With his tired eyelids squinting in battle against the light, they nonetheless would surrender to an array of whitened opaque silence, brightened by patches of sun searing through his curtains from the bedroom window. It was morning already. Staring at the flawless ceiling, Oliver’s sore knees somehow began to entangle themselves against the twisted blanket. Guilt was the reason for his misbehaving joints, a little vague voice uttered to him in his head. Honestly, his mind had originally been blank, as pure as the ceiling, but as he clawed himself out of bed to see himself without clothes, details of last night gradually blemished the fibers of his mind. Although the fragmented information came in the form of an incomplete jigsaw puzzle at best, it was enough to let him know what had happened, and why he was sporting a queasy headache similar to the ones after a night of excess drinking.
Retracing yesterday’s path, he felt like someone had taken over him as soon as he stepped into the city, as if he was hypnotized, sleepwalking amongst the rowdy crowd, under the New Year’s fireworks. And on his way to his flat, he would unwittingly bring that elusive faceless girl with him to spend the night, the same one that would always refer to him simply as, “Pretty boy,” even though he insisted he possessed a name, and that people’s names were not overrated, contrary to what she thought.
Desperately trying to tuck the guilt away, he reasoned he was clearly not himself twenty-four hours ago. Excessive rubbing of the temples was not going to help him remember this girl, so it was evident he did not engage her intimately enough to absorb her details. However, after spotting so many fingerprints covering his body, he realized he could not use his temporary insanity as the excuse for his reckless behavior. Even though his future with Yuriko was bleak, he still honored his relationship with her. The ring was around his finger and no amount of rationalization could justify his participating in the scenes from last night.
Suddenly, a clicking sound echoed from outside. His mind abruptly quit its circular mumbling so he could assess the noise, which resembled the unexpected opening of his front door, followed by winds of light footsteps. Working against the upward rush of adrenalin, he quickly jolted into his jeans and dashed out of his bedroom to find out who was the unwelcome intruder.
“Oliver! You… You’re really back?” a woman garbled with her low alto voice behind her shaky brown hair. She was obviously clutching too many things in her grip to be a threat to his safety: today’s newspaper, a blue umbrella, and a set of keys that was rattling loudly across her chest. Like hot butter, her blinking brown eyes skated from his dark stubbly face to his burly chest and abdomen, concentrating themselves briskly at the buckle of his jeans tenuously held together by his hands.
“Prudence!” he gasped spontaneously, with one eye focused on her stillness while the other eye was busy coordinating his hands that were still clumsily buckling up his stubborn jeans. The rattling sounds immediately reminded him that he had given his neighbor a set of his keys not too long ago.
A palette of red brushed her cheeks just in time for her to unglue her undisciplined eyes from Oliver’s uncoordinated state of undress.
“I certainly don’t mind you shocking me this way every morning,” she giggled suavely, her eyes retreating back into their sockets. “No amount of caffeine is going to top this!”
She fanned herself archly with the newspaper, “It’s definitely what I need to get the sleep out of my eyes.”
Prudence could detect a wave of grunts coming from his mouth. To avoid getting kicked out, she remembered the reason why she had rudely intruded on him. She deposited the newspaper onto the tall pile sitting neatly next to the doorway, purposely taking more time, hoping to give him the needed privacy to tidy himself.
“I kinda figured you were back…” she hollered vibrantly to the face of the newspaper, attending to the section that said today’s weather forecast was apparently cloudy and rainy, in stark contrast to the sun blasting outside.
“When I saw glimmers of light coming from your window late last night… and when I noticed your luggage sprawling across the living room just as I came in, I should have--”
“Glimmers of light?” asked Oliver thickly, his mind wheeling in reverse, trying profusely to confirm this detail.
“Yes! Glimmers of light… the kind that shines through your sheer curtains when you turn on the lamp in your bedroom at night!” she croaked incredulously, darting one eye at his bare feet to check whether he was ready for her to look at again.
“Happy New Year, by the way!” smiled Prudence enthusiastically.
“Oh, right. Same to you too.”
Prudence was not about to let their conversation end this way, even though she could sense Oliver was in no shape to talk.
“So, big guy, which wind current blew you back to London last night?”
Oliver opened his mouth slightly, but no words were coming out.
“Honestly, where have you been all this time?” she silenced him in a motherly manner. “You just… disappeared… last summer… without saying goodbye! I was about to file a police report for missing persons, and your newspaper subscriptions just kept coming… until Mum stopped me…
“You always tell me before you leave for one of those foreign teaching contracts. Did you come back from one? Which country did they send you this round?”
Oliver was thankful Prudence inadvertently reminded him of the lies he had been telling his muggle friends and neighbors to explain his periodic disappearances from regular life. Teaching English in foreign countries seemed like a reasonable explanation at the time. After all, he couldn’t reveal to them that he was a wizard and a professional Quidditch keeper.
“Erm… yes… It suddenly came up and I didn’t have a chance to tell you…” he scratched his head apologetically and swiftly changed subjects, carefully organizing his mind to retrieve the facts about his next door neighbor that he hadn’t seen in months.
“How’s Zoe? How is your Mum? How’s your painting thing going?” he blurted all at once.
Prudence rolled her eyes sourly, “Oh, as long as there’s Bridge and Mum’s gang of bridge buddies, she is doing fantastic. But I can’t rely on her to babysit Zoe anymore. She says it’s not the job of a grandmother.”
“What about your paintings?” he inserted with a tone of surging interest. “You had mentioned about an art gallery competition. Isn’t it coming up soon?”
“Oh… that,” she replied flatly. “I… you know… still don’t have a theme, the topic… for my…”
“What about all those ideas you told me before?”
She sprung upright, seemingly shaking off his question, “Look at the time, Oliver. I’m late for work. Didn’t the weatherman say it’s going to rain today? Even the paper says it’s going to rain. It certainly doesn’t look like it though.”
“You don’t get time off for New Years?” interrupted Oliver, trying to block out all of her rain references.
“You forgot I work at a grocery store? They open everyday!”
She scanned the newspaper pile, “It looks like you have a lot of catch up reading to do.”
He shook his head and walked closer, “Thanks for looking after the place for me.”
Prudence gathered her eyes towards Oliver, who stringed together a boyish grin, but it was too late. The air between them was already thickened with seriousness all by itself, as if it was letting them know they had exchanged enough pleasantries. It was time to really talk, but her next topic was something he was clearly not ready to discuss.
“Have you heard from… Yuriko?” asked Prudence laboriously as her eyes glided to his neck, searching for the ring that used to hang around his neck.
“You know she… came by… I think… a few months ago… looking for you.”
Oliver said nothing. He had expected this. When he was in Hogwarts, his teammates had already told him she had searched for him and asked about his whereabouts.
“I… didn’t know where you were at the time,” Prudence explained without a break of her low alto pitch, “but… she looked like she had something very important to tell you.”
His silence was suffocating, and she bit her lip uncomfortably, “I hope you don’t mind… I… let her in your flat.”
The saturated air was now mixed with a fog of nauseating unease between the two of them. She felt like she was performing an unrehearsed monologue, while he was determinedly expressing his views by mime.
“Yuriko and I… we didn’t talk much, you know… because Zoe was next to me… and I… didn’t know what to say…
“She… bought Zoe a book. Actually, Zoe pried it out of her hands to be exact.”
“A book?” Oliver finally uttered an audible word.
Prudence nodded, “Ah-huh. It’s a novel of Japanese fairy tales written in English. I’ll give it back to you later today.”
“No need,” he sighed between a set of chuckles. “What will I do with a novel? I’m sure your daughter will have better use for it.”
The air was so thick it might have lost its ability to carry sound. Believing he had ended their conversation, Oliver proceeded to unzip his luggage, retrieving the ghostly white umbrella he found in Osaka and Ginny’s Amoré. Thinking the compass would work now that he was in England, he snapped it open, but to his disappointment, the needle was once again swirling aimlessly just like it was when he was in Japan.
“It must be really broken,” he mumbled to himself dejectedly in his own little cloud.
Prudence had fallen out of his radar despite standing merely a handful of inches from him. He was not aware she had been following his heavy steps with her worried eyes, at the same time wondering why she had to care so much. Forgetting he was just her neighbor, she was hoping to peel open his mysterious laconic shell with the same amount of ease as the way he unzipped his baggage seconds ago. But once again, he would bottle everything inside. She hadn’t seen him in a while, and she certainly didn’t expect to see so much of him all at once this morning, but what she really wanted to see remained hidden. He still could not bare the loud words of trouble sealed inside.
By chance, she could make out piercing sounds of rattling originating from her chest, but strangely, it was not produced by her set of keys. Nevertheless, the sounds somehow ignited a recognizable feeling in her, one that words couldn’t describe, except to say that the pleasant sensations were warmly familiar, but definitely unanticipated, like a surprise visit from a dear old friend.
Their eyes inadvertently locked themselves into a steady pause when he emerged out of his world. This was accomplished by having Oliver tilting his head down substantially, because Prudence was always one head shorter than him. Overcoming this physical obstacle was simple; understanding why he was always able to guess her thoughts correctly through the patterns in her eyes was hard. From her look of sisterly concern, Oliver could unscramble the question she was about to pose. A grin flashed across his face.
“Never better!” he closed the Amoré and answered as convincingly as possible, ushering her out. “Go! You’ll be late!”
Moongate Beckons When The Canvas Sleeps by gossipweaver
Chapter Notes: She hadn’t seen him in a while, and she certainly didn’t expect to see so much of him all at once this morning, but what she really wanted to see remained hidden…