Chapter 2

Mona’s uneasiness grew throughout the day. She had never been any good at adjusting to change, plus she knew that when nighttime came, she wouldn’t be able to keep her fear under control as effectively as she did during the day. She was uneasy because she dreaded the night, but she was also a little uneasy because she kept catching David staring at her. He looked confused, puzzled, and a little bewildered. He also looked uncomfortable, and she felt bad for him, but he was making her feel like a new species of puppy-sized elephant that he had let into his home and an act that he was now regretting.
After they unpacked they went on a tour of the house, and then the yard. Annalise asked her about what books she liked and all about her love of music. Mona liked Annalise, because she had just the right amount of motherliness in her and also she treated Mona like an equal. Mona even surprised herself a little by doing quite a bit of talking, but David hardly said anything at all, and, Mona noticed, that whenever she stated a particularly contradictory opinion, he disagreed. All her would say was tat he disagreed and he wouldn’t say why. Mona didn’t pursue argument, though, because she wasn’t sure what she thought of him.
He looked the part of a Seminary teacher, but Mona couldn’t quite find the openness and optimism or the easygoing ness that Seminary teachers generally had. She also observed that every time Annalise found something that Mona said, funny or interesting, he would look at his wife a little puzzled as well, as if he couldn’t understand why Annalise found it so easy to understand Mona. This made Mona a little angry. She didn’t like it when people thought of her as weird just because they didn’t understand her. She was weird, and she was the first person to admit that, but when people just labeled her that out of lack of understanding, she felt like she had been cheated out of a fair trial.
For dinner, they had chicken salad, which Mona thoroughly enjoyed. Also, David seemed a little happier, when he got some food to eat. After dinner, they sat down and watched TV. Mona regained some liking for David after he chose a science show to watch. They agreed that TV stations would make just as much profit on commercials if they put the commercials at the bottom edge of the screen and had them running constantly throughout the program. Of course the commercials would be silent and the moving images at the bottom would be distracting, but you could always cover them with sticky notes or something.
At about 9:30 both David and Annalise stood up and David turned off the TV. Mona stood also, but slowly and followed them as they headed upstairs. They were halfway down the hallway when David stopped and turned around.
“Prayer and scriptures…. I guess we should have those…” He said, almost as a random thought. He turned again and led the way through the bedroom door. Annalise and Mona sat on the bed while David grabbed his scriptures off of one of the dressers that stood in one corner. There was a doorway on one end of the room that was closed, the bed was in the middle, and two dressers sat in the other corner.
David opened his scriptures to a random page, which surprised Mona because most of the Seminary teachers she’d had really hated it when kids did that.
“D&C 54:” He said, his persona shifting into teacher mode. “I remember the lesson about this. It’s about patterns and that if we have a pattern, it prevents us from making mistakes. He read a few verses to prove his point, showing Mona and Annalise the marks in his scriptures that were probably supposed to mean something. Then, he used sewing with a pattern as an example.
“What if you get lucky and make the shirt perfectly without a pattern?” Mona asked jokingly and Annalise laughed, but David frowned.
“You can’t.” He said, skeptically, closing his scriptures.
“What if you are amazing? Or what if you make the shirt better than the original?” Mona said. She knew that she was being a bit ridiculous and probably annoying, but she didn’t like imperfect metaphors.
“That doesn’t matter.” David was peeved, and Mona could tell, “We’re applying the principle. You can’t improve on God’s pattern, he’s perfect and no one can be perfect by accident.” Mona looked at him for several seconds. She didn’t show any sign of emotion.
“I thought we were talking about shirts.” She said quietly.
“Okay,” Annalise said, “I’ll say prayer if you want.” She didn’t wait for anyone to say anything before praying. Then, she told Mona goodnight. David did so too, albeit a little grudgingly, and Mona closed the door behind her as she exited. Determined to not let her fear overpower her, she went across the hall and closed her bedroom door. She ignored her fear as she put on some sweats that she used as pajamas.
She switched off the lights and waited for her eyes to adjust. Moonlight came through the windows. Mona said her prayers out of habit, mostly and then slipped beneath the covers. She lay stock still on her back, her body rigid as she held back her fear. She took deep breaths and closed her eyes.
* * *
David’s eyes opened as the bed moved slightly. In the moonlight coming from the window, he could see Annalise sitting upright.
“What? What’s going on?” He whispered, but she put her finger to her lips. David shut his mouth and slowly sat up, confused. She stayed still, as if she was listening for something. He listened as well, and then heard what she had. It sounded like moaning and rustling, but really hard to hear. David blamed it on the source of the sound being outside of the room and it being the middle of the night. Annalise slipped out from underneath the blankets and headed for the door.
David had to scramble to catch up with her. One of the things that he loved about her was that she often left him behind in the dust, while she was taking charge of a situation. She had reached the door and stopped to listen again. When David got there she had located the origin of the sound. It was coming from the room across the hall. She moved slowly to the door and opened it. The sound got louder as she opened the door and slipped inside. Before going in after her, David switched on the light in the hallway so that he didn’t trip over something. Inside the room was still dark, but David could see that Mona had twisted and rolled so much that her covers had been turned nearly sideways and she was lying from corner to corner on the bed. The pillow had fallen onto the floor. Mona was wrapped in the blankets so tightly that her arms were trapped at her sides. She was struggling and sobbing. David moved closer and realized that she was still asleep.
Annalise went directly to the bedside and put her hands on Mona’s shoulders. As soon as she felt Annalise’s hands, Mona’s body went limp. As gently as she could manage, Annalise unwrapped the girl from the blankets and laid her straight on the bed. David thought that the girl looked even more sullen with her eyes closed and without her glasses on. He retrieved the pillow from the floor and handed it to Annalise, who put it underneath Mona’s head. As soon as Annalise put the covers up to Mona’s chin, she curled up into the fetal position and ducked her head in between her shoulders.
She was shaking and tears still leaked from her eyes, which were squinted closed very tightly. David looked away because he couldn’t handle how vulnerable the girl looked while she was asleep as opposed to her emotionless persona while she was awake. He felt kind of bad for thinking of her as so different and strange. The girl’s family had just died and it wasn’t fair of him to think that she didn’t feel anything about it. He should be more kind and sympathetic. He didn’t think he should be more openly sympathetic, though, because the girl wasn’t openly beat up about it; just a little more kind to make it easier for her. But then he wasn’t sure if she would find it insulting for him to be nice to her just because something terrible had happened to her. She seemed like the kind of person who would more appreciate honesty than empathy. She’d rather people be true to themselves then be nice to her because they felt bad for her.
Annalise stood up and went to stand next to him. He looked at her and said,
“Wow, must have been some intense dream.”
“Yeah,” She said nudging him gently out the door and closing it behind her. “I’ve never seen anyone move around so much in their sleep.” They walked slowly back to their bedroom, David turning off the hallway light on his way.
“I don’t know. Do you think we should ask her about it tomorrow morning?” David asked. Annalise shrugged.
“I don’t know, you’d have to be sneaky about it. Start a conversation about dreams and see if she says anything.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
* * *
Mona lie awake watching the sunrise out of her window. She had woken up almost an hour before with sweat dripping off of her face, her hair a little wet around her scalp. She had thrown her blankets off immediately because she felt like she was burning up. She was still trembling from the horrible dream that she’d had.
It started out weird enough, with a huge field of grass and butterflies. The edges of the dream even felt kind of fuzzy like in some movies when they’re having a flashback or dreaming. She felt like she should be happy but she wasn’t really sure why she felt afraid. She turned, half expecting someone to come running toward her in slow motion, and was surprised when she did see someone approaching her, but not slowly. It was almost just a shadow, and it sped past her several times as she turned, trying to catch a glimpse.
Then it came straight at her. She was debating whether to step back or to the side, but it stopped right in front of her face. It was just a solid black mass, with no definite shape. Mona reached out and poked it, but, of course her hand went through and when she pulled it out it was covered in black, like she’d stuck her hand in ink. She tried shaking it off, but it just began to spread. Mona knew what happened next. The black would climb up her arm while she desperately tried to remove the stuff, so she held perfectly still, watching in fascinated horror as hit slowly crept up her arm.
It was cold and as it spread it also spread the cold. She didn’t like it, but for some reason, she couldn’t shiver. Then, she saw the blackness reach the tip of her nose. She cringed and closed her eyes for only a second, but when she opened them again, the edges of her vision had begun to turn black. She discovered that her whole body was paralyzed, when she tried to lift her hands and rub away the darkness. She closed her eyes hard and then opened them.
She had woken up, gasping for air. She considered checking her arms to make sure that they weren’t inky, but she didn’t want to move. She lie there for another half an hour, watched the sunrise, and then waited for another hour before she heard someone getting up and going down stairs. She got out of bed and put on her glasses and jacket. She hesitated at her door, because she wasn’t sure if the morning was their special quiet time or something like that, but she didn’t want to lie in bed any more.
She walked down the stairs and at the bottom turned into the opening that led to the dining room. She stopped at the opening that led to the kitchen. David was leaning against the counter watching out through the window, holding a glass of what looked like orange juice in his hand. He glanced over at her and then continued to look out the window.
“Orange juice?” he asked holding up the carton, which had been sitting on the counter on the other side of him.
“Sure.” Mona said, her voice husky, as it always was in the morning. David reached up and got a glass from the cupboard next to the window and poured her a glass. She accepted it and then stood next to him, but leaned with the counter against her back, instead of looking out the window. There was a period of silence as they drank their juice.
“Couldn’t sleep either?” He asked still staring out the window. Mona looked at the fridge, her eyes a little unfocused.
“Yeah.” David looked over at her.
“Did you have bad dreams last night or something?”
“I don’t really remember.” She said, truthfully, because her dream had faded so that she barely remembered that she had dreamt. “Why do you ask?”
“Just… Wondering….” He said evasively and turned away rather quickly. He looked embarrassed for asking, which made Mona suspicious. Her parents had asked her similar questions whenever she’d been screaming in her sleep or making other such noises. Mona’s face went red.
“Did I…” her voice was quiet, “Did I do anything weird in my sleep?” David glanced back, his face also red.
“Well, if you count spinning all of your bedding completely and then getting tangled in it, weird, then… yes. You sounded like you were having a pretty intense dream.” Mona cringed.
“How embarrassing.” She said to herself. They sat in silence again, until Annalise dragged herself into the kitchen.
“You guys are insane.” She said, tiredly. “It’s barely seven and you guys are already up, bright eyed and bushy tailed.”
“Which doesn’t make sense,” Mona said, philosophically. “because a bunny’s tail isn’t different degrees of bushiness depending on the hour, nor are its eyes any brighter. It would all depend on the lighting and the angle at which you were viewing its eyes.” She took a sip of orange juice.
“No, because if a bunny is tired, then his tail will be drooping and he’d be looking down so his eyes wouldn’t be in as much light.” David said, turning from the window.
“What? A bunny’s tail is stumpy, it can’t droop; and why is the bunny a boy?”
“Ugh. Not this early, please, you tow.” Annalise groaned. She walked to the cupboard and withdrew various boxes of cereal and grabbed a gallon of milk from the refrigerator. Mona followed her into the dining room and David followed with bowls and spoons. They all sat down and proceeded to eat breakfast.
“So,” David said, swallowing a bite of Raisin Bran. “school registration is in a week…” He took another bite. Mona sat, looking at her cereal.
“Isn’t Monday?” She asked. That day she had left home was a Saturday. She couldn’t believe that yesterday had been Sunday and she hadn’t remembered. They hadn’t gone to church because she was there.
“Yeah. Registration is next Monday and then school starts the Monday after that.” Annalise said. There was another silence.
So, I was thinking that we could go to the library today.” David said looking at Annalise. “And I still need a good picture of a bookshelf. Darn, I’ll have to remember to do that some time this week.” He drifted off…
“Picture?” Mona questioned curiously.
“Yes, I’m a painter. I… paint.” David said. “I’m going to paint a picture about scripture study and I thought that a nice bookshelf in the background would give it a more ponderous, relaxed feel.” He said, making a weird gesture with his hand, in which he twisted it upward. Annalise raised her eyebrows.
“Sounds good to me, doesn’t the open at eleven or something?” She said. David nodded in response.
After breakfast was finished, David went into his office and Annalise started to load the dishes into the dishwasher. Mona wandered into the living room and couldn’t help but sit down at the piano again. It was a very beautiful piano. Songs that she had learned for various things had been committed to memory because she wasn’t allowed to keep the actual paper copies of the music she learned, so when she sat down at the piano, she just began to play. Sometimes she played several different songs intertwined, depending on her mood. Today she felt like playing a faster, higher song. She didn’t really think that she was in a happy mood, though, more just confused so she did her best to play the harmony of the song in a minor key.
Toward the end of the song, it was supposed to get angry and loud, but Mona wanted to keep the music a little lighter and less apocalyptic, so she transitioned it into a different song that got slower and a little more constant. She tried to think of the song as reflecting her hopes for the future, but she’d never been any good at being concerned over the future. She was better at taking things as they came, but she still couldn’t help feeling uprooted.
She got toward the end of the song, but didn’t really know how to end it, so she just stopped playing.
“Hey!” She heard Annalise’s protest from the kitchen.
“Sorry.” She went to get dressed.
She sat in her room for a few minutes and before going back downstairs, she grabbed a book from the dresser.
She made herself comfortable on the couch and started to read. The reading made her relaxed, which made her a bit drowsy and before long, she was asleep on the couch. The book had fallen from her hand to the floor.
* * *
David shook Mona awake from the couch where she had fallen asleep. She barely looked like she had just woken up. She just sat right up, picked her book up off the floor where it had fallen, and sat it on the table. It was only about quarter to eleven, but they filed out the door anyway. The library was only about three blocks away from their house, so they were going to walk. Annalise took his hand and Mona followed behind them as they walked down the sidewalk. David looked back and saw that Mona was still wearing the black jacket, which couldn’t be comfortable, even thought it wasn’t all that hot out. She had let her hair fall down to cover half of her face again. She was staring at the sidewalk. David decided to voice his observation because he thought it was sort of funny.
“Aren’t you used to being out in the sun? It is the middle of summer.”
“I just woke up and I’m a nerd. I try to maintain my image of pail scrawniness.” Mona said, flatly, almost glaring at the clear, blue skies.
“What?” David asked, “I thought it was, like Emo people who had the aversion to light.”
“Ah, the ‘overly emotional’. You may scoff, but, despite popular belief, they don’t always slash their wrists. They have a fascination with pain, yes, but most of them are very intelligent, misunderstood people.” Mona said. David looked back at her, a bit disbelievingly and said,
“But why would you want to be miserable all the time?”
“Their fascination with pain does extend to emotional pain.”
“Who wants to be sad, though? Who enjoys being miserable?”
“Sad is happy, for deep people.” Mona said gruffly. David tried to get that to make sense in his head, but he was lost, as usual, with this confusing child.
“What? Who says that?” David asked skeptically. Mona sighed.
“Come on! Doctor Who? Sally Sparrow? Blink? Weeping Angels?” When she saw that David was still looking back at her with no idea what she was talking about, it was her turn to look skeptical. “You mean you’ve never heard of Doctor Who?” David shook his head and was scared by the look on her face. He wasn’t used to seeing so much emotion on her face or in her eyes.
“Holy crap!” She said, beginning to talk very rapidly. “So, basically, in the TV show, Doctor Who, the main character is called The Doctor. He’s a Time Lord and he can travel through space and time with a machine called the TARDIS, which stands for: Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. In one of the episodes there’s a girl named Sally Sparrow who wanders around London exploring old buildings and in one of them there are these things called Weeping Angels and they are in what The Doctor calls a quantum lock. They only exist when you aren’t looking at them, so, while you are looking at them, they are statues. When a Weeping Angle touches you, you get zapped back in time and they feed off of your potential energy, all the things that you might have done. So, this happens to one of Sally’s friends, Kathy. They are wandering through this old house and Kathy asks Sally why she likes to hang around old things. She says that it’s because it makes her sad and when Kathy asks her why she wants to be sad, she says that ’sad is happy for deep people’. My goodness! I can’t believe you could not know about Doctor Who!”
There was absolutely no way that David was going to be able to make sense of what she had just said. He didn’t really like science fiction as a genre.
“That sounds… odd…” He looked over at Annalise whose face was blank as she looked around at trees and houses.
“Try, pretty sort of magnificent!” Mona said passionately. David thought that he didn’t like Mona’s seeming indifference to everything, but she was even more frightening when she got excited over something. He shook his head.
“The things teenagers are into now days….” He said, leaving the sentence hanging.
“Hey, Doctor Who started back in 1961, so something that has remained popular for almost 50 years has to be pretty good.”
“The 60s? Why haven’t I ever heard of this until now, then, if it’s so popular?
“Have you ever watched BBC America?” Mona asked.
“Oh, they’re British. I see. They’re always coming up with something… different.” He said and Mona scowled at him.
“Hey! The British are brilliant!”
“Oh, look, we’re here.” Annalise said loudly. They’d stopped in front of the large, brick library. While there weren’t any huge stone lions guarding the entrance, it was still very picturesque. It was the tallest building on the block, with a park behind it and a massive lawn in the front. Trees locked it in, hiding it from view of the road. An escape from the world.
They walked up the front steps and into the cool building. The main desk was on their right and perpendicular to the wall that the door was on, and all the bookshelves ran parallel to the desk. They were all twice as tall as David, with rolling ladders attached to the tops of the shelves. David breathed in the smell of the library and reveled for a moment in the quietness that was so thick that you could practically taste it on the air. Mona was taking it in next to him. She didn’t have her mouth open, but he could tell that she appreciated a good library when she saw one.
Annalise had already wandered off to the historical section and Mona went off to explore. Normally, David browsed the religious book section and then joined Annalise in the History section, but instead he decided to follow Mona, to see what kinds of books she was interested in.
There were metal plates at the end of the bookshelves that proclaimed the genres of each row. David followed Mona, slowly, to the row that said, “Young Adult Fiction.” He stayed back, memorizing which books she pulled out from the shelves to look at. He had the fleeting thought that maybe he should just ask her what she was interested instead of being a creepy, stalker, but he didn’t feel comfortable with this girl. She was way too unpredictable.
When she moved onto the next row of shelves, he hurried to look at the books she had. The first one he pulled out was entitled; “An Abundance of Katherines” by John Green, The cover had an interesting looking math equation on the front cover. He turned the book to the inside cover and read the description, which sounded exactly like the type of book Mona would read.
“That’s a good book.” Mona said from right next to him. He nearly jumped out of his skin. He could not believe that a girl could walk so quietly. She had come back down the aisle on the other side. “You wouldn’t like it.” She turned to the opposite side of the row and pulled a seemingly random book off the shelf. David looked back at the book in his hands and then around him, wandering what the heck was going on.
“Why?” he asked. He was beginning to get seriously annoyed.
“Lots of swearing and a sex scene.” Mona said, absently flipping to the end of the book she was holding and reading the last page. David stared at her.
“And you read it, why?” He asked skeptically, holding the book slightly away from him.
“It was a good book up until that point, and it was observed by the main character from afar, so it doesn’t give you any details. I skipped most of that part. Plus, I read it because of the author.” She set the book she had been browsing back in its spot and picked up another.
“John Green,” David read from the cover. “Who’s that? Why is that important?” Mona paused and looked out into space, thinking. She adjusted her glasses and when she spoke it was as if she was trying to put into words, what she was thinking.
“John, and his brother Hank, live on opposite ends of the country and so in the year 2007 they decided that during the whole year they were going to only communicate by text-less means, namely, Youtube videos. They made a video every day, alternating which one of them had to make the video. Over the course of that year they created a community of sorts, comprising of nerdy people, who came to call themselves Nerdfighters.” She said, “I read it my fellow Nerdfighter wrote it and because is sounded pretty interesting.”
David didn’t understand half of what she was talking about.
“Nerdfighters? You… fight nerds? But you said that you were nerds?” He didn’t know why she’d WANT to be a nerd. Generally, being nerdy was a bad thing.
“No. We are nerds that fight, not fighters of nerds.”
“What are you fighting? Normalness?” He asked.
“No. We fight against world suck?” She said, matter-of-factly.
“World suck? I’m afraid I’m not familiar with your terminology.”
“World suck: The amount of suck in the world. Not that hard to figure out.”
“Okay…” David thought for a minute, but was still drawing a blank. “So, how exactly do you do that?” He asked. She closed her eyes for a second and sighed.
“It’s hard to explain, but basically by being awesome.”
“How does that do anything?”
“It lowers the average of suck.” There was an even longer pause.
“But…” David tried to get his confusion into something a little more intellectual, but finally just said, “Why?” He let his hands drop to his sides.
Mona breathed in and looked like there was a lot she wanted to say, but she just stood, staring at him. The silence reached a point where he was feeling extremely uncomfortable. Then, Mona took the book from him and put it back on the shelf and mumbled,
“Never mind.” She turned and walked away.
* * *
Mona wouldn’t have thought that she would be any good at spotting stalkers, but she saw David following her almost immediately. She found it a little bit creepy, but knew that he probably just wanted to know what kind of books she liked to read.
You could have just asked. She thought to herself. She headed straight for the Young Adult Fiction section, and it only took her a few minutes to find John Green’s books. She pulled out An Abundance of Katherines and turned it to a random page. She’d used her copy of this book as a backup for years. She would keep it in her backpack and if she finished the book that she was reading, then she would just open it to a random page and begin reading. She never got tired of it, but she also knew exactly which parts to skip.
After she finished with the page, she put the book back, and slowly made her way to the end of the row and then slipped around the corner. She waited for a moment and then looked back. David stood in the aisle she had just vacated with An Abundance of Katherines in his hands. Mona waited as he turned to the front cover, and then started back down the aisle. She could hardly believe that he didn’t see her coming, and waited until she was behind him before saying,
“That’s a good book.” She didn’t really enjoy seeing him jump, because it was a natural reflex and she didn’t believe that natural impulses were funny. He looked around at her, clearly startled and looking a bit guilty. “You wouldn’t like it.” She turned to the opposite side of the row and pulled a seemingly random book off the shelf, but not before seeing the look of confusion on his face.
“Why?” he asked. He was trying to hide his annoyance, but was struggling.
“Lots of swearing and a sex scene.” Mona said. She absently flipped to the last page of the book, which naturally ended with a love scene. She put it back on the shelf.
“And you read it, why?” He asked. He looked like he was a bit disgusted with the book, which mad Mona feel defensive. She couldn’t defend the immorality, not to this man, but she could defend herself, somewhat.
“It was a good book up until that point, and it was observed by the main character from afar, so it doesn’t give you any details. I skipped most of that part. Plus, I read it because of the author.” He looked back at the cover.
“John Green,” David read. “Who’s that? Why is that important?” Mona Almost cringed at the question. There were so many reasons why that was important, but she wasn’t sure how to explain it without it sounding even weirder. It was impossible, so Mona tried to make her answer as simple as possible.
“John, and his brother Hank, live on opposite ends of the country and so in the year 2007 they decided that during the whole year they were going to only communicate by text-less means, namely, Youtube videos. They made a video every day, alternating which one of them had to make the video. Over the course of that year they created a community of sorts, comprising of nerdy people, who came to call themselves Nerdfighters.” She said, “I read it my fellow Nerdfighter wrote it and because is sounded pretty interesting.”
Of course he looked confused again. Mona could almost hear his brain exploding with questions and she wasn’t disappointed.
“Nerdfighters? You… fight nerds? But you said that you were nerds?” He didn’t know why she’d WANT to be a nerd. Generally, being nerdy was a bad thing.
“No. We are nerds that fight, not fighters of nerds.”
“What are you fighting? Normalness?” He asked. He could hear the sarcasm, but decided that normalness wasn’t something she wanted to care about.
“No. We fight against world suck?” She said. She was doing a horrible job of explaining. There was no way that she could explain this hugeness.
“World suck? I’m afraid I’m not familiar with your terminology.”
“World suck: The amount of suck in the world. Not that hard to figure out.”
“Okay…” David stood in thought for a minute, but apparently it was that hard to figure out, because he was still looking lost. “So, how exactly do you do that?” He asked. She closed her eyes for a second and sighed. There were no words to explain exactly how.
“It’s hard to explain, but basically by being awesome.”
“How does that do anything?” IT JUST DOES! Mona wanted to yell, but of course she couldn’t do that in the library.
“It lowers the average of suck.” There was an even longer pause.
“But…” David tried to get his confusion into something a little more intellectual, but finally just said, “Why?” He let his hands drop to his sides.
Mona breathed in. There was a lot she wanted to say, but she couldn’t do it without confusing him more, and in the end he would just think it was stupid, so she just stood, staring at him. She held the silence for a long time then, took the book from him and put it back on the shelf and mumbled,
“Never mind.” She turned and walked away.
She walked in the direction that she had seen Annalise go. At least in a conversation with her, she didn’t have to worry about being judged. She found Annalise in the Historical Fiction section looking at books about British monarchs. She looked up as Mona came over to her.
“Hello there.” She said, “By the expression on your face, I’d say that you haven’t done much browsing. I don’t understand why David doesn’t see any emotion in your face, it’s all there.” Mona gave a half-hearted smile and slipped a book from the shelf.
“I was just having a… conversation with David.” Mona said.
“Ah.” Annalise smiled to herself and there was a lull as they both read the backs of their books. “It’s not…” She sighed “It’s not that he doesn’t like you, He just thinks he’s really good at reading people by appearance and social standing. He’s just peeved that he has to open this book, and now that he is, he‘s finding the first few pages hard to understand. He also likes to compartmentalize things. You know what I mean?”
“Yes… I think…” She picked up another book. “It’s just… doesn’t everyone realize that people’s personalities are different and that you can’t put people in categories?” She asked. “Like, there are always exceptions.”
“I think that he knows that in theory, but he’s never met an exception to the extreme that you are, no offense. He knows that all personalities are different, but he figures that they are all similar enough to be put into boxes.” She said. “You see, he has a system for understanding people and you don’t adhere to that system. He finds it hard placing you in his mind, which is mentally inhibiting his ability to understand where you’re coming from.”
“Oh…” Mona nodded and put her book back.
“Give it time.” Annalise said, putting her book back as well, and heading toward the front of the library.
David was sort of hanging out by the front door. He held it open for them as they exited the building. The walk home was silent.
When they arrived, they ate lunch and then went to their separate activities. David went into his office and started to sketch some drawings on a piece of paper, Annalise started doing laundry and Mona went upstairs to read.
By dinnertime, Mona had finished the book she was reading. They watched TV again, which kind of annoyed Mona. She didn’t generally like TV. During prayer and scripture time, she kept her mouth closed. Afterwards, David and Annalise watched her as she exited the room, which Mona found disconcerting. She closed their door and went to her room to get ready for bed. She could feel her usual fear in her stomach, but she ignored it, as usual, and said her prayers and got into bed.
Next thing she could remember was waking up in total panic and crying into the dark.
* * *
This time it was almost 4:30 that Annalise and David were awoke, but this time, instead of the sounds of crying or movement, it was screaming. David’s head shot off the pillow and whirled around to look at the clock and then groaned when he saw the time, which earned him punch from Annalise.
“Ouch!” He complained in a whisper. “What was that for?” Annalise glared at him in the half-light.
“Come on!” She said, throwing his covers off. It wasn’t that cold, but it was cold enough that David yelped. She stood up and walked to the door.
“What?” He said dragging his feat after her.
Mona was curled up in a tight ball, with her pillow over her head, wailing. Annalise gently plucked the pillow out of her hands. She wrapped an arm around her.
“It’s okay, Mona.” She said. Mona had ceased wailing and was now sobbing into Annalise’s shoulder. David was surprised to hear a muffled answer. He had figured that she was still asleep.
“I’m sorry.” She sobbed.
“It’s okay.” Annalise repeated.
“No, it’s not. I didn’t mean to wake you up, but I couldn’t help it. It starts when I’m still asleep and then I can’t stop it.” Her voice was rough and halting, as she tried to speak through sobs.
“It’s fine, it’s not your fault.” Annalise used her free hand to grab the pillow and throw it in David’s direction. It didn’t quite reach him, though, because she was trying not to jerk Mona. David got the hint and sat down on the bed next to them.
“Did you have a bad dream?” He asked, trying, and failing, to come up with something comforting to say.
“Not particularly.” She sniffed. “I don’t remember one.” They sat in silence for a little while again.
“So…” David stopped, trying to word it sympathetically. “Is it because of… your family?” He said, trying to be vague.
“Not particularly.” She said, “I think I’m fine on that front.” She was starting to sound a bit better.
“What…?” He stopped, not wanting to dive into such sensitive topics.
“It’s nothing.” She said, but she didn’t say it evasively. She said it as if it was literally nothing that was causing her distress.
“It has to be something…” Annalise said.
“No.” Mona said, bitterly. “Literally, nothing. The fear is irrational.” She coughed. David started to speak but Annalise caught his eye and shook her head slightly. Instead, he put his hand on her shoulder, comfortingly. She flinched a bit, which hurt David a little, but then was too busy being teary to care. He rubbed her back a little while Annalise stroked her hair and it wasn’t long before she had fallen back into a fitful sleep.
Annalise and David quietly withdrew themselves from the room. Back underneath their own covers, Annalise put her head against his shoulder. They stayed like that for a little while, until Annalise spoke quietly.
“You know, you don’t seem like you like her very much.” She whispered. David sighed a little.
“I don’t understand her. Her persona changes so quickly. One moment she’s absolutely excited over something and very vocal about it, and another moment, she’s just watching; observing. One moment I’ll think that I’ve got her figured out and she does something completely unexpected that I have to include in my view of her. She seems so mild and simple on the outside, but when she starts talking, she’s more complex then you can imagine. And then, she’s waking up in the middle of the night screaming, but it’s not because her family was murdered. She’s sad about it, but not distraught. What causes a person to wake up in the night, screaming, but not know why?”
“I don’t know.” Annalise said.
“And then, she’s so smart. She knows all this stuff, but she can’t understand why things matter to normal people, and she thinks some of the strangest things are funny. I’ve tried to work it out in my mind, but her personality is like a paradox. I’m so confused.” He said, frustrated. Annalise found his hand under the blankets and took it in hers.
I think it’s her own, unique way of being insecure. She locks herself in this emotionless, observer image. The times that she gets excited, or the times that she is… having trouble sleeping, are the times that her real self is showing through, and she’s not sure what kind of person that true self is, so she hides it away. As for liking weird things and not understanding what matters to ‘normal’ people, I think it’s because she’s trying to show how nonconforming she is to general teenage stereotypes. She doesn’t want to be placed in a group and judged overall, she wants to stand as an individual.”
“Yes, but it’s so defiant sounding. She’s so closed to change. How can I understand her when she’s so closed?”
“You have to remember to be more open, yourself. You have to give a little of yourself for her to open up. You can’t drag her out of the place she’s in; you have to join her there first. I know that you think that you’ll have to change yourself to understand her, but you just need to know where she’s coming from. Understand what makes those ‘strange’ things appealing to her. She’s not shy. I’m sure if you ask her why she likes those weird things, she’ll be glad to tell you.”
“How do you know all this stuff?”
“It’s a girl thing.”
“What?”
“I’m kidding. Mostly I guess.”
“What? So I shouldn’t believe anything you just said?”
“Kidding! If you don’t trust my judgment, then go find out by yourself.”
“You’re brilliant.”
“I know.” She reached over and ruffled his hair.