Chapter Text
Present Day
The road was bumpy. A long winding lane of potholes and short stretches of concrete. And though an attempt had been made to join the lot to civilisation the expanse of land was just too big of a ground to cover which left it an uneven trek through the backwoods of South Dakota. Still Lainey didn’t mind, if anything she had missed the scenery of Sioux Falls. She missed the deep green trees and craggy rock faces rather than the open, flatness of Kansas that had become her bread and butter. Yet as she drove through town, looking for things she remembered, she found everything was different now. Shop fronts had been repainted or demolished for something new and sleeker. Bustling streets were now vacant and the cars that cruised along them, slogging shoppers from place to place, kept their inhabitants isolated between trips. No familiar faces, no one stopping in the street to chat, no kids running down main street as they soaked up their last few days of freedom.
But that was just it wasn’t it? Life moved on, things and people changed. When she was a teenager, she had spent her time in town, hanging out and causing whatever trouble she could with whoever was willing. As an adult, she’d been an infrequent visitor, flitting back before she went on her way to something else. Now she never came back. She had a new home; one she wasn’t chasing anymore. She was like these people that drove down Main Street, minding her own business and getting on with her life. Content with what she had.
Of course the mundane things of life still pulled at her, begging her to leave her comfort zone. Strangers forced her to chat in line at the grocery store. The PTA group chat begged her to unmute after one too may missed messages. The other moms at her daughter's soccer games beckoned her over every week without fail, forcing her to make friends which she was, right up until the last blow of the whistle and then she was done until the following week. Because these things were a formality of life rather than a want. It was a stance that often had her daughter labelling her a hermit, but she’d filled her boots with adventure and barely made it out, so she’d take gentle ribbing over that any day.
Her daughter Ella sat beside her in the passenger side of the truck. Her tanned legs were up on the dash with a book resting against her thighs as she read steadily, like only a teenager could do. No distractions, no motion-sickness, just a steady gaze fixed on whatever newfound love she was absorbing, the words on the page no doubt moulding her brain in a way Lainey probably ought to check out. Still, there wasn’t much time for that now, not as they pulled in through the rickety chain link gates and the road turned to a gravel lot.
‘We’re here,’ Lainey announced, cutting the chug of the engine to a stilled hum. Ella looked up from her book, as though the five-and-a-half-hour drive had been nothing but a blink of an eye. Lainey envied her, the base of her back aching in a way it never did before middle age as she leant forward and pulled the keys from the engine.
‘Is it even open?’ Ella asked, leaning forward herself to look at the building. It was one story, flat topped and a tidy edifice of concrete breeze blocks. There was one window beside the front door and nothing else to hint it was anywhere that should be entered. Lainey felt herself scanning the exits out of habit, her hand brushing against the blade tucked down her boot just in case. She’d been over everything, even going so far as to have the man who’d rang her about the locker in the first place send over the documents so that she could be sure they were legit. They were, she reassured herself. She wouldn’t have come if she weren’t sure and she definitely wouldn’t have brought Ella.
‘Yeah, I rang to check when we stopped in Norfolk,’ Lainey said.
‘Looks creepy,’ Ella said, throwing her book down on the seat beside her as she started to clamber out. Lainey grinned as she followed suit, 'yeah, well, if I know your grandpa that’s by design. Sketchier the better could’ve been embossed on the family crest.'
‘Sounds like Dad,’ Ella snorted.
‘Where do you think he got it from,’ Lainey chuckled, locking up and heading towards the door. She took the lead now, safe as she was sure it was, she always found herself doing that, putting some distance between whatever it was that could come at them. In this case it was an ancient wooden door and a rusty old bell which still tinkled as she pushed the thing open. The ‘office’ was small, barely enough room to swing a cat let alone the built-up desk, computer and stacks of invoices, contracts, and letters that cluttered every surface, held down by makeshift paperweights of varying objects that fought against the gentle breeze sputtered out by the rickety old air con system in the corner which was making a poor attempt to cool the room. It felt chaotic and rather familiar especially as Lainey had to close an old phonebook that was spread across the desktop to ding the bell for attention.
An older man appeared from the back room, shuffling through the maze of stuff silently and only speaking when he reached the desk. He fixed his glasses, bringing her into focus as he grunted, ‘name?’
‘Oh, uh, my name’s Lainey, you called about a locker belonging to my father. Robert Singer,’ Lainey said. The man looked at her for a moment and then dropped his gaze to the book in front of him, a crooked finger scrolling down the page until he said, ‘ah, yes Singer. Come with me.’
Lainey and Ella shared a look as he turned around to grab a key off one of the hooks on the wall but followed him anyway. The corridor it led them to was long and narrow, with several garage style doors on either side that got steadily grimier the further down the halls they went.
‘It’s just up here,’ he said, turning a corner down another corridor, ‘it’s one of our older lots so it’s a little out of the way I’m afraid.’
‘It’s fine,’ Lainey said, as they stopped in front of a door. Number fifty-four. The man bent down to put the key in the lock, groaning in unison with the mechanism as he forced the shutter up. Lainey cast an eye over it. It was a small lock up, but it was cluttered, with shelves on either side stuffed with books, trinkets, and heaps of storage boxes in the middle where Bobby had run out of room. Dust lay on every surface and cobwebs hung from every corner of the room. She felt Ella looking too, moving forward to peek at whatever she could spy but Lainey grabbed her arm and held her in place gently, ignoring her irritated look, her gaze fixed on the man as he said, ‘of course if I’d have known about your father I would’ve contacted you sooner but we have a ‘no questions asked’ policy around here and he paid up in full so there wasn’t any reason to follow up until his contract was up.’
‘It’s fine. I mean we didn’t know anything about it otherwise we would’ve come sooner,’ Lainey said, trying not to focus on what else might be out there that her late father might have failed to mention. After all Bobby Singer wasn’t exactly an open book, more an ancient scripture one had to decipher as best you could.
‘Well anyway,’ the man said, ‘we close at five and we’re open every day except Sunday. Everything you don’t want can just be left in here and we’ll get rid of it, anything you do needs to be out by the thirtieth that’s when the sale of the land officially closes. Just let us know when you’ve finished, I suppose.’
‘Will do,’ Lainey said, receiving a curt nod before he shuffled back down the corridor towards the main office.
‘He’s weird,’ Ella said, trying to go inside the storage locker but Lainey grabbed her and harshly whispered, ‘Ella-Grace!’
‘What?’ Ella asked, her brow furrowed.
‘One at least wait until he’s out of ear shot-’
‘He’s ancient I doubt he could hear me shout,’ Ella said, rolling her green eyes as she pulled her arm from her mother’s grip. Lainey scowled and grunted, ‘even so, and number two watch where you’re stepping!’
Ella looked confused until Lainey bent down, her finger gliding against an ever so faint trip wire tied across the entrance. Lainey rolled her eyes, muttering something about ‘raisin’ a damn fool,’ as she followed it to the source so she could cut it clean away from the trigger with the knife from her boot. Then ever so carefully she stepped over where it had been and let her eyes scan the room for any other defences, hoping Bobby was more alarms and lock ins than poison arrows and giant boulders. After a moment of scanning, she decided she couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary even if the hair on the back of her neck was standing on end, her hunter’s senses screaming at her to be vigilant. So, before she let Ella step in she opened a box as carefully as she could. She didn’t find anything dangerous. No booby traps or blaring alarms, there wasn’t even anything really worth guarding. In fact, it all seemed rather…ordinary.
The first one she opened held a mound of clothes. She pulled out one items, realising it was a shirt of hers, one she hadn’t had since she was around seventeen if she had to guess. Underneath that was an old hoodie she’d lost track of over ten years ago and then below that her twelfth grade homecoming dress. She moved to the next available box and found it full to the brim again of things she didn’t expect. Old bills, Christmas cards, kids’ drawings from her and Sam he’d kept. She felt a lump form in her throat, a wave of sorrow coming to her unexpectedly. Her grief for Bobby was well contained these days, over a decade of coming to terms with his loss allowing her to get a good handle on things but there were still times, still memories that sparked tears no matter how strong she stayed. And seeing this, seeing how he kept this side of him hidden, most likely for her protection, got to her.
‘Mom what is it?’ Ella asked. She was loitering by the door, unsure of whether she could come forward though Lainey could see she wanted to, due to curiosity or wanting to comfort her mother Lainey wasn’t sure. Lainey smiled at her, thankful she wasn’t stupid enough to come barging in until Lainey said, ‘nothing,’ a sniff betraying that lie, ‘come in, it’s fine.’
‘What is it?’ Ella asked, joining her mother’s side as she perused the open boxes.
‘It’s just old stuff Grandpa kept. Some of it is junk, but we’re gonna need to sift through it all to find out what’s what,’ Lainey explained.
‘I can do these boxes if you want,’ Ella offered, concern on her face at her mother’s glassy eyes.
‘Yeah, yeah, fine,’ Lainey said, ‘I’ll take this side.’
‘Is there a system or?’ Ella asked, her hand already filtering through the stack of papers.
‘Uh, I don’t know. Anything broken, trash. Anything that looks like a bill or invoice trash. Any pictures, keep. Anything you thinks cool you can keep…but probably ask me first. Same goes if you’re unsure of anything,’ Lainey instructed feeling like they were playing fast and loose with the term system here.
‘Sounds good to me,’ Ella smiled, taking stacks of paper out of the box so she could spread them out along the tops of the other boxes. Lainey smiled, stroking a hand fondly down her hair before she moved to her own station. It was cluttered, items rammed into the shelf so much so that they threatened to spill off it whenever she tried to move something.
‘This should be fun,’ Lainey grumbled before she set to work.
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Three days of work hadn’t gotten them very far. Nearly everything they found Lainey couldn’t justify throwing away and so the stack of belongings destined for the back of the pickup grew day by day while the throw away pile was a small mound in the corner. Bobby had kept almost everything that related to their life together, from the moment she’d been left at his house. Of course there were other things too. Painful memories of his normal life which she assumed the locker had been for in the first place. It had been an arduous task if only because she was called by Ella every five minutes or so to ask whether this was something for the keep or throw pile.
Yet for the past half an hour she’d gone quiet, still squirreling her way through the most recent box she’d found as Lainey traipsed more things over to the keep pile. It looked shaggy and haphazard now so she knelt down, grabbing an empty box so she could start stacking things inside it neatly ready to be hauled home with them. She was focusing hard on making everything tidy, a long-forgotten penchant for Tetris rearing its head, that she didn’t hear Ella speak at first until she called again with the indignation only an ignored child could muster, ‘Mom!’
‘Sorry honey what?’ Lainey said, placing the ashtray she’d made Bobby in ninth grade inside the box for keeping.
‘I asked who’s Noah?’ Ella’s voice echoed from behind the boxes, curious.
For just a fraction of a second Lainey went still, another wave of grief gripping her more severe than she’d had with anything that had come from Bobby. It wasn’t a secret, but her voice felt stuck anyway, refusing to come out in anything but a shaky, ‘what have you found?’
‘Just a load of diaries,’ Ella said as Lainey stood, moving around to find her daughter surrounded by piles of journals. Pictures littered pages, stories nestled themselves around poems and unfinished song lyrics. Her handwriting went from neat to rushed to illegible and back again throughout. Any thought she’d had, any joy, any heartbreak she’d thrown into those journals hoping that in doing so she wouldn’t have to deal with them in real life. It was her entire soul laid bare and Lainey remembered every page.
And now Ella was reading it. Naturally she knew the basics, the hunting, the world saving but there were things that she didn’t need to know, stuff that Lainey had scrawled out in those books before trying to forget. The pain, the grief, the brutality, and savagery of it all.
‘Ella give that to me,’ Lainey said, offering out a hand for her to pass it over to her.
‘What why?’ Ella asked, hugging the book tighter.
‘Just give it to me,’ Lainey said.
‘What no, Mom-’
‘Ella-Grace!’ Lainey chastised.
‘Mom!’ Ella called back, ‘what is it what’s the big deal?’
‘Those diaries are…private,’ Lainey said.
‘It’s not like I don’t know about this stuff. I know about you being a hunter,’ Ella reasoned.
‘But there’s things you don’t know…shouldn’t know,’ Lainey said firmly, ‘you’re just a kid Ella-Grace. And that stuff, the stuff that’s in there, it’s not for you.’
‘I’m not a baby,’ Ella grumbled, ‘and this stuff, it’s about you, Dad, Grandpa. Hell, I thought that was the whole reason we were here, digging through all this crap.’
‘It is and I get it; I get wanting to know and maybe one day I can tell you, but this stuff isn’t exactly PG. And your dad and I we weren’t exactly….it wasn’t exactly straight forward.’
‘I don’t care,’ Ella said firmly as she stood up. They were nearly the same height now, her rounded, youthful face now sharper, green eyes soulful and deep. Stubborn as a mule but pretty as a picture, just like her damn father.
‘Please Mom?’ she asked after a beat, in that same tone of voice that could get Lainey to do anything. From the day she’d arrived she’d had Lainey wrapped around her little finger, the perfect blend of her parents though Lainey only ever saw her dad. She wanted to protect her like she had him.
‘What do you want to know?’ Lainey sighed.
‘All of it. Everything. I want it all, the entire story,’ Ella said as if it was obvious.
‘The life and love of Lainey Legaré huh?’ Lainey asked. Ella grinned making her mother sigh once more, ‘fine…but once we’re home, okay? Let me go through all this stuff first – take out what’s less than PG.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ Ella said, throwing the forgotten journal into the box and packing it up so it could join the to go pile. Lainey watched her go, wishing she’d never bothered to haul her all the way here. She should’ve known if there was trouble to be found Ella would’ve sniffed it out.
Now she just needed to figure out what parts of her life she was willing to lay bare.
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I thought if I could touch this place or feel it,
This brokenness inside me might start healing,
Out here, it's like I'm someone else,
I thought that maybe I could find myself.