Dark Silence

27 days (4)

The place was decorated in the “Provence” style. Tables were covered with laced napkins decorated with small vases with artificial lavender in them. There were pictures with ladies in puffy pink dresses holding bouquet hanging on the walls with blue striped wallpapers. Under the ceiling, there were round lamps dispersing warm yellow light around the cafe. Behind the reception desk was an open case filled with bottles with colorful liquids in them and fancy tin boxes with tea and coffee. In the display, lots of different desserts were demonstrated making the heads of customers spin because of the wide choice and foretaste.

Madeleine chose one of the round tables near the window with 4 soft chairs standing near it. Darnell grabbed the menu and sat opposite the girl giving her the thin book in a brown cover.

“Here, choose what you want.”

While Madeleine was leafing the pages back and forth with enthusiasm, Darnell looked around the cafe. Apart from them, there was only a sweet-talking couple in love, sitting in the opposite corner. The guy was holding the girl’s palms, looking into her eyes, and whispering something passionately to her. The girl was smiling shyly, tidying up her hair and blushing. Darnell turned away from this scene depressedly and stared at the table. A long time ago he used to sit here with Karen just like them. Before everything went up in smoke.

“Have you made your choice?” the flow of his thought was interrupted by a female voice.

Darnell rose his eyes at the waitress. A young girl was standing in front of him, not older than 18. Her round face with plump lips was framed with nutbrown hair. Two strands on the temples were bound into straps and taken back like the natural band allowing hair to lay freely on the girl’s shoulders. In her ears, small round stones were shining. Darnell thought that this might probably be her first job. She was dressed in the uniform of this cafe consisting of a white knee-long dress with a pink apron and wide white fabric belt. Darnell slid his glance down her figure, stopping for a second on the neck cut.

“Espresso, ice-cream, please, and, did you choose?” he asked Madeleine, and she turned the menu to him pointing at some line. “Fruit fantasy?” The girl nodded.

“That’s it?” asked the waitress cheerfully, writing the order down in her notebook.

“Yes, thank you,” answered Darnell.

The girl turned around and went back to the counter. Darnell followed her shapes with a hungry glance. Two white bands of her belt were lying on her butts like two greedy male palms. Darnell felt his mouth filling with saliva and pants tightening traitorously. He coughed and crossed his legs trying to distract himself from obscene thoughts. The last thing he needed was getting involved in an amorous affair. He looked at Madeleine: she was staring absorbedly at the window with her head reclined upon her hand. Her golden ponytails on her head didn’t get wet under the rain, and she was tucking her hair behind her ear. Darnell felt uneasy that such a small and tender creature was constantly under some danger. Who was hunting her down and why? Darnell tried to think about what to start with and from what to initiate the search, but nothing came to mind.

“Your order, sir,” pronounced the waitress’s voice near him, and Darnell moved to give her some space.

She placed a cup of coffee and two ice-cream bowls on the table and left the customers. Darnell looked at Madeleine’s dessert with interest. In a high glass, a colorful ice-cream was poured spirally, each side of which had a different rainbow color, and probably had a different taste. It was topped with a cherry.

“Oh wow,” exhaled Darnell admiringly. “I haven’t ordered this here yet, may I try it?” he reached out the dessert with the spoon, but Madeleine grabber hers and immediately beat back his dash. She frowned angrily and pulled the dessert closer to herself. Darnell rose his eyebrows in surprise. “Oh, come on, just one spoon. And in return I’ll let you try mine, do you want it?” he moved his bowl with two scoops of ice-cream to Madeleine. The girl shook her head stubbornly, protecting her dessert from the encroacher. “Oh well,” Darnell shrug shoulders, “I can order as many of those as I want.”

He immediately regretted what he said. Madeleine’s lower lip trembled, and her shoulders lowered. She slowly put the spoon into the colorful dessert and pushed it away from herself with a downcast look. She sat for a while, but then left the table.

“Madeleine,” Darnell panicked, “I… I’m sorry, I didn’t want to,” he reached out to stop her, but the girl dodged and went to the sign of the WC room, keeping her eyes down. Darnell followed her with a glance full of repentance. “Dammit,” he slammed his forehead, “looks like I have just won the “Moron of the Day” award…”

He lived alone for so long that forgot that not everything is allowed to be said aloud. Especially to the little girl who lost her family. Probably when she lived with her parents, they used to take her to such cafes quite often treating her with any dessert she would want. It was simply impossible to say “no” to Madeleine. And Darnell remembered well that there were no such culinary delights in the orphanage. 

He stared at the unfortunate dessert, blaming himself for the big mouth and empty head. Madeleine had just begun to come forward to him, and he immediately touched her sore subject. Darnell had no idea how he would apologize to her. He sipped his coffee and winced at its bitterness. Darnell looked around and picked some ice-cream putting it into the cup. He knew that no one did something like that, especially in public places, but he liked the received combination and the softened taste of strong black coffee. Darnell was slowly stirring it waiting for the ice-cream to melt. It was drawing white spirals on the black canvas making coffee’s color lighter and lighter. Darnell thought on how much deep meaning one could find in a common cup of coffee. The white would never remain crystal clear after touching the black, and vice versa.

While he was philosophizing over the coffee with the ice-cream, Madeleine flopped down on the chair opposite to his. Darnell looked at her with regret. She was hiding her red eyes, but her rose nose gave out the reason why she ran away from him. Her dessert crooked dismally in her bowl, spreading colorful drips over its sides and slowly leaking into the small plate it was standing on. The girl didn’t touch her treat.

“Listen,” Darnell broke the silence. “I’m sorry. I said a stupid thing.”

They sat silent for a while, both thinking about their own things. Darnell sipped coffee, following Madeleine’s dessert that was melting more and more. The girl clearly didn’t have any mood either to eat it or to react at Darnell. He sighed.

“I’m not always controlling myself quite well,” he confessed. He wanted to have it out with Madeleine somehow. “That’s why I wasn’t really happy that Ewing appointed me to you.” Madeleine rose her eyes at him, and he hurried to add: “It’s not because you’re a kid or something. How should I explain this…” He looked thoughtfully at the spoon he was holding in his hands. Suddenly he got an idea. “Look,” he showed the spoon, “imagine that you’re a common right-hander, just sit here and eat an ice-cream.” Darnell scooped his dessert and put it into his mouth. He licked the spoon and continued. “And suddenly your left hand plucks off this spoon without your knowledge and hits you with it in your forehead,” he changed his hand and slapped himself with the table-ware. It made a quiet thump that made Madeleine smirk, but she immediately frowned deliberately. Darnell wiped his hurt sticky forehead. “And then this left hand starts to hit with the spoon everyone around. Including me myself too, of course. You’ve been hurt a couple of times too,” Darnell chuckled sadly, looking at the spoon. “And people around start giving pieces of advice on how to deal with this situation. Some say to hit the hand in return, others - to attach it to the body and to take various pills from which both hands become dysfunctional. Some say not to pay attention and let it harm anyone it wants hoping that soon it will wear down and will stop by itself.” Darnell sighed and put the spoon on the plate. “But this is all wrong. Everyone is mistaken. The only thing that helps is holding tight the left hand with the right one." He folded both arms in front of him at the table. “But still it breaks away from time to time and starts causing mayhem.”

Darnell started at his hands. The analogy turned out to be really curious. Good he didn’t mention the possibility to cut that hand off once and forever. Sometimes he was absolutely for this variant but never managed to find the fitting saw.

“So, if anything, don’t listen to me or pay attention. I won’t harm you. I can only throw some bullshit. And eat your dessert, just look at it, like a half-digested rainbow.” He cast a disapproving sidelong look at the “Fruit fantasy,” and Madeleine smiled. She took her spoon, squished the dessert from the top, and started to mix it thoroughly turning the remnants of the beauty into a crazy whirl of tints and tastes.

“What a kink,” murmured Darnell watching the girl shoving happily the spoon of the melted horror into her mouth.

The rain stopped, and it started to get dark outside. With the evening coming, the customers started to crowd the cafe. Couples in love, friends who hadn’t seen each other for a long time, business partners hitting the cafe after a hard working day. No one paid attention to a weird couple consisting of a small girl and a skinny gloomy man with hair gathered in a ponytail and dressed in a black t-shirt with a skull on it. The cafe was filling with talks and noise.

Madeleine finished her dessert and stared at the evening city into the window in boredom. Cars were passing by throwing gleams at her face. Darnell got curious about what was she thinking about at such moments. Was she remembering her parents and old life? Was she dreaming about leaving the orphanage forever? Maybe she was building some plans for the future? He wished he could talk to her at least for a while.

“Who could have left those traces on the window, I wonder,” he said thoughtfully. He placed his chin on his locked fingers, looking at Madeleine. She shook her head. “Of course you don’t know,” sniffed Darnell, “I don’t know either. But I think we can figure this out. Tomorrow we’ll try to go to the library. There’s a lot of the literature about demons in there, available only to the Agency’s employees.” He grinned. “Did you know that such literature is forbidden to other people?” Madeleine shook her head again, staring at Darnell with curiosity. “Yep, it’s prohibited to protect everyone from contacting demons and asking for something from them. Not to let them conduct the rituals or choose which demon is the most suitable for their demands. Tell me honestly,” he put his hands down and moved closer to Madeleine, “how did you manage to do this?”

The girl shrugged her shoulders and turned away.

“You don’t remember?” asked Darnell. Madeleine nodded. He thought that he should have read her case thoroughly. He didn’t even know what her parents had done for living. Maybe they did have an access to the required literature. “Well, fine, it’s time to go home.”

Darnell drank his coffee and went to the counter to pay for the order. He left a good tip to the cute waitress and came back to Madeleine. The girl got off the chair and went to the exit. Darnell chuckled at her attempts to open the heavy door, and then went out to the street.

“No need to run head against the door,” he commented on, joining Madeleine. She turned away from him. “By the way, I can say from experience that stubbornness doesn’t always help in life,” he put his palm on her head, and Madeleine started to spin around angrily trying to dodge.

***

Darnell woke up from the feeling that someone sat on his bed. It bent under the weight, and the man decided that Madeleine came to him. Maybe something scared her in the unknown flat? He opened his mouth to ask the hardly seen silhouette what had happened, but couldn’t pronounce a sound. He wanted to sit, but the body refused to obey. Darnell was opening and closing his mouth in fear while the figure was bending to him in complete darkness. When it reached his face, it stopped.

“Who are you,” hardly whispered Darnell.

“You,” answered the figure with his own voice. “I am you. And you can do nothing about this.”

“Leave me alone,” hissed Darnell.

“You can’t get rid of yourself,” whispered the figure in his ear. “You can’t cut this hand off.”