mental list once more.

“Where are we going now?”

“Off to Splendora’s for some books now, I think. Then we’ll find you some school supplies—a backpack, binder, pencil case…that sort of thing. Not a lot though, because we’re not sure what you’ll need yet. Sound good to you?”

Claire nodded.

The tinkling of a shop bell welcomed the young girl and adult into the store. Although it was more of a very cozy living room, as anyone who walked into Splendora's thought. Weathered wooden shelves lined the walls. A gas fireplace warmed up the tidy shop and people of all ages sat, reading books. Cozy chairs were scattered everywhere—around the fireplace, in between shelves and in corners, offering their comfort to the readers and tired shoppers.

A tall woman behind the weathered wooden counter leafed through a book, smiling as she watched the people mill about the stacks upon stacks of books. Every so often she glanced towards a reading corner, where two girls of identical age read to a group of small children.

"That's Dora," Danica murmured, gesturing to the woman behind the counter. "C'mon, let's go say hi."

Looking up at the sound of the footsteps approaching the counter, Splendora smiled when she saw who it was.

"Danica! How's it going?"

"Hey Dora. Same old, same old. How about you? It looks like you're pretty busy," Danica responded.

With a cheery laugh, Dora looked around her shop. “Business is booming! Now that I’ve introduced the loan program and expanded upstairs it’s gotten pretty busy! My girls have had to step in for weekends, helping out around the shop. They’re on reading corner duty today. And is this the infamous Claire I’ve been hearing about?”

"How'd you know?" Danica asked, Claire ceasing her observation of the shop to stare at the motherly woman curiously.

“Fran called and gave me the whole story. Well, in a Fran way of course.”

“Of course,” Danica said, smiling nonetheless. “Claire arrived yesterday and I thought it would be nice to pick up some books for her. The Victorian style of our house reminded her of a castle.”

“Ou! A fairytale shop then?”

“Mostly.”

"Splendid!" Dora said, coming around the counter and turning her attention to Claire. "Tell me dear, how old are you?" She asked, a large smile gracing her warm face.

"Ten. I turn eleven next month."

"My girls are eleven and twelve! How lovely! I’ll have to introduce you later! Now then, you must know the classics," Dora said, leading them into a cozy middle aisle. Danica gave Claire a little shove, urging her to follow Dora. She stopped at a shelf in the middle of the aisle, and immediately pulled out several books. A small, thick volume found its way into Claire's small hands.

"This book is filled with the happy ending fairy tales you've probably read about before," Dora started. "The ones about princesses, like Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Snow White, the Little Mermaid—any princess story you could think of!" She pulled down a small blue book from the very top shelf. "This one is filled with the lesser known fables, like Puss in Boots, Snow White and Rose Red, and some others that are really cute." A few more books made their way off the shelf, each fairy tale sounding more and more alluring to Claire.

When there was a small stack of them in her hands, Dora smiled. "There we go, look through those. I'm going to quickly grab some other books you might like reading." And, with a smile, she turned into an aisle labelled young fiction. Claire looked at the books in her hands.

"Go with that one, the big red one there," a voice said from behind Claire. "It's got a lot of tales."

"They aren't very happy, though," Another voice said, from Claire's left. Looking up, she noticed the two girls who had been reading in the corner with the younger children earlier.

"Oh! Didn't introduce ourselves, I'm sorry!" The first one said. "I'm Ariana Rivers," The short brunette smiled, her sparkling blue eyes peering out from beneath the bangs of her short, wavy hair. She sat beside Claire, and shook her hand. "And this is my sister, Amber." The slightly taller girl waved, plopping down on Claire's left. Her black hair was half up in a little side ponytail, the rest of her medium length hair down. She smiled shyly, her green eyes sparkling.

"You'll hafta excuse Ari. She can be super blunt sometimes and more than a little loud.”

“I’m not that loud!” Ariana said, loudly of course.

Laughing, Claire smiled at the siblings. "I'm Claire. I'm new around here."

“Well, welcome to Swan Valley!” Amber said, spreading the books out around them and carefully observing them.

"This one is good, all the exotic fairy tales that take place in Arabian cities, The Caribbean…” Ariana trailed off, pushing the blue book towards Claire.

Grimacing, Amber tossed a light pink book back on the shelf. "That one was way too corny," she said as she put the books her sister had already approved in one pile, and the rejects in another. "Our mom tends to be very enthusiastic when it comes to books," Amber stated.

"And so it's our job to make sure she doesn't send people away with too much for them to handle," Ariana said, putting the rejects back on the shelves.

Claire tilted her head and looked at Amber. "I didn't know that Dora was your mommy," she said.

"We get that a lot," Ari said.

"But we haven't called her 'mommy' in ages," Amber replied.

"I have!"

Amber snickered as Dora turned the corner with a large pile of books in her hands.

"See?" Amber said to Claire, as Splendora, like her daughters, plopped down in front of Claire dropping the books. "Okay, so these are...oh! I see you've met my daughters!" she said, joining the girls on the floor. Nodding, Claire turned towards the newest book pile, pushing her small pile of fairy tales towards Danica. Having gotten hooked on the book, she had sunk into the nearest plush chair, abandoning her purse beside her.

"Oh! The Dear Dumb Diary series, those are hilarious!" Ariana said, picking up one of the paperbacks and flipping through it.

"You can read them all really fast though, so loaning them out would really be better probably.”

"But you'll want to read them over and over again, cause they're really funny."

“She can renew them, you know.”

Ariana shrugged, "I guess so. But here Claire, take the first two, just in case!"

Claire grabbed the books from Ariana, and placed them in the yes pile to her right.

Dora picked up a hardcover pink book. “This is the Dork Diaries series,” she began. “They’re similar to the Dumb Diary ones—”

“No they’re not,” Amber stated.

“They’re not? How?" Claire asked, Dora giving her kids a strange look.

“Well this one is infinitely more girly than Dumb Diaries. And at times it is a lot more clichéd than you’d think.”

"I like them, but I didn’t like the stereotypical characters in it. I mean really, there aren't any girls as mean as Mackenzie is in that book!" Ariana interrupted, shoving the series to the side. "At least, not in Swan Valley. The drawings are cute though and the main character is pretty interesting. Maybe you should loan it?” She said, glancing at her mother and sister.

“Yeah, loan it out. Maybe you’ll like it more than we did.” Amber shrugged.

“Well then, since we have our experts with us, let’s look at these other books I think you’ll like, shall we?” Dora asked. Claire nodded, pushing the yes pile beside Danica’s chair.

The next half hour passed with Splendora offering up book titles, either Ariana or Amber putting in their two cents and eventually sorting the books into piles. When the rejected pile, loan pile and the read it or else pile were of equal height, Claire stopped the trio from adding more books to the pile.

"Are you sure it's enough? Dora asked, as Claire picked up the books and held them in her arms.

“I’m positive,” She replied, turning towards her cousin. "Danica...Danica! Let's go, I got all the books I need!"

"Oh...Okay...whoa! That is a big pile," she said, closing her book. Happily nodding, Amber appeared beside her, with seven books in a boxed set.

"You have to take these books," Amber said, taking the boxed set from her sister and putting it at the top of Claire's pile.

"The Harry Potter series," Ariana said. "One of the greatest works of art ever written, you'll love it!"

"We both loved them, and we've seen every movie so far," Amber said, as they walked with Claire and Danica to the counter. “Once you read them you gotta come over one day, we can sort you into a house and watch the movies and compare them to each other and it’ll be great!”

Claire smiled behind the stack of books she held. Behind the counter, Dora started to ring up the titles. Danica still had the novel she was reading in her hand. She tossed it into the pile.

"Twilight? You still haven't read it?" Dora asked.

"...Not yet. But I'll start now, I guess," Danica said smiling. Amber and Ariana grimaced at the book title. At Claire's questioning look, Ariana told her, "It was an okay book. But there were so many flaws!"

"And don't even get us started on how every character is more interesting than the main character."

"We could talk about it all night," Ariana finished.

"Here're your books, Claire! I gave you and your cousin a discount," Dora said, winking.

"Thank you," Danica said, smiling gratefully.

“And this is your special card for the books you’re loaning out,” Dora added, giving a white plastic card to Claire. “I don’t quite have a name for it yet, unfortunately.”

“I’m sure you’ll think of one,” Danica said, smiling. “We best be off! Still have a few things to do before we head home.”

“Nice to see you Danica. Take care! Send your family my regards!”

"Bye Claire!"

"See you at school this week!"

"School, that's right. You'll most likely be starting this week," Danica mumbled, as she pulled into the local Staples. "Mom and Dad are going to try to register you today. Since we haven’t adopted you as of yet we’re not sure how registration will work out. Bunch of legal stuff and what have you. Better safe than sorry though; we'll run in and pick out some necessities. Backpack, lunchbox, pencil case, a binder..."

Claire didn't say anything. She was exhausted, and thinking of school made her even more tired. She was quiet as they picked out the necessities, as her cousin had said. By the time they checked out and hopped into the car it didn’t take long for Claire to nod off and fall asleep.

Without Claire’s chatter to keep her occupied, Danica found her thoughts drifting into what she called the red zone—which today was mostly dominated by Derrick Swan. The man was so infuriating and Danica was still trying to recover from the embarrassing story he had almost told her cousin. She thought of the night it happened, heat rising in her face. Preoccupied in the red zone, Danica only noticed the exit to Swan Valley as they zoomed past it.

“For the love of…” Danica began loudly, stopping mid-sentence once she remembered Claire was in the car with her and asleep. She cautioned a glance over at her cousin, hoping she hadn’t woken up—but she had.

“Whas wrong?” The girl asked groggily.

“Hey sleepy head. I may have missed our exit.”

“Is that bad?”

“A little bit. I’ll have to get off at the next exit.”

“Is it close?”

“Not really…it’s the exit for Swim City,” Danica grimaced.

Claire grew quiet, watching with wide eyes for the exit. As it approached and they took the off ramp, she stared around. People were milling about; there were one or two cars at the lights.

“Shouldn’t it be all empty?” Claire asked.

“It’s still kind of a ghost town. I guess the cleanup and decontamination efforts have been going well.”

“De-con-tam-nation?”

“De-con-tam-in-nation. It means getting rid of germs and stuff. This place gives me the creeps big time.”

“It was even worse when…”

Claire never finished her thought. It made her too sad to say out loud. Instead, she was quiet as they got back on the highway and headed home—Danica making sure she didn’t miss the exit this time.

Walking past the on ramp to the nicer cities, Melthore paid no heed to the van turning onto the highway. He didn't blame them. In fact, if his licence hadn't been taken away years ago, instead of taking the bus (like he did today) he too would've been driving out of Swim City like a madman.

Scott’s call had defiantly been beneficial, if it were to bring him to this shitty city. Melthore smirked to himself as he walked into the bank, gaining confidence with each stride. He had even cleaned up for the occasion—he wore one of his good shirts and a tie, too. He was pretty proud of himself today. He walked up to the front desk, looking at the woman behind it. Through the foggy haze that was his mind at the specific moment, Melthore could've sworn he'd slept with her before. Trying to steady himself through his sudden dizzy spell, he leaned on the desk and smiled at the woman.

"And how may I help you today, sir?"

"Hello. My name is Melthore Aerovl, and my daughter has been left a large amount of money by her mother, Sophia Evans. If I am not mistaken, it is a massive fortune," he stated, trying to be as suave and smart—like as possible, his head hurting from attempting to remember his long ago love’s last name.

The lady at the desk had heard about the little heiress. At that week's meeting, they had been given specific instructions in regards to the girl's account.

"Yes, I am aware of the situation. Now how would it concern you, Mr. Aerovl?" She asked, icily.

"Well, I would like to make a withdrawal from the account, seeing as how I am her legal guardian and—"

"No you aren't," the woman cut him off, wiping the cocky grin off his face.

"What?"

"You have officially been unregistered as her legal guardian. Control of her affairs now rest with the SVSS.” Before he could say anything, the woman continued. "As per their instructions the account is frozen until Miss Aerovl is adopted, or—to keep with our bank’s standards—comes of age or is physically giving her consent to family and is with them in person. You cannot under any circumstances access the account." She said, with an air of finality.

Melthore felt a surge of boiling hot rage ignite inside him.

"Good day, sir." She said, gesturing to the next person in line. Furious, Melthore turned on his heel and stormed out of the bank, a scowl etched onto his face. His plan had crashed and burnt faster than he ever would have thought it.