Ill portents

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
-Helen Keller
*** *** ***

London Bridge is falling down,
Falling down, falling down.

Somewhere in the city, a bridge collapses.  The near-shadow of the world writhes, seethes with torment.  A red star sweeps ever nearer.  The Herald's words echo ominously.  A fortnight has passed.

Emily is oblivious to all of this.  She is curled into Owen's rocking chair -- for it continues to be Owen's in her mind, even now that it is fully incorporated into her mental image of the living room -- reading.  The smooth stone beads slip between her fingers, a subtle mnemonic, a pull back to simpler times and other places. 

It is calm in her apartment, and the breeze disturbs the sheer curtains beside the open window.  There is death and torment in the city, but it has not come to find her.

Yet.

London Bridge is falling down,
My fair lady.

The night finds her through an unlikely medium.  First is the phone call from Ashton, short and rather direct.  Emily packs a few things into her messenger bag before she heads out.  She closes the windows and picks up her car keys.  All of the lights go out; she is not planning to come back tonight.

It's not a long drive across the city, but she has to navigate through some heavier traffic than she would expect this close to midnight.  Before long, she's at the door, listening to the expected instruction set, finding a place to settle in a strange house while the doctor is away.  Marcelle is already sleeping; Emily can go back to her reading.

Owen's rocking chair is not here, and the windows are shut against the breeze.  If an ill wind blows, its portents have not found her.

Yet.

Iron and steel will bend and bow,
Bend and bow, bend and bow.

Marcelle is sleeping, so Emily's phone does not ring when Father Ward calls her.  It dances on the counter top, but it isn't until the small device trends too close to the precipice -- falls and clatters to the floor -- that Emily notices it.  By then, it has rung through to voicemail.

She collects the phone and stretches, moving the skin of her shoulder over muscle and bone as she listens to the message.  It is not a familiar number, and it is round about midnight.  While it isn't worryingly odd for her phone to ring at this time of night, it isn't particularly common either.  There's usually a country code involved in that situation, too, but this is a Chicagoan number.

It isn't long before Emily has gathered a few of Marcelle's things, fitted her carseat into the back seat, and bundled the small girl up into a warm weight to carry.

Iron and steel will bend and bow,
My fair lady.

She almost has the small girl into her carseat when the mobile in her pocket buzzes again.  It's Kage, and the rowan-haired Other does not need to say that the phone call Emily received from the Priest is connected to the calamity that pulled Ashton away to work.  She says, without saying, that something is afoot, amiss, awry.

(Shhh, poppet.)

Marcelle's sleep-thickened fingers grasp at the ends of Emily's curls.  There is a moment, here, when the younger Orphan speaks gently, softly to the child.  It is a tenderness few in this city have ever seen in her.  It would not be one she shared openly.

Promises are made, on this call.  Oaths taken without so much as a word.

The night has found her, and its portents remain unclear. 

*** *** ***

Somewhere in the city, a bridge is broken.  The near-shadow of the world churns ominously.  Awakened gather, each coming to the House via their own trajectory.  A rocking chair sits, still and abandoned in a half-empty Lake View flat. 

A mother works, surrounded by the dying and the departed.  A young girl sleeps.  Emily's phone rings again.  The city passes by, its lights reflected in the windscreen, and the Chantry draws ever nearer.