Life:
Altered 03.45 ~*~ Slate: Clean

            “Stuffed.”  Alice lamented, as she rubbed her stomach,
Quin, Tina, Cass, and Daisy took a tour of the large mansion.  Everything in the house was either very old
or very modern, total contrast, yet working well.  Paintings and blown up photographs hung on
every wall, at every turn.  Alice felt as if she were being stared at
sometimes.

            Quin walked them through the home;
they entered what looked like a library. 
Quin seemed very quiet since they’d begun to eat, Alice thought she was acting a lot like the
Quin of old, and not the woman she’d fallen in love with.

            Thoughtful and pensive, Quin played
the perfect host, yet her voice was cool as if filled with something rather
dark.  Alice wanted desperately to have a moment
alone with her, but she knew it wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

            “Is there like every book in the
world here?”  Daisy asked, moving around
the room, and Quin chuckled, the first lighthearted sound to come from her
since she’d made peace with Helena. 
She looked up, scanning the towering shelves, remembering all the times
she’d spent curled up on the windowsill bench, staring outside and
reading.  Wanting to escape the prison of
money, and play music on the street corner, begging for food and just
being.  Not living up to anyone’s
expectations just living for her music.

            “If they are here, they are all
first editions.  Right down to the Stephen King and Anne Rice books.” 
Quin offered and Tina pointed to the three paintings on the wall across
from the west facing windows. 

            “That is you, Helena and your brother?”  Quin nodded.

            “Hamilton.” 
Quin offered his name without thought, not looking at the painting.  She knew what it looked like, it was a face
etched forever in her memory.  Daisy
watched her closely, Alice seemed to be leaving Quin alone for the
moment, and it was as if she sensed that Quin was in some sort of turmoil.

            “We had that painted around the time
he passed away, just a few months before actually.  He had the most beautiful dark green eyes,
and a voice that made you feel at home, didn’t he Quin?”  Helena asked walking into the library and Quin nodded
her eyes stormy as she remembered her brother’s voice, hauntingly familiar at
times.