Chapter Text
The clock ticked, but time stood still. Zuzana warned her niece that nothing good would come of seeking her revenge. Her bloodlust in the skies was reckless and would be unsatisfying. She told her. When that man came to the store, so many years ago… with the two children. Well, adults, Zuzu supposed, but they were young enough that their opinion should not have swayed her beloved flesh and blood. They spun tales of adventure… she had seen it all before. Her sweet Marya should have known better. She should have known better than to chase after her vengeance with the beast. Zuzu dared not even think its name.
She sat now looking at the drawings at Marya’s work station. They had faded with time and the edges had curled with age. One of them was in bad shape- ripped into several pieces and taped back together by arthritic hands that meant well but belonged to someone whose heart ached profoundly. That day… she’d gotten so mad that day. It had been three weeks since a customer had come into their shop- her shop, without Marya- and she felt so low. The silence was deafening, not even Kočka remained to squeak softly or pitter-patter along shelves. It was just Zuzu now, and though her bones creaked when she moved, the echo of her own body was just another reminder of her own loneliness and mortality.
So one day she snapped. She broke. There was a moment when she wanted to be angry with the three desperate souls who had collected Marya, then she wanted to yell at Marya for listening to them, but in the end there was but one creature to blame. She hobbled with haste to the workbench, vision blurred with tears and quickly turning red with rage. Her hand shot to board and tore down the first page it made contact with. But the rage and the tears… they’d skewed her perception, they’d altered her ability to reason or move with intention. She only noticed after ripping the drawing into four or five pieces which one it had been… Of all the pictures of that horrid monster, fate had forced her hand to destroy the singular sketch of her sweet girl.
Zuzu let out a broken wail as she examined the crumpled shreds in her shaking hands. She missed Marya more than she could bear. She was hungry, she was tired, she was alone. She wiped her eyes and choked down sobs, trying desperately to get air to her lungs. She shook her head, sniffling, tears still silently streaming down her face. Clutching the drawing, Zuzu flung open drawers left and right, desperately searching for the tape she knew was in there somewhere. In her hurry, she slammed her fingers in a drawer, but she did not yelp. She did not feel it. What was there left to feel but pain anyway? What was the difference?
God, where was the stupid roll of tape? Marya always knew where everything was, and there was a method to her madness but Zuzu had never cracked the code. If Marya had been here she would know at an instant- Oh, the tape? It is beneath my pile of left shoelaces. It would not make sense to Zuzu, but it wouldn’t matter because Marya would be there and Marya would find the tape for her. In fact, if Marya had been there, then there wouldn’t be a need for tape at all. Zuzu would be able to just wrap her beloved in a shawl and bring her tea, she would be able to dote on her and embrace her. She could tell her firmly that it was a bad idea to seek vengeance. It would end poorly and it was better to remain home, with her dear Auntie Zuzu.
She had found the tape eventually, tucked behind a metal bucket filled with pieces of what appeared to be acorns. Her fingers throbbed, her heart ached, but she found it within herself to tape the picture together as best she could and to affix it to the board once again. She sat staring at her beloved’s face, wishing it was there with her now. She whispered a prayer to a god she no longer believed in, begging for the tape to keep the picture held together- however barely it may be. It was all that sustained her; she could take no more loss in her life.
Zuzu and Marya were the last two. Nobody made it out of Scapsylvania, people barely made it in Scrapsylvania. So when Marya came home the first time, settling down to open the toy shop… Zuzu dropped everything to support her. It had been nothing short of a miracle. She’d taken to the skies and she’d returned. Zuzu feared to call it good fortune, for fortune can turn- luck is not a constant by any means. Sure enough, as Marya found her rhythm and routine, it became clear that she hadn’t quite returned, or not all of her had. She was there, but she was far off and away still. Her heart remained in the skies and her mind belonged to bitter vengeance. She quickly became a shell of a woman, a ghost of herself. She spent hours in the workshop, mumbling to herself, whispering with Kočka about how she would fix everything… and then the drawings. Zuzu knew when she saw the drawings that her sweet girl had gone off to war and come home forever changed. She may have been a ghost of herself, but she was haunted by the beast.
And then she left again. She left and Zuzu wanted to beg her to stay but what could she do? What could she say? Her sweet little niece was grown. She had been hesitant at 19 to let her go, but she had insisted, “Please, Auntie Zuzana- I am no child. I can do this, I have to do this…” It was her one shot out of Scrapsylvania, and Zuzu couldn’t stop her. So she was alone. Marya’s parents were dead, Zuzu’s husband was dead, Marya’s brother had barely lived… This was Marya’s chance. It nearly broke Zuzu, but she couldn’t stop her then, and she sure as hell could not stop her the second time either.
Lightning does not strike twice. Zuzu knew that when Marya walked out that door, that would be it. Sure enough, her heart ached like it happened yesterday, but years and years had gone by and it was clear now that Marya Junková would not be returning home, not within Zuzu’s lifetime at least. Whatever fate befell her, Zuzu couldn’t be sure, but she did not linger on the thought long enough to come to any conclusion- it hurt too much. She was old then, she was ancient now. She raised a glass of hard spirits to the wall, to the torn face of her sweet girl. “Na zdrave,” she whispered. Ironically, to health was its loose translation. In that moment, Zuzu said it with the hope that whatever had happened to her sweet girl, that she did not suffer.
For the next six evenings, Zuzu repeated her toast like a ritual. On the sixth evening, Zuzu’s heart could bear it no more. Her body was too old and too tired, her soul was too hurt. On the seventh morning, she did not wake from her slumber. When Marya returned some day, she would find the toy store as empty as Zuzu experienced it for all those years. And Marya’s heart would ache- not for the loss, she was no stranger to loss. She would instead weep for the guilt she felt, for the blame she placed on herself that she’d pursued vengeance and left her only relation to live and die alone. Zuzu’s sweet girl would see the torn drawing and believe in her heart it was intentional. She would believe that Zuzu was upset that Marya had abandoned her, and chose wretched vengeance above her family. She would become the same shell of a woman she had been years before, but this time she would have nobody but herself to blame, and she would have no Auntie Zuzu to hold her close when the ghosts came calling.