Perception

IX

At some point she'd have to talk to Sarah, she knew that. But she also knew that that conversation would go an awful lot better if she had to some sort of idea what to say, first of all. So even though part of her would have loved to blurt it all out, would have loved to get Sarah's take on it, she'd avoided all of Sarah's inquisitive faces and had sat through the next lectures like the sane person she wasn't so sure she was anymore.
But then of course the one unignorable fact remained: if she wasn't sane, and that was why she was seeing things, why had Susan really been pregnant?

So she'd kept her tongue, she had promised Sarah she'd fill her in on everything tomorrow and now she was finally on the ferry, the mild september breeze blowing her hair around her shoulders.
Everything she'd managed to keep contained all throughout the day came crashing back to her now, like a destructive tidal wave rolling to a pristine beach, and she scrunched her eyes shut tight to keep it all together. She was almost home. She could hang on that long.
She was the first one off the ferry the second it docked and she walked home like she was entering an Olympic speedwalking event, her relief as she got to the door so thick that she wouldn't have been surprised if it were visible from the outside world.
She fumbled in her pocket to find her key and then she opened the door with shaking fingers. She would just casually say hello to mrs. P and run upstairs, close the door behind her and finally, finally be alone to make sense of all of this.

But nothing in the world could have prepared her for her landlady's reaction. Because Mrs. Peterson stood in the door opening to her kitchen, the bowl of flowers she had been holding shattering to the floor in a thousand pieces as her face turned deathly pale and her mouth opened wide. Anna stood nailed to the floor and stared at her, unable to comprehend what was happening.
"Oh, no! Oh, my child..." Mrs. P managed in a hoarse voice, lurching forward to take Anna by the arm and pull her into the little living room with its French doors opened to the september sun. "It happened, and nobody prepared you. Here, sit."
Anna sat obediently, but she felt like she couldn't breathe.
"What?" she whispered then. "Mrs. P, how..."

Her landlady held up her hand to silence her and quickly walked to her antique oak dresser, opening one of the ornately carved drawers with its beautiful patina. She took out a small wooden box from the drawer with great reverence and carried it back to the table in both hands.
"My child." she said in a tone so weighted that Anna automatically sat up straight. "I'm sorry, I don't know much. But I do know that I have to give you this."
She handed the small dark box over to Anna. It was beautiful, she could help but notice that even with her head in shambles. The ebony wood was stunningly carved and inlayed with tiny pieces of mother of pearl. She looked up at Mrs. P. questioningly before opening the lid, taking her encouraging eyes as incentive.
The wood was soft and warm to the touch, and the lid clicked softly open to reveal a beaded necklace of precious stones lying on the softest pale pink silk.
It was undeniably gorgeous, its beads big and round, the turquoise offset by the amethyst, the amber, the rose. But it was what it made her feel that overwhelmed her more than anything.

"It will protect you." Mrs. P's voice came, that new tone with its inherent strength still evident. "It's been here, waiting for you."