Lost and Found [Mingle]

[ourearth]

Date: 23-30.3.19
Characters: Open

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It starts slowly, one by one: Items are being returned to people. Specifically, they are delivered to their mailboxes.

The items are very varied, and either pushed through the letter slot in the door or, if they're too big, just left on the doorstep: A wallet that was stolen last year, a coin that was dropped into the sea last week, or a toy that was left on a bus, a time capsule buried in the ground, an unwanted present purposefully forgotten at the train station. The only thing that they have in common that they are never perishables. It's all non-food items.

All items that are being returned must have vanished within the Mossgate Echo Boundary, but they can have vanished long before the person whom they are returned to gained their first echo/got access to the network.

They appear throughout the week, and then abruptly stop the evening before Mother's Day.

Comments

II

[vernal_miss]

When her grandfather arrives, Nel is laying upside down on the couch with her head off the front of the cushion, hair draping down, and feet on the back as she watches the telly. Although her initial impulse is to smile, that vanishes when she reads his body language as he walks over. Quick to sit herself upright, she swings her feet down the other way to sit properly and look as he drops the box on a cushion. Leaning over on one hand to peer inside, she examines the items it contains without touching them, and frowns slightly. The items are not familiar to her, faded as her memories of Amy are by now.

As such, she has very little to offer in answer, “…no? Maybe the Numbers… But what are these, Grandpa?”

[scarsolderthanyou]

"I didn't think you would have, but maybe your mother," Sam allows. He drops to sit on the other side of the box from Nel, frowning, but maybe a little bit less so. "These come from your grandmother. My wife. I pawned them or donated them or just plain threw them out over the past couple of years, and they showed up in a box on my doorstep this morning."

[vernal_miss]

The association of the items as belonging to her grandmother is unexpected. Brows lifting, Nel looks far more attentively into the box a second time with the items inside observed for more details while she touches the top edge of the box with one hand. Grandpa may have sent them away but the items, both precious and mundane, had been gathered and returned. While she appreciates the opportunity to see something more from her grandmother, it strikes her as more odd than what their household has been experiencing collectively.

“We’ve been getting things back too... Everyday almost, but not in a box like this,” Nel reports.

[scarsolderthanyou]

It's a variety of things, some clothes and some books and some jewelry, a couple small cat figurines that Amy had loved and that he couldn't bear to keep around, some notes that had been crumpled up and thrown out but apparently considered worth digging out and returning. "So should I expect more gifts like this?" he guesses, not really expecting Nel to know, just surmising and not particularly happy with the idea.

[vernal_miss]

The cat figurines draw her eye almost instantly, and Nel wonders if Grandma Amy loved cats as much as her Mum. Her hand at the edge of the box dips over the side to touch the fabric of the piece of clothing, but before her curiosity goes further, her attention returns to her grandfather. She furrows her brows as she recognizes how much this is troubling him, and she answers as well as she can, “You got a lot all at once, but we’ve gotten one or two things at a time, so maybe not...?”

Sliding off the couch, she steps around the front to climb up right beside him, and leans over to wrap her arms around his middle in a hug.

[scarsolderthanyou]

Sam blinks at her, then settles his arms around her, back. "Sorry, kiddo," he says, sounding a little more wearied than usual. It might remind her of how he'd been before the whole numbered thing started up, when he was still pretty actively grieving for his wife. "Your grandmother was pretty special to me, and getting a bunch of her things on my doorstep wasn't easy or fun."

[vernal_miss]

Those thin arms stay wrapped as far as she can reach as she cranes her head back to look right up at her grandfather from under the edge of her blanket of hair. The worn tone in his voice and body language is recognized, and she puts the pieces together enough to understand more of why he had seemed so much older to her before.

“You don’t need to say sorry for missing Grandma... Or for being upset that someone gave you her things back. You loved her a whole lot,” she offers in support. She may not understand the depth of his grief, but she is aware of its presence. “If it would help, you can leave the box here.”

[scarsolderthanyou]

"I'm guessing if I do that, someone's going to give it back to me again," Sam says, shaking his head. "Sounds like it's a numbers thing, after all, so I'd rather not test it. I'll keep them for a little while, see if things change again. Thanks, though, Nel." He pats her back a little as he hugs her back.

[vernal_miss]

A nod of her head is given to show her understanding, as Nel realizes that if it had been upsetting the first time then a second time could be awful too. Hug returned with the pat at her back, the girl squeezes tighter with her arms. Easing out of the gesture, she leaves her one arm behind her grandfather and stays leaning against his side.

"Maybe it'll stop soon," she ponders. The odd happenings in Mossgate sometimes linger, but it would be unusual to persist for very long. "But even if it does...do you think talking would help?"

[scarsolderthanyou]

"What's there to talk about?" Sam asks tiredly, idly stroking her hair, looking out across the room rather than at the box at his side. He doesn't elaborate, mostly because he knows doing so would sound self-pitying and really too sad to bother poor Nel with, but he can't muster up anything positive to say, either.

[vernal_miss]

“Maybe...” she starts timidly peering up at her grandfather as he looks off in the distance rather than to anything on the couch. Voice quieting, she finishes the thought, “You could talk about Grandma?” More hurriedly, she explains her suggestion, “Happy stories can make you feel happy and I know everyone else knew her and probably most of the stories already but I don’t really remember and I would like to hear if you want to.”

Good memories can be nice to revisit. At least to bring a smile out when the heart is hurting.