Post by Dead Girl on Mar 7, 2008 0:26:58 GMT -5
Forever is an awfully long time.
The women who answered to the name of Anna Nichols had once uttered this phrase to a classroom full of students, referring to the massive iron gates that were being erected on at the front of the school. They were in the earliest stages of construction then, nothing more but a plastic wrapped monstrosity and a series of large holes drilled into soft brown earth. It was built from real iron, the foreman had said, while explaining to their class why the construction work was so loud that it made studying impossible. Real iorn, he’d said, that would last forever.
Forever is an awfully long time.
She was driving through those same gates now, the iron latticework covered in a twisted creeping ivy that seemed to ground the structure into the landscape. The twisting, arched letters were a little more weathered and faded now then they had been that day, all those years ago, and she could see bits of blue-green about the edges where the acidic effects of modern rain was beginning to rub at the iron. It was barely noticeable, but already the effect of time was beginning to show, beginning to wear a little thin. You couldn’t last forever without showing some sign of time.
It had been many, many years since she’d last driven through that gate, and the weathering, comfortable look she’d noticed at the gate was visible all across the front entrance. The trees had settled their way into the ground, finding a peaceful harmony with the grass and flowers that surrounded them, developing a lush, mature appearance. The massive building had lost the polished crispness that it had started out life with, but had improved with age, gaining the aged and wise look that comes with older houses.
Someone who wasn’t as used to watching change occur might try to claim that nothing had changed in the intervening years between her departure from the school and her abrupt return, but she had become an expert in identifying all the hundreds of tiny, imperceptible movements that marked change’s passing, and she could see each year she’d been gone etched out on the school’s exterior like hundreds of tiny lines on an old friend.
Parking the car in an empty place, she removed the keys from the ignition and sat there for a moment, watching the house through the front windshield. She could see flickers of movements inside the many windows, tiny traces of the children living in side as they made their way about their day. They were different children then the ones she had known, possibly even their children or grandchildren, but their movements at this distance were familiar and saddening. No matter how much the world changed around them, children always remained the same, with the same laughter, the same movements, the same expressions. It broke her heart as much as it gave her hope.
Opening the car door she stood up, her narrow, delicate heals crunching against the gravel as she stood up, brushing imaginary wrinkles out of the tailored, black dress she wore. The narrow fitted skirt showed off her narrow hips and tiny waist, both of which had come back into fashion during the last decade and made shopping a much easier task, but despite it’s clean and well pressed appearance, the thin fabric and shortened sleeves were unsuitable for the cold winter weather that plagued upstate New York this time of year, and the whole outfit was quickly hidden away under the heavy, wool, fitted dress coat she retrieved from the backseat.
Lifting her package from the car (a bundle of carefully selected, beautifully arranged, and exquisite smelling lilies, which had been carefully transported here from the greenhouse in New York where they’d been given life), she shut and locked the door, neatly depositing the keys in the pocket of her jacket, and walked away with clear, purposeful direction.
She’d thought about calling the school several times on the long drive from New York City, to inform them about her pending arrival and ask permission for the visit, but each time she’d put her cell phone back in her purse without dialing the number. Charles had always insisted, even after she left, that the school was and always would be her home, no matter how long she waited to come back or who was running it when she did. Whether he had foreseen that his premature death at the time or if he’d been simply speaking to her own, unnatural life, was unclear. But she now that she was here, she realized that she’d always believed he was telling the truth.
Besides, even if she had wanted to call, she wouldn’t know who to ask for once she did. She had no idea who had taken over the Institute after he died or what they had been told about her and her affiliation with the school.
The memorial garden was just where she knew it would be, tucked away in the rose garden to the back of the school. It was a calm and peaceful place, a fact she’d always attributed to the cold and unfeeling nature of the rose bush, a plant she’d dispised from early childhood. It was a stiff and unhappy plant, one that demanded much and offered little, beautiful and yet scentless, thorny and unforgiving. It was a natural plant for a grave stone, summing up much of the same qualities one saw in death and offering a strange and yet soothing partner for the large, white-marble tomb that was stretched out underneath them.
It was not the burial place she would have chosen, but the tomb seemed to be a natural fit for the landscape, as if the garden had been designed to hold it. Everything from the twisted, gnarled rosebushes standing sentry around it to the large brick school casting a shadow from nearby, seemed to be designed to highlight and remember the tomb and the man inside. She’d come assuming that she’d hate the large and gaudy memorial, but instead she found herself moved by the strange beauty of it. Charles Xavier, it read in neat, simple letters. A date and a quote, all in unassuming quietness. The grave had, to make it short, the same presence it’s occupant had once had. The effect as startling.
This was not the first time she’d stood over a friend’s grave, comparing the cold white slab of rock to the vibrant, breathing person she’d once known, and it would not be the last. But even so, she found herself more moved then usual by the cold white stone, and the memory of the man who’d been her friend for so many years. He’d been so young when they first met, scarcely older then the teenager she looked, but even then, he’d inspired her. They’d had so many dreams, so many ideas, he and Magnus, it had been hard not to get swept up in them. For many years she had, working to build his school and educate his students and accomplish his dreams.
Leaning down she set the flowers in front of his grave, pulling a few loose from the bunch as she did so, and turning to set them over the nearby grave of Jean Grey. To her, Jean would always be the serious little red headed girl who’d sat in the front row of her history class, taking notes in a large, loopy cursive and asking “is this going to be on the test?” every time someone mentioned a date. No matter who she’d grown into since then or what she was responsible for doing, she always say that same little quiet girl with the large, sad eyes. The same eyes she’d seen on so many lost little girls thought out the years. She’d known then that Jean was destined for tragedy, seen the patterns of change swooping in around her, and known there was nothing she, Charles, or anyone else could do to stop it.
She wasn’t sure how long she stood there, studying the graves in quiet contemplation over the lives of the two bodies buried in those graves as well as the countless other bodies she’d buried and mourned, carrying on quiet, silent conversations meant to honor and respect their lives and spirit and give her strength to carry on, as she had no choice but too. She cried at once point, silent tears running down her face, only to swept away by long, carefully manicured fingers. She laughed at one point too, inspired by a memory so rich and thick that it couldn’t be fully ignored or silence.
But in the end, it was time to move on. Leaving the flowers there and whispering a soft goodbye that was quickly lost to the wind, she turned around and started to head back to her car.
The women who answered to the name of Anna Nichols had once uttered this phrase to a classroom full of students, referring to the massive iron gates that were being erected on at the front of the school. They were in the earliest stages of construction then, nothing more but a plastic wrapped monstrosity and a series of large holes drilled into soft brown earth. It was built from real iron, the foreman had said, while explaining to their class why the construction work was so loud that it made studying impossible. Real iorn, he’d said, that would last forever.
Forever is an awfully long time.
She was driving through those same gates now, the iron latticework covered in a twisted creeping ivy that seemed to ground the structure into the landscape. The twisting, arched letters were a little more weathered and faded now then they had been that day, all those years ago, and she could see bits of blue-green about the edges where the acidic effects of modern rain was beginning to rub at the iron. It was barely noticeable, but already the effect of time was beginning to show, beginning to wear a little thin. You couldn’t last forever without showing some sign of time.
It had been many, many years since she’d last driven through that gate, and the weathering, comfortable look she’d noticed at the gate was visible all across the front entrance. The trees had settled their way into the ground, finding a peaceful harmony with the grass and flowers that surrounded them, developing a lush, mature appearance. The massive building had lost the polished crispness that it had started out life with, but had improved with age, gaining the aged and wise look that comes with older houses.
Someone who wasn’t as used to watching change occur might try to claim that nothing had changed in the intervening years between her departure from the school and her abrupt return, but she had become an expert in identifying all the hundreds of tiny, imperceptible movements that marked change’s passing, and she could see each year she’d been gone etched out on the school’s exterior like hundreds of tiny lines on an old friend.
Parking the car in an empty place, she removed the keys from the ignition and sat there for a moment, watching the house through the front windshield. She could see flickers of movements inside the many windows, tiny traces of the children living in side as they made their way about their day. They were different children then the ones she had known, possibly even their children or grandchildren, but their movements at this distance were familiar and saddening. No matter how much the world changed around them, children always remained the same, with the same laughter, the same movements, the same expressions. It broke her heart as much as it gave her hope.
Opening the car door she stood up, her narrow, delicate heals crunching against the gravel as she stood up, brushing imaginary wrinkles out of the tailored, black dress she wore. The narrow fitted skirt showed off her narrow hips and tiny waist, both of which had come back into fashion during the last decade and made shopping a much easier task, but despite it’s clean and well pressed appearance, the thin fabric and shortened sleeves were unsuitable for the cold winter weather that plagued upstate New York this time of year, and the whole outfit was quickly hidden away under the heavy, wool, fitted dress coat she retrieved from the backseat.
Lifting her package from the car (a bundle of carefully selected, beautifully arranged, and exquisite smelling lilies, which had been carefully transported here from the greenhouse in New York where they’d been given life), she shut and locked the door, neatly depositing the keys in the pocket of her jacket, and walked away with clear, purposeful direction.
She’d thought about calling the school several times on the long drive from New York City, to inform them about her pending arrival and ask permission for the visit, but each time she’d put her cell phone back in her purse without dialing the number. Charles had always insisted, even after she left, that the school was and always would be her home, no matter how long she waited to come back or who was running it when she did. Whether he had foreseen that his premature death at the time or if he’d been simply speaking to her own, unnatural life, was unclear. But she now that she was here, she realized that she’d always believed he was telling the truth.
Besides, even if she had wanted to call, she wouldn’t know who to ask for once she did. She had no idea who had taken over the Institute after he died or what they had been told about her and her affiliation with the school.
The memorial garden was just where she knew it would be, tucked away in the rose garden to the back of the school. It was a calm and peaceful place, a fact she’d always attributed to the cold and unfeeling nature of the rose bush, a plant she’d dispised from early childhood. It was a stiff and unhappy plant, one that demanded much and offered little, beautiful and yet scentless, thorny and unforgiving. It was a natural plant for a grave stone, summing up much of the same qualities one saw in death and offering a strange and yet soothing partner for the large, white-marble tomb that was stretched out underneath them.
It was not the burial place she would have chosen, but the tomb seemed to be a natural fit for the landscape, as if the garden had been designed to hold it. Everything from the twisted, gnarled rosebushes standing sentry around it to the large brick school casting a shadow from nearby, seemed to be designed to highlight and remember the tomb and the man inside. She’d come assuming that she’d hate the large and gaudy memorial, but instead she found herself moved by the strange beauty of it. Charles Xavier, it read in neat, simple letters. A date and a quote, all in unassuming quietness. The grave had, to make it short, the same presence it’s occupant had once had. The effect as startling.
This was not the first time she’d stood over a friend’s grave, comparing the cold white slab of rock to the vibrant, breathing person she’d once known, and it would not be the last. But even so, she found herself more moved then usual by the cold white stone, and the memory of the man who’d been her friend for so many years. He’d been so young when they first met, scarcely older then the teenager she looked, but even then, he’d inspired her. They’d had so many dreams, so many ideas, he and Magnus, it had been hard not to get swept up in them. For many years she had, working to build his school and educate his students and accomplish his dreams.
Leaning down she set the flowers in front of his grave, pulling a few loose from the bunch as she did so, and turning to set them over the nearby grave of Jean Grey. To her, Jean would always be the serious little red headed girl who’d sat in the front row of her history class, taking notes in a large, loopy cursive and asking “is this going to be on the test?” every time someone mentioned a date. No matter who she’d grown into since then or what she was responsible for doing, she always say that same little quiet girl with the large, sad eyes. The same eyes she’d seen on so many lost little girls thought out the years. She’d known then that Jean was destined for tragedy, seen the patterns of change swooping in around her, and known there was nothing she, Charles, or anyone else could do to stop it.
She wasn’t sure how long she stood there, studying the graves in quiet contemplation over the lives of the two bodies buried in those graves as well as the countless other bodies she’d buried and mourned, carrying on quiet, silent conversations meant to honor and respect their lives and spirit and give her strength to carry on, as she had no choice but too. She cried at once point, silent tears running down her face, only to swept away by long, carefully manicured fingers. She laughed at one point too, inspired by a memory so rich and thick that it couldn’t be fully ignored or silence.
But in the end, it was time to move on. Leaving the flowers there and whispering a soft goodbye that was quickly lost to the wind, she turned around and started to head back to her car.