Lady, You Don't Need to See

Half-Closed Eyes and Unconscious Death

How am I going to keep Cordelia from finding out? Misty faced the question as she tiptoed up the stairs from the ground floor. Somehow, she had dodged an entire meal without touching Cordelia—and, she assumed, coming off as suspicious, or else Cordelia would have confronted her, wouldn't have she? I ought to just tell her. Misty wasn't good at keeping secrets, and now that she shared Cordelia's bedroom, she doubted she could endure a whole night without telling her, if she could even manage to slip out without Cordelia noticing.

But what was the alternative? Taking Cordelia with them? Queenie wouldn't let that fly. No one had told her what happened to Nan. What if I need to know? Misty knocked twice on the bedroom door. "Misty?" Cordelia called from within. "Come inside."

Misty opened the bedroom door and stepped inside. Cordelia sat in the dark, barely her silhouette visible in the moonlight peeking in through the window. Misty flicked on the lamp to illuminate her. She held a book in her lap, and she had taken off her sunglasses for the day. Her hair, damp from the shower, hung down around her beautiful face with the scarred eyelids and the mutilated irises and pupils flicking toward the source of the sound where Misty closed the door behind her. "How'd you know it was me?"

An index finger pressed to the page of the book. Misty glanced down at it—Braille. Does she read Braille? Already? On the bed beside her, she held a sheet of paper, what looked like a guide, though Misty didn't know what any of the raised dots meant. "Your footsteps. Everyone's sound different."

A quirk appeared between Misty's eyebrows. "What do my footsteps sound like?" She opened the trunk of things she had placed in the corner of Cordelia's room. She didn't own many things; the contents mainly consisted of clothing she had stolen or bartered for while she lived alone, her Fleetwood Mac tapes, and her assortment of keepsakes which she hadn't allowed herself to part with even after death.

Cordelia considered with a hum. Is it a hard question? Misty wondered if she shouldn't have pried. "They're light. The lightest, compared to everyone else's. Even when you wear your boots." She paused a moment. "But you're barefoot now."

Wow. Misty glanced down at her feet. "Yeah. Don't worry—I washed 'em off in the garden before I came inside." Dirt still clung to her leg hair and her ankles, but she wasn't leaving tracks around the house, and that was what mattered to her. "Are you alright? Did you get all dinged up?" Misty's palms and knees and soles were scraped from her hasty scramble up the tree.

"I'm alright."

"I'm sorry. You told me to act like the world was an intersection, and I drove you right into busy traffic."

A dry chuckle left Cordelia's tongue. "Don't be sorry. It was fun... in retrospect, at least." Misty doubted her honesty, but she didn't call her out. "It was the most fun I've had in a long time," Cordelia admitted, and something about the sad tone to her voice dispelled Misty's doubt.

Earnest, Misty perked up, eager to dispel any conviction Cordelia could have had about her level of fun. "I can be fun without getting you stuck in a tree!" Cordelia laughed again. Misty pressed her, "We can do anything you want to do that's safe and doesn't involve tall places."

"You're very sweet, Misty." Something about the words felt like a dismissal, and they stung. "But I don't think I'm fun material anymore. I'm a little old for it, now." Her finger kept tracing over the same line of dots, like she couldn't quite make sense of them. "Are you going to shower?"

You're not old! Misty wanted to insist, but she held her tongue. "If you don't mind."

"No, go ahead. Use whatever you need." Cordelia opened her hand to the bathroom attached to her bedroom. I wasn't planning on using your shower. Since she had the invitation, Misty opted not to object. She ducked her head and gave Cordelia a word of thanks. More time to figure out how she won't find out what we're doing.