2019-07-26 - History Doesn't Have To Repeat Itself

The night is dark and full of frustrations.

Gray Harbor always seems to inspire the darkest depths whenever the sun goes scrambling for the horizon - despite it being only a few minutes past midnight, the evening seems abyssal and endless. The distant lights of the Boardwalk beckon the eye, echoing with the din of muted conversations - as sparse as the summer traffic that presently occupies it, when tourists and locals alike make the slow egress from the cold shore and closer to the beating heart of its downtown, undoubtedly to find a bar or two to while away the idle hours. It leaves the beach surrounding the bay relatively empty.

There's a light in the short distance; anyone who has experienced beachside living would not be a stranger to a bonfire, and Erin will readily be able to identify it for what it is. A small one, no bigger than a regular campfire. A shadow flits now and then.

Upon closer inspection, she would find a familiar face.

The first and last time Erin Addington had come across Isabella Reede, she was freshly returned from overseas and now she is here, clad in shorts and a jacket to stave off the seaside chill, bare feet worked into the sand. She holds vigil over the flames, the acrid smell of plastic, lighter fluid and something indistinct rising up with the smoke as it curls towards the heavens like a nest of gray serpents. Her hair is pulled back in the messy bind that she favors, loose locks of dark hair curling along with the breeze. Light and shadow play over her fragile profile, lips set in a determined line.

Not safe to go out alone, Erin doesn't. But that doesn't mean she has someone beside her trying to hold a conversation. Taking advice from those at the police department, she has a bodyguard of sorts with her and he trails a little beyond her. Of course when the bonfire is noticed, he tells her to be careful.

Erin gives the cursory nod. She was a big girl, the movement seemed to say. Approaching, she recognizes Isabella immediately. Especially since she had sent her that message. Recognizing her as that person, she smiles as she steps closer. "Hi," she says softly to indicate her presence there and hopefully not startle. "Is everything okay?"

The fact that she isn't alone twigs her well before Erin speaks, though Isabella doesn't turn around until she does; her nerves are raw and chafed, and it would be enough to encourage the lash of her notorious temper. But seeing the other woman's lovely face silhouetted by the half-light of her improvised hearth gives her pause. Recognition and surprise flickers over her expressive face, a glance to the large capable shadow waiting for the lady Addington by the wings of her peripheral vision. All of it is enough to bleed out the tension from her shoulders.

"...Miss Addington," she says. Not only is she familiar, but she is well-remembered, doubly so after the letter she sent and the newspaper articles bearing her name, tied to the city's most recent and famous tragedies.

After a pause, her smile quirks faintly up the corners of her mouth. "I should be asking you that," she acknowledges, taking a step closer to Erin. "How are you doing lately, Miss Addington? I know we don't really know each other, but..." Her smile fades. "I am sorry. For your losses."

The guard remains back. Oh he won't pretend he can't hear but he does occupy himself by walking a little closer to the water to give them at least the modicum of privacy, if not the illusion.

Erin only pretends he isn't there, the necessary evil for the moment with the suspicious deaths. The news said it all, four recent dead Addingtons. "Erin, please. Anything else is too formal for a night on the beach." Her eyes drop to the fire, mostly because of the scents in the air.

"I am coping. Sometimes that's all one can do in the face of so much adversity. Thank you for the sentiments, truly. I appreciate them." Lifting her chin, she considers Isabella, trying to read her expression somewhat. "I realize we don't really know each other, sometimes it's easier to talk to someone you don't know. Is everything okay?" Her smile slants. "Love letters from an ex boyfriend?" There's a teasing light in her eyes as she tries to lighten the moment and the attention that was on her.

"You're welcome," Isabella says softly. It has been eleven years since she had lost the person closest to her, unable to help the roaring rush of sympathy she experiences looking at Erin. Beautiful, wealthy, with the weight of her name behind her, the members of the Addington family never really felt real to her growing up; the reality of the present moment, however, is enough to destroy the fiction old perceptions have created in one fell swoop, crumbling at each quiet syllable.

And yet...

"Isabella then," she replies, lips quirking upwards. "You're very kind, Erin."

Love letters from an ex-boyfriend?

The attempt of a light joke earns her companion an appreciative laugh, wells of apprehension slowly running dry at the act. Her hand lifts, detaching from a pocket in order to splay in a loose array against her chest at the effort. "I wish," she tells her gamely. "Then I'd have an excuse to tote around a bottle of scotch, slugging shots of it into the fire now and then, drunkenly yelling 'Thanks for the memories!' or something equally ridiculous." She exhales a breath, slanting a sideways look over the fire.

"I don't know yet," she replies; a surprisingly honest answer. After a few moments' consideration, she shakes her head. "Do you remember my letter?" she asks. "How I told you that Billy might be William Gohl the serial killer?"

Erin smiles in return, picking carefully over the ground to get a little closer, separating herself further from the guard for now. Perhaps perceptions were spot on, when Erin had been in high school and the world was what she wanted it to be. Now, however, the Addington was having to adapt to realizations that her little corner of it had to answer to death as well, someday. Some sooner than later.

Cocking her head to the side, Erin regards her with some amusement. "Oh don't make excuses. Own it. Just walk around with a bottle like it's the most normal thing in the world to do and dare anyone to defy you."

As the conversation turns to a more serious tilt, Erin makes a sound of agreement. She does remember. "Yes," she agrees verbally also, terrified and curious at the same time. So many mentions of serial killers. And people dying daily.

The woman is speaking her language and were the situation as she described, Isabella would be doing very much the same thing. She had the sort of temperament people think of when they think of fast cars and scorned women armed with keys to ruin their paint jobs with. Still, the words put more life on the woman's grim exterior; it feels like the sun peeking out of a perpetual raincloud cover, she feels like she hasn't laughed in a year.

The fleeting look of terror has her hesitating openly, her expressions too free to be able to hide it with any manner of convincing effort. There's another glance at the fire, and then a quiet sigh. "A few investigator friends are looking into the trouble you and I experienced in the hospital. They managed to find some of William Gohl's personal effects and relinquished a few to my custody. I decided tonight that I'd burn them."

After a pause, she continues. "My career in the end is about history. The study of how people lived their lives at a specific time. From what I learned since returning home, though? I think some of it deserves to be forgotten. If they're right about him?" She juts the point of her delicate chin towards the fire. "He doesn't deserve to be immortalized in any way."

The laughter from Isabella matched Erin's more lighthearted look before the conversation had taken an abrupt turn into serial killer territory. There's a moment when she shivers and folds her arms across herself. For being 5'9" she sure managed to look delicate at times!

"I appreciate people looking into the matter. I heard the voice calling Billy. Or maybe Billy was saying his own name. I'm not entirely certain. But the hate was real. It was very palpable and emanated from the basement in waves. I wish I could explain it better. Every bad thing ever felt all at once. That's sort of how it felt."

This time Erin doesn't look down at the bones or the fire. Careful not to even breathe the fumes from it as if the smoke from it could be a living, breathing entity all its own. "It scares me," she confesses. "To think that could be him. Part of him."

"I didn't know you heard something until you mentioned it in your letter," Isabella confesses quietly, falling a step closer to Erin, the two of them watching the flames as a long, but comfortable silence descends.

She would explain it further, how the two of them standing here together is further evidence that history doesn't necessarily have to repeat itself; a woman with Baxter blood, conversing with a woman carrying the Addington name in her veins and bearing, finding a few things in common and sharing their opinions under the light of the waning moon and the sound of the waves rolling over the coast. She doesn't, however, electing to watch the smoke rise up and the flames continue to eat away some of what remains of Billy Gohl's tangible presence in this world.

"It's fine, Erin," she says instead, her contralto low in an effort to sound reassuring. "These things aren't really...half of the things that tend to go on here aren't explainable, not to a perfectly sane and understandably skeptical person. I'm from here, though. I know better than most." After a pause, she continues. "If you ever...want to talk. About anything...I'm sure you've plenty of friends but like you said, sometimes it's easier to talk to a person you don't really know."

She draws another breath, and after a slow purging from her lungs, she turns to look at the taller woman. "In the end, I don't think it's...this...is what's after you. I think it's something else. I have to substantiate it with tangible evidence, however, but once I have it, would you like me to let you know? I don't want anyone else to die, not if I can help it."

"I wasn't really very vocal about it. Some things are just better left unsaid in crowds of unfamiliar faces. " Erin takes the silence, content with it for a time, lost in her own thoughts and realizing that what she says is probably right. "If I do, I will definitely come in search of you. Right now, there's too much to say I wouldn't know where to start. Or there's nothing to say and I just take it a day at a time. I'm undecided which is the case."

There's a quiet look to Isabella and likewise, she turns more to face her. "I hope you're right. I honestly hope that it's a tangible being. I think that would be easier to locate and fight. I'm not fool enough to believe it couldn't be from that dream world." Sounding much like the fool she just mentioned, she gives a wry look. "I would really appreciate it if you do keep me informed or give me a heads up."

"Erin, you're grieving," Isabella says quietly. "And...it's not in me to impose myself on anyone, no matter how much I feel like it's warranted." Memories of a recent hospital stay cling to the deeper recesses of her mind; a persistent burr she's unable to shake. She pushes the image away. "I think you should take all the time in the world."

At the other woman's serious expression, she tilts her head at her faintly before nodding once. "I will."

Soon, the flames fade, leaving nothing but ash, and perhaps in deference to the woman's apprehension, the archaeologist uses a water bottle to soak up the ashes, to clump them up and keep them from flying in the wind, then uses a trash bag and a gardening trowel she brought with her to collect them like used kitty litter. It isn't long until the night is calm again, with the rest of the city's populace none the wiser as to its most recent cremation, with nothing else but the wind and water to act as silent witnesses.