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There is a certain barrenness, a vacuum in her being, that Leena had become familiar with ever since she was a child. Other children were wary, some would vocally express their dislike towards her for her tendency to stare with unreadable expressions for a long, uncomfortable time.
She learned quickly it was not a nice thing to do, but she couldn’t help it. The distorted colors behind them, the flashes of images behind her eyes were overwhelming enough. The quiet voices, of memories that haven’t been touched, of determined statements, deciding the fate of those she sees– they were what drove her to silence.
She was taken to see a doctor– she never liked those appointments. She already knew– felt what kind of reactions she would get. Still, she tried. I can see things, she said. Jason– he’s scared of Mr. Clarke. Someone should help him. That statement received nothing but more appointments and the potential threat of being sent away to a cold, dark place. Thankfully, her mother protected her.
This vacuum grew wider and wider– and nothing could quite help it. She’d made friends, or acquaintances would be a better fit. She learned to control what she saw and felt all on her own. Still, in every group, she was known as the most quiet, the mysterious one.
But she observed. She observed every one last of them. Rae Kurtzman, a woman with distorted, dark green– a color Leena was able to identify with faceted serenity. A sense of anger so deeply buried within her it was a skeleton waiting to be resurrected. Claire Burk, on the other side of this polarity of emotions; a woman whose anger poured out of her, with little compassion left, very little but still there regardless. A dark, cabernet red. Joseph Nichols, with infectious laughter and wit as his strengths, but also blues he could never have the strength to investigate. Shades of yellow.
They asked her questions about herself, and she tried to answer. Yes, I live nearby. I’ve lived here all my life. Honestly, I can’t imagine living anywhere else. A lie, a lie, and a lie. There would be nothing better than leaving this dull, old town.
She thinks now, as she stands in the empty room, which still faintly smells of the previous occupant, how much H. G. reminds Leena of Rae, Claire, and Joseph combined. Maybe that is why she failed to see the signs.
Murmurs– they were the first things Leena heard when she laid her eyes on H. G. Wells. She was briefed on by Claudia about what happened, how she was now reluctantly accepted as one of their own. The murmurs, if Leena hadn’t practiced to keep it under control for years, would be tumultuous– maybe even deafening. And where a bright color should be, suggested by a cocky, bright smile, was only one shade of gray.
Both Mrs. Frederic and Artie asked her if she could actually be trusted. The only thing she could offer was, “I’m not sure.”
“Try to be sure,” Mrs. Frederic said. “Try to talk to her. See if you can… Feel anything.”
The opportunity to do so was rare. H. G. volunteered for every ping, and Artie thought it was better to send her out there, under the supervision of Myka, than to let her do inventory, offering her a chance to steal artifacts on a silver platter.
There was, however, a night where they were all home. H. G. had wandered into the kitchen, while Leena was drinking herbal tea on the dining table. She looked uncharacteristically lost, not yet realizing Leena was there– something Leena had gotten used to. There was a distant look in H. G.’s eyes, with sight directed at the living room, where Pete, Myka, and Claudia were curled up on the couch together, watching a movie.
Leena took a guess of what she was feeling. “Want some tea?” She asked, but was surprised to find the other woman not startled at all.
H. G. simply turned around, gave her a smile and said, “no, thank you. I had just finished a cup.”
She made no move at all, only lingered. Leena quickly understood. “Do you wanna sit down?”
H. G. nodded. “Yes, thank you.”
The silence was unfamiliar, but comfortable. Leena shook her head, smiling to herself as she saw H. G. still silent, obviously debating whether she should say what she was feeling or not. But Leena learned a long time ago, that being to the point could sometimes prove useful.
“They’re close,” Leena said, this time getting the expected startled reaction from H. G. “But not the type of close where they won’t give space to anyone else.”
“Ah,” H. G. said– a faint, fleeting shade of yellow. “I was warned of your high levels of perception.”
“Not really,” Leena said. “Sometimes, it’s just obvious.”
H. G. raised an eyebrow. Leena internally panicked for a moment, thinking that she might’ve taken it as an insult, but instead, H. G. gave her a faint smile. “You know them well, yes? Each of them?”
“They do open up to me. Mostly Claudia. Sometimes Myka.”
At the mention of Myka: another fleeting color, and a whisper this time– but Leena couldn’t pinpoint any of them. “I suppose with the knowledge of your gift, quite a lot of people in this world would line up to bare their souls to you.”
This time, Leena was startled by the statement, but she stayed quiet for a while.
And then, H. G. asked, “How does one… fill the space they leave open for them?”
Leena knew she was referring to the three friends in the living room. Somehow, though, she felt like she was asking about the entire world.
What terrified her was telling the truth, however: she hadn’t figured that out herself.
“By taking it slowly,” Leena answered. “They already know and appreciate that you’re trying.”
H. G. smiled, one simultaneously thankful and relieved.
In the months that went by, the murmurs dwindled, replaced by multiple colors, especially after a night surreptitiously spent in Myka’s room. Leena stood still, watching the dynamic changes between the four, yet most things stayed the same.
They asked her to join, and she complied.
It is only now that she accepts with clarity, by watching Helena, a soul much like her– isolated and lost– that her inexplicable determination to guard herself, to hug herself within the enclosure she’d built, was slowly dismantling.
But loneliness was a friend that kissed her goodnight on her forehead. And guilt– guilt, she could not bear.
After all, she was the one that freed H. G. Wells to a world that did not live up to her expectations. It doesn’t matter to her now that it was out of her control. It was still her who couldn’t determine if she was trustworthy or not. It was still her who failed to see the dots of blue beneath all the greyness, the color that had completely taken over her, as Leena watched her being taken away by the Regents. In that sense, it was also her who had put the entire world in danger.
And it was her as well who caused this emptiness, who caused the fading scent of this barren room.