Chapter 10
Nessa’s hands bunched in her skirt. She always found herself at odds with her mother. Unlike Shell, who absolutely adored her, Melena had always held Nessa at an arm’s length. It was likely because of the guilt she felt, for her partying and drinking while pregnant, and the physical state it left Nessa in. So here she waited for her mother, unsure what the day of mourning might entail.
Everything had been tense the last few days. Word of what happened in Dr. Mair’s class spread. Glinda hadn’t spoken about it much, but from what she understood, it was a rather traumatizing affair. Pfannee and ShenShen said when she returned to her room, where they were waiting by the door for her, she came back quiet and covered in blood. There were many rumors going around, some even saying that Elphaba had cursed Fiyero herself for attention. Nessa couldn’t imagine anyone doing such a thing, though she knew very little of the red head who Glinda seemed to loathe.
“You’re overthinking this again,” Shell sighed, watched his sister’s nervous tell. “Just think of it as any other visit from Mama or Father. Nothing more or less.”
That was easy for Shell to say. For him, Elphaba had always been a thing that happened, an untold story in the quiet. For Nessa and her mother, Elphaba had been so alive, even with everything their father but her through. She always smiled for Nessa. It always made their father angry when she smiled, especially right after he had ‘punished’ her. Sometimes, he saw it as reason enough to go another round. At the time, Nessa didn’t understand it. How her sister could be so optimistic about the world that seemed to drown her in misery. Now she understood that it had been a brave face she put on for Nessa, so that she wouldn’t bear that weight upon her shoulders. Elphaba was not some untold family story that she would never understand, she was a star in the vast darkness, violently ripped from its place in the night sky and extinguished of any light. That fact hung heavy often, but never more than it did today, on the anniversary of her death.
“Shell, Nessa,” a voice came from the other side of the archway towards the quad. “There you are!”
Melena ran over to them, holding her long skirt in her hand as she took each stride. She was a small woman, skinny as could be, and rather short. She blamed it on growing up partially in Quadling Country with her father. The only income the country had was through mining, and food was known to become scarce from time to time. Nipp had never minded much, being of a shorter disposition himself, he liked being able to tower over his wife. Though when Nipp realized Shell overtook him in height two years prior, it had been a day of walking on eggshells. All the Thropp children seemed to have what might have been Melena’s height had she been raised in a nutrition rich diet, and if Nessa wasn’t in her chair most of the time, she would likely have overtaken Nipp long before that.
“Mama,” Shell broke out into a large smile, running towards Melena.
When he reached her, he enveloped her in a large hug. It had only been a month and a half, maybe closer to two, but it felt like an eternity away from home. Nessa watched the scene as she wheeled herself to them, an awkward smile on her face.
“Mother,” Nessa said. “I’m happy we could see you.”
Melena returned her daughter’s smile, cupping her cheeks in the palms of her hands and laying harsh kisses against them, leaving the supple skin bright red.
“Look at you,” she said, almost in disbelief. “Both of you. I couldn’t be a prouder mother.”
She looked at Shell then back to Nessa. Her wide smile suddenly began to fall. Nessa immediately knew what was going through her mind.
“Let’s go to the gardens,” Nessa said. “They have the most beautiful milk flowers that never seem to wilt.”
“That sounds lovely,” Melena replied, grateful for the distraction. “And you to must tell me all about your studies.”
As they walked, Shell told her about his arithmetic classes, how he did well in them, but found them rather dull. His love laid in his history and politics lessons. Melena smiled, knowing Nipp would be more than excited to hear such a thing. Nessa mentioned that she was taking biology classes along with her political science studies, and that she wished she could be a doctor. Melena let out a breath, giving her an apologetic look. To do so, Nessa would have to forfeit her titles to Shell, which was not an easy task.
“Here we are,” Nessa said. “Aren’t they beautiful?”
The milk flower circled the fountain in the middle of the garden, separated from other plants by the stone walkway. The field of white took over the space, with the exception of bit of yellow and green lost inside or on the petals of the curved stem. They reminded Nessa of their own garden, of the hours she had spent there, growing whatever flower was in season. It was easy enough, and she only needed Nanny to help her move to a new spot every fifteen minutes or so. When they came in season, Nessa would often pick a bouquet for her mother, carefully choosing each flower for their meanings. It was her way of conveying messages she didn’t have the courage to say. Of course, her mother had no idea which flowers meant what, and so it had been a practice akin to writing a letter and throwing it in the fire to burn before anyone might see it.
“Nothing could possible beat your garden,” Shell said, walking around the fountain as he studied the flowers. “But in the absence of the Cowen Grounds, it’ll have to do.”
“I couldn’t have described it better myself,” Melena agreed.” Fields of flowers here could never hold a candle to your beautiful bouquets.”
“I’ll make sure to make one for you when I come home in the spring.”
Of course, Nessa would be home for winter, but most flowers didn’t grow easily enough or well enough for the bouquet she liked to make. Waiting for spring, right as the flowers bloomed would certainly be worth it.
“The poppies are a bit further down the pathway. I thought it might be nice to…to see them.”
The words were cautious, but Nessa said them, nonetheless. Elphaba had loved Poppies. She would pick the wild poppies on the road home from school. In her room, she would always have the red flowers in a vase near the window, so she could see them whenever. Nessa had tried to grow them in the garden, but Nipp had been wholly against it, and destroyed the flower bed as soon as they began to blossom.
“I think that would be nice.”
Melena turned away from the milk flowers, following Nessa as she made her way down the path. A humming grew as they grew closer, and Melena recognized the cadence. It was one present in so many Quadling songs, though she hadn’t listened to it in years. Not since she left Quadling Country in her youth. It was more familiar than that though, but she couldn’t place exactly where.
On the bench across from the poppies, Elphaba sat, humming away. She would stop every so often, mumbling words, as if trying to make them fit with the sound. She looked downright horrendifying. The color in her face was gone, replaced with an ashy pale shade. The bags under her eyes were large and dark, and her hair was knotted and tangled. She wore a white waffle-knit dress and shorts, the ones common for students who stayed overnight at the infirmary, and she had on slippers that were clearly only suited for the outdoors. Nessa had a feeling she wasn’t supposed to be here at all.
“El-,” Nessa stopped, not wanting to say the name the girl shared with her sister in front of Melena. Who knew how the woman would react. “After everything I heard, I thought you’d be in the infirmary.”
“I probably should be,” she conceded. “But I woke up after three days, and the only thought on my mind was that I should come to the garden and look at the poppies.”
Her voice was low, and when she spoke, she seemed…lost. Everything she said made sense, but it seemed like she was saying it through some kind of smoke screen. For a moment Nessa thought she might be high, given poppy milk for pain. Her eyes would have been red and watery, if that had been the case though. Anyways, hadn’t she been comatose for three days. There would have been no point to giving her poppy milk when she was in such a state.
“Elphaba!” the yelling came from the other side of the garden. “Elphaba are you in here?”
“She’s over her Fiyero!” Shell called out.
It was quiet for a moment, but then the sound of footsteps filled the path, growing as Fiyero made his way closer. When he finally made it to the planted poppies, he let out a sigh of relief that Elphaba seemed, for the most part, okay. He was breathing heavily, and it was clear he had been running for quite some time. Who knows where he had gone around campus before he came to the gardens? The relief all but disappeared when he realized how little she was wearing, and how cold it was. He quickly shuffled off his jacket, throwing it around her shoulders.
“This isn’t very smart. You’re going to freeze out here.”
His voice was quiet and gentle, worried. It had her feeling odd inside, even through the thick cloud in her mind. Instead of looking at Fiyero, her eyes landed on Melena. Her red hair and dark eyes exactly as she remembered. She hummed the melody once more, trying to find words she could not quite place.
“I was born to be green, not yellow nor blue.”
Wind might have been louder as she whispered the words. Some long-forgotten song she had started the lyrics to years before, when she played at the edge of the munchkin land forest. Then her head snapped back to Fiyero, and as if a switch went off in her head, the fogginess cleared. She stood up quickly, her legs shaking ever so slightly.
“I’m going back to my room, before I lose my toes to the cold, ” she said to no one in particular.
“Well, if you had let someone know you woke up, then maybe they would have stopped you from going outside in the freezing cold.”
Elphaba rolled her eyes at the sarcasm, but that odd feeling crept in once more. Her eyes kept on him as she walked. It then occurred to her that she had never heard anything close to snark from Fiyero before. He was always prim and polished. The serious friend of the group, though she wasn’t actually part of the group, nor were any of them her friends by any stretch of the imagination.
Melena watched as the girl walked away, her eyes glazed over with tears she refused to let shed. Now she remembered where she had known that melody. It was back in the days where she was lucky to be sober enough to remember anything at all. She would come in stumbling drunk from the bars, and her small green girl would help her into bed in the spare room. Then she would stay and the two of them would sing the little song they made. It was the only time Melena could distinctly remember being a mother to the daughter she had failed.
The question that haunted her mind, how did this girl know a song shared between only her and her long since deceased daughter. Was it a known tune to place on old Quadling folk poems? That was a common practice in the south.
That had to be it, Melena told herself. She repeated it in her mind twice, no, three times over. That’s all it could be, all she would let it be.