Belle felt entirely drained after the incident. She wandered slowly back to the house, leaving Alyssa and Luke sitting up, still talking it all over. Unusually, she stumbled on the step, and bumped her shoulder as she rounded the corner into her room. Both times, Rudolph was there beside her. Even unharnessed, as he usually was at home, he tended to keep an eye out for her. After what seemed like miles, her shins brushed up against the bed, and she tumbled into it, too tired to even be bothered undressing. She slept dreamlessly, and woke some time after midnight - cold, uncomfortable in her jeans, and with her face rumpled.
--
Alyssa and Luke were still awake, still talking, when Belle finally got out of bed to get undressed and then got back in and under the doona. They hadn't gotten any closer to explaining what had happened. Alyssa felt like they had been talking in circles all night, but she was unwilling to let the topic go now that it had - finally - been brought up. As far as they could tell, the worry dolls contained worries that had previously belonged to other people. Belle, somehow, seemed to be able to tap in to these worries, and Alyssa was convinced it was because of the sixth sense that she had developed because of being born blind.
"You see, she's always been able to do this thing," she explained to Luke, "where it's almost like she knows what look is on your face. You can be talking to someone, and give them a funny look and she'll be on to it, saying "what's wrong?" and stuff. She can walk into a room where no one is talking at all, and know what the feel of the conversation was before she arrived. She senses it. We've always laughed about it, sometimes it's like she's not blind at all, you know." she giggled a little, remembering times when her sister had surprised her with this technique, and then continued, "Anyway, I think she picks up on some kind of ... wave length, or something, that ordinary people don't get. I think the worry dolls are transmitting on this wavelength, if that makes any sense, and she's picking up on it. When she holds on one of the dolls, she feels whatever it is the worry is. Last night, she said that the side of her face had gotten hot, like she was too close to a fire, or she had been slapped. She also said she could smell bacon frying. That ..."
Luke interupted the monologue, "That's what that woman would have been feeling, but worse, I guess." his eyes drifted over to the big salald bowl, brimming with little tiny worry dolls, "Do you think that ... every one of them ..." He left the thought unfinished.
--
Eventually, they had fallen asleep, entwined on the futon. Luke didn't stir until the sun was well in the sky. Alyssa was already up making coffee, her hair - wet from the shower - tied up in a towel. Luke sat up blinking, and Alyssa brought a steaming mug over to him, "Good morning, Sleepyhead." she said coyly.
Luke gave a little smile and took the proffered mug, "I guess I didn't wake up." he said sheepishly.
Alyssa folded herself onto the futon beside him, clutchng her own mug in both hands, and blowing on it to cool the coffee down. She took a tentative sip before replying, "No. I guess you didn't."
"Are you," he cleared his throat before continuing, "Do you have to go to uni today?"
Alyssa stared into her coffee as she blew on it, "Not until 2." There was a pause, and she added, "It's only 8, now."
Luke put his coffee down on the floor carefully, his actions deliberate. He straightened, ands gently took Alyssa's cup from her and placed it on the ground next to his own. When he sat up again, Alyssa had a little smile playing on her lips - she knew what he was up to. He leant in close to her, the smell of soap, shampoo and coffee mingled and made him feel heady. He kissed her gently, and she responded. The kisses got deeper, more sensual, and after a little while he brought his hand up to her chest, lightly cupping her breast. He felt her moan beneath his lips, and her body arched towards his, asking him for more, offering him what he wanted. Slowly, he began to undress her.
--
Belle had woken late, and been in a rush to get to school. Rudolph had virtually pulled her down the street to the bus stop, and they had arrived just as the bus pulled up for them. She had been pre-occupied all day, though, thinking through the events of last night now that she had gotten some sleep. Last night, she had been too tired to make sense of what had gone on. This morning, she still couldn't make sense of it, but at least she could turn the concepts around to see how they fit. By the time school was over, she was in a hurry to get home and try out a theory. She was going to need Alyssa, though. She hoped she was at home.
--
When Alyssa and Luke finally emerged from bed, satiated and hungry, it was nearly noon. They had made love and slept, then woken and done it again, but slower, enjoying it more now that the original neediness had been taken care of. Feeling like she was walking on clothes, Alyssa went and showered again and, when she came out pink and steaming under a towel, Luke was up and making more coffee. He had picked up the full mugs that they had forgotten earlier, washed them, and was busy filling them up again. Alyssa drank standing up in the tiny kitchen, covered only by the towel, and Luke joined her, appreciating the generous view of her legs, and half hoping the towel would fall off so he could take her back to bed. Instead, Alyssa demanded food. Specifically, she wanted a BLT. Luke agreed to take her out to a cafe on the beach.
--
At 2 o'clock, Alyssa was sitting back in her chair on a deck overlooking the sea. It was a cold day, but the sun was shining, and the breeze was blowing gently. She had a rollneck woollen jumper on, and she wrapped herself in it, enjoying the view over the water - frothy white tipped waves rolling in and beyond them great shipping boats just barely visible on the horizon, looking like kids bath toys. From the corner of her eye, she could see Luke, rocked back on the rear two legs of his chair, also enjoying the view, and pretending not to be staring at her. She smiled to herself. There was no way she was going to uni this afternoon. If she could be bothered to move off this deck, she thought to herself, it would be to go home and back to bed.
--
When they finally did get back to Alyssa's flat, Belle came tearing out of the house to accost them. Luke gave Alyssa a quick kiss, not at all the kind of kiss she had been hoping for, and said he had better get home, before jumping back into the drivers seat and turning the car around. As he crunched over the gravel driveway, Belle frowned in the direction of the road, "He was in a hurry." she stated.
Alyssa didn't reply, but went to unlock the flat and go inside, "Do you want a drink?" she asked.
"Coffee is good, thanks Liss." she flopped on the unmade futon and wrinkled her nose a little, "Ew, what have you two been up to? This lounge stinks."
Alyssa reddened, glad that Belle couldn't see her, and shooed her sister off the futon so she could get rid of the sheets. Sometimes, she thought, having a sister with an acute sense of smell was a serious pain in the arse.
The sheets taken care of, Alyssa went back to making coffee. As she waited for the kettle to boil, she asked Belle what was bothering her. Belle had found a spot in the reading nook, sprawled over cushions, and it was from here that she recounted her idea. Alyssa brought coffee halfway through, and together they sat, shrouded by bright gauze hangings, and discussed it. They debated whether or not to bring Mandy and Jamie in on the theory, and speculated over how much they knew. They both decided that they probably knew nothing, and eventually came to the conclusion that they would decide to tell Mandy depending on what the results of the experiment ended up being.
--
Mandy was at work when Jamie walked in. She didn't notice him at first, and one of the other girls spoke to him. As soon as he opened his mouth though, she looked up, and smiled. "To what do I owe the honour of your presence, Sir?" she asked playfully, and he held out his hand for hers, and replied in the same tone, "Young lady, I am so enamoured by your beautiful demeanour that I have come to ask you out for lunch. Do you think your lovely boss," at this he flittered his eyelashes presumptuously at the other woman behind the counter, "would allow me to whisk you away for some gastronomic delights?" At this, all three of them began laughing, and Mandy got shooed out of the building by her manager saying, "After that kind of introduction, how could I say no? Now go!"
--
Over lunch at a nearby restaurant, Mandy fussing over the time, Jamie produced a cardboard envelope. It was the tickets for their weekend away, just as they had planned it only a few days ago. Mandy looked over them, pleased, it looked perfect. Nothing but sleeping, massages and lying around a pool for two whole days. She had already asked for the Saturday morning off work, and Jamie had scheduled his patients around the expected holiday. In less than three days, they would be gone.
--
The family sat down together over dinner that night - even Alyssa joined them for the first time in weeks. Mandy excitedly shared the details of their impending trip away, finer details being provided by Jamie. Belle nudged Alyssa under the table with her footwhen he mentioned that they were leaving on Friday night, straight after work. Mandy knew what she meant - she wanted to do the experiment then.
Afterwards, Jamie was washing dishes while Belle dried and Alyssa stacked them in the cupboard. It was a neat process that they had begun to perfect in the months since they moved to this house. Belle was discussing the possibility of a Monopoly challenge after the dishes, and Alyssa had agreed, eager to get out of studying. Jamie agreed on one condition - that he be the banker. He was beginning to suspect that Belle was purposefully skimping on his change. Belle handed the tea towel to Alyssa to finish the last few things, and took off to set the game up. She had only just opened up the box when Jamie joined her in the dining room. She was just about to lever out the board to reveal all the pieces, when something made her stop. She paused and ran her hand lightly over the surface of the folded game board, horribly certain already what she was going to find. When her fingers touched the worry doll, she heard a rushing sound in her ears, obliterating all other noise. She pulled her hand away and realised she had been holding her breath. She took a deep breath, tried to recover her senses, and then picked up one end of rhe board. She gave it a flick to dislodge the doll, and the movement caused Jamie to look up from where he was clearing clutter off the table, "What is it, Belle?" he asked, concerned, "You've gone pale."
"It's uh ..." she was about to say nothing and give some lame excuse, when she had a better idea, "it's another worry doll, would you believe?" she said craftily.
"Another one?" Jamie exclaimed without thinking. It was only later that he realised that both he and Mandy had assumed the girls didn't know anything about the dolls. And how wrong they had been.
--
By the time Alyssa entered the dining room and went to the box to select a Monopoly piece, Jamie and Belle were deep in conversation. Instead of picking a playing piece, she noticed the doll sitting in amongst the little houses and hotels, and picked it up instead. Holding it out she waited for a pause and then said softly, "Belle. Did you touch it?"
Belle was counting cash, using the braille pin holes they had punched in the corners to identify the different notes, and with this she looked up, startled. She hadn't yet told Jamie about this part of the puzzle.
Alyssa saw him look with confusion between her sister and herself, and she shot him a look with a raised eyebrow that said, Wait for this, this is good.
Belle stammered slightly, trying to work out what she was going to say, and then just decided to answer the question. Jamie would work it out soon enough, she guessed. "I, uh, yeah, just quickly."
"And what happened?" Alyssa asked, like a teacher quizzing a recalcitrant six year old.
"It was, ah, a rushing sound, I guess." Belle tried to relive the brief moment, in order to be able to explain it accurately, "It was like when you put your head under in the swimming pool, but louder. Like being dunked at the beach, but by a really big wave. I was holding my breath."
"Any smells?"
"I didn't notice any, this time."
At the reference to this time, Jamie looked up again, and noticed that Mandy had drifted in to listen. She was standing at the arched entrance to the room, her hand up to her mouth, as though she couldn't quite believe what was being said, "This time?" Jamie echoed.
Belle turned toward his voice, and added, "Yeah, this is the ... the fourth time. I didn't touch it for very long this time, though. And I didn't hold it in my hand, just brushed it with my fingers. It wasn't as strong."
Mandy spoke up then, demanding that the two girls tell the whole story, from beginning to end. After shooting Belle a look to find out if she was going to start, Alyssa took a deep breath, and began at the beginning.
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