2022-02-21 - Spoiler: The White Powder Was Fine

It's an icily cold Sunday afternoon, and after a lazy start to the day that involved cinnamon buns and coffee, Una has suggested venturing up into the attic to poke through some of Grandma Irving's things. After all, what better way to spend an afternoon?

The attic is accessed via a pull-down ladder. Above, there are decades of treasures, almost certainly: old boxes and crates, even a few steamer trunks that speak to things even older, and standing amidst it all, Una rubs at her eyes, seemingly overwhelmed. "Where do we even start? At random?"

At least they can stand up! Della, holding a mop-slash-long-handled-duster as though it's a spear, surveys the scene. "Is there anything you're particularly looking for? We could just go with what's closest," which might be easy and also might be boring, "or dive into those big trunks, the ones we can reach, anyway. I just want to clean the near window. It's looking at me." She lifts the spray bottle with her non-spear hand, miming shooting like a far more advanced technology.

"No," admits Una, who has tied her hair back with a 1950s-esque headscarf and has her own bucket of cleaning supplies to dump in the centre of the space (at least for now). "Mostly, I just want to know what's up here. Eventually, it should all get cleaned out-- there's no point letting it moulder away."

She considers, glancing from boxes to trunks to windows, to, well, everything else. "Well, if you want to tackle the window, go ahead. I kind of like the idea of the trunks. Maybe there's treasures in there, you know?"

"I hope so!" Della's scarf is borrowed, brightly floral, and she's verging on bouncy from some combination of caffeine, sugar (good call, Una)... and its not being her attic to deal with. She's quick to thread her way towards the near window ("Doesn't it look like an eye to you, all round like that?") and give it a wipe before starting to spritz. "It's not nearly as dusty as I'd feared," is just as cheerful as before.

With Una, there's always sugar. Generally coffee, too.

"Is this house watching us, do you think? Old houses are weird like that. So much... history." The redhead grins, turning her attention to the nearest of the trunks, which is dusty. She uses her dust cloth to wipe it off, peering down at the brass name-plate set into the old wood. "Agatha Taylor Irving," she reads out, thoughtfully. "I wonder who she was."

"I suppose it could be." Della waves to the near 'eye,' smiling. "Imagine, being able to look inside and outside of yourself at the same time. Though I don't know what there is in me that I'd want to look into, but then, it isn't very well inhabited, is it? Except by probiotic this and that, I suppose, and there are those... Una, tell me we aren't just the house's skin mites." Even if it's not so large a window, she's thorough. "At least Agatha's parents did right by her, gave her respectable initials."

There's a train of thought that leaves Una reeling by the end of it. "Fuck, I hope not," is her conclusion. "Because that sounds kind of gross. No. We're definitely not that. We're--"

Something else, though whatever that something else is, Una's not got a term for it. She runs her fingers over the brass lettering again, and laughs. "'ATI'. Yes, that's not so bad. 'UI' makes me sound like I belong in a computer. At least I didn't get 'Taylor' as a middle name."

...And Della's giggling. "Too true. D--" there goes the laughter again. "DJ isn't so bad, since the J's my middle and not the last, and even then--" better than UTI. She steps back from the dusted, washed, and dried window to smile at it once more before pivoting to the rest of the room. "Is it locked?"

Una laughs, too, though there's a slightly suspicious glance aimed in Della's direction, too: giggling?

The other woman's reminder has her turning her attention back to the trunk, as she attempts to lift the lid. It doesn't budge. She tugs again.

"I can't tell if it's locked," she says, frowning, "or if it is rusted shut or something."

"Mmm. Screwdriver time, maybe." Della isn't giggling any longer, but there's still laughter as an undercurrent as she makes her way towards Una, taking her gear with her (spear and all). "Don't break your nails!" Spear, screwdriver, they're all quality levers; or, "You could also just hit it."

Conveniently, Una has a screwdriver at hand (you never know what you're going to need in an attic!), and after a thoughtful nod, she reaches for it. Levering things open is likely not something she's done often in her life, but conveniently, despite earlier attempts, this particular trunk is not so difficult to prise open: it does so with a pop, the lid creaking as it slides open.

"Ah!" says Una, surprised, and dropping the screwdriver with a clatter as she does so.

"Ha! Good job!" It helps that the screwdriver didn't actually land on Della's foot; it rattles away to the sound of her applause-- hopefully not right over Jules' room-- until she bends and scoops it up, setting it aside along with her other gear. "What's in it, though? Look, look."

Una casts an apologetic glance at Della (and Della's thankfully-not-impaled foot), but she, like the other woman, is eager to see what's inside the box. She pushes the lid back the rest of the way, and what's visible, then, is layers and layers of fabric.

Una breathes in, her breath caught in a sigh of pleasure, as she reaches in and pulls out a 1920s-era dress. Not a flapper dress, perhaps, with all the tassels, but still: lilac-purple, with a short and flippy skirt.

Della's sigh is soft: just look. And she reaches out to touch. "Silk. ...We should find a clean place to put these." It's not as though she's going anywhere, though, instead lingering to explore down to the next garment-- not plunging her whole arm in or anything, just fingering-- "Something braided, maybe?" She only lets go to get out her phone, to shine a light on things; and, with that small bit of practicality, "We could just label the trunk and move on," but what fun would that be.

"I wish I wasn't hyper-aware of how fragile these things are, so that I could suggest we get all dressed up, like little girls playing dress-up," says Una, with an appreciative sigh. "But I'd hate to destroy anything. We'll definitely need to take this downstairs and... hm. I'll have to research how to care for and clean and..."

For now, though, because practicality only goes so far: "Pull it out and see?" The braid!

"Yes, yes, research all the things," Della says distractedly, tilting her phone light for a better look at the situation-- no visible spiderwebs! or mouse bits!-- and then tucking it awkwardly under her chin. She reaches in, carefully, carefully, pulling out a bundle of houndstooth wool-- the braid must be an edging, or perhaps a pocketbook strap-- only just as she's gotten it out, from the loose folds falls...

A packet.

A white packet.

Una carefully sets the lilac dress aside, though her fingers seem loath to let it go completely: such lovely fabric. She watches as Della pulls out the wool, letting out a contented sigh (vintage! pretty things!) that turns into something akin to a strangled gasp when that packet falls out.

"What's that?"

Everything's falling, Della's phone too, light strobing light-dark-light-dark-dark. Dark. Not really dark, just the light of the attic, which isn't dark. Not dark at all.

It isn't hot, either. It's the Pacific Northwest and it's February and only one window is clean; the other one has a cataract still.

The packet sits there, half-obscured by all that wool, a few crumbs of white powder-- disintegrated threads?-- powder-- trailing from it.

It's not sugar.

"There's no label," Della states the obvious: no label on this side, anyway, no label they can see.

But it's fabric, cloth, not plastic. That should count for something, right?

Della reaches for her phone.

The strobing light results in another little half-scream from Una, who is definitely taking this whole creepy-old-attic thing a little too seriously.

She exhales again, and swallows, the sound thick and audible in the enclosed, quiet space of the attic.

"Do you... think it's been there since the clothes were put there?" Una pauses, then seems to change her mind. "I mean, it must have been. It's just whether they were all put there when the clothes were new, or if it were years later. What is it? The powder?"

Please use your magical vision, Della, to determine this.

Magical vision. Right.

"Where's Agatha when we need her," Della mutters, her eyes wide enough to be ringed by white, her knuckles paled around her phone. "She wouldn't have packed new clothes away, would she? Because she'd want to wear them."

Unless something happened to her.

Della licks her lips and inhales, slowly, giving the packet a sidelong look-- "It's probably just... old letters, or something--" before gingerly reaching out.

For the wool. Which she tugs towards her, cautiously, the packet scraping along with it for a moment before being left behind. There it sits, on the old scratched wood of the floor.

You touch it.

Una gives Della a look when she mentions Agatha, as if to say 'are you trying to get us a ghostly visitor', which would, of course, be completely non-sensical and ridiculous. Maybe that's why she hastily glances away again.

Slowly: "Right. Exactly. So these must've been put here later. I wonder if people will ever go through piles of our clothes, and laugh at our ridiculous fashions... except I don't think these fashions are ridiculous, do you?" She's reaching out again. But finally, reluctantly, she lets go of the lilac silk and turns back to the little packet and its training powder.

"Old, powdery letters? Hmm."

This time, when she reaches out, it's after she's pulled on one of the rubber gloves from her bucket of goodies, which she uses to press against the powder. At least that means she can bring it closer to her, without touching it. To... sniff at it. Gingerly.

"Not ridiculous at all," Della responds, slowly, to what Una says out loud... and perhaps even what doesn't get said. And then--

Della recoils because she's smelling it and, "What are you doing?! That could get in your lungs!! Una!"

Genuine terror radiates off her, almost electrical enough to see.

Una does, at least, look properly abashed. and hastily draws her hand away from her nose. The considering glance she aims at the other woman lingers, and along with it the quizzical line of her brow: there's something about that electric terror, something that gives the redhead pause.

"Sorry," she says, genuinely. "It just--" Just what? Just something. "It doesn't smell like anything anyway."

Now, though, there's white powder on her glove, and she seems uncertain as to what to do with it.

... she wipes it off, cleans it up, and nothing bad happens, after all.

Phew.