Eleven has been and will be waiting

( And we will never sever. )

( Le temps dégagé // Mes yeux las sont fermés // En regardant les tout petits points // Je m'assoupis, m'assoupis // Ca, c'est la folie; ne pas dormir de la nuit )

( We sat around laughing and watched the last one die. )

( Think I need a devil to help me get things right. )

( I swear our chant is crashing in my mind. You can hold on but I wouldn't waste your time )

( And now you're here, and you don't know why. )

She counts the rooms. The doors, the windows. She counts the books that aren't in her room. Runs her finger along the spines of one of them and wonders how long it's been since anyone has read it. Them. Any of them. She counts the stairs, the supports in the banisters. The flowerpots on the outside of their little house in the downstairs window-boxes. Counts the different brands of coffee; the different colors on the plates in kitchen; the number of right corners in the living room.

Alida wonders in the middle of it if this is what Marc is like sometimes. With his fixed patterns, his numbers, his pride. His way of doing things.

She avoids him for a few nights. He's probably full aware of what she's doing, even if neither of them know the whys.

She's haunting her own space and she knows it. Recognizes the behavior for what it is and knows, like everything else, it will also pass.

It takes nearly a week, but it does.

The transition is less like a switch and more like an ebbing tide. A slow increase of awareness, of memory. She can recall which things she bought, which things Severin bought, which things Marc bought. Which things were part of the house when they moved in. Which things are from France. There is a message from a promoter, sending her well-wishes for the show she missed. That, she knows, is Marc's work, since Alida is fairly certain she didn't even recall the gig to begin with.

She wanders the neighborhood and looks at auras to ensure she doesn't wander too far into the wrong direction and get herself into trouble that Marc or someone else will have to get her out of. And three hours after sunset, when she is tired of that, Alida goes home. Finds the room Marc is in, sits down, and waits.

Nevermind that it's his room. The door was open anyway, she feels she is still within the limits of etiquette.

( All that she said was true. )

( Reassure me, oh why do I feel as if I'm in too deep? Now Ive been praying, for some way to show them I'm not what they see. Yes I have done wrong, but what I did I thought needed be done, I swear. )

It was the stock of the paper that drew her attention...she hadn't seen much like it since they'd moved to America, which Alida didn't think of much at first and three years hadn't done a whole lot to change her opinion.

Still. There was a heavy, ornate envelope with her name on it, not Marc's (which was surprising) and it turned out to be an invitation. To a party. Sponsored by the Prince of the city and thrown by a Toreador she'd heard entirely too much about (a critic, or something like it). Alida read it once, twice, before, moving into the kitchen and sitting at the table.

"I am not going, I do not want to go," she announced evenly in French, assuming that Marc knew full well of what the hell she was talking about. Which may or may not have been the case, considering that it was addressed to her and she had opened it. Then again, Marc was much better at knowing when there were strange, city-wide social events that she was expected to show up at.

As darkness quickly steals the light that shined within her eyes, she slowly swallows all her fear and soothes her mind with lies. Well all she wants and all she needs are reasons to survive the day in which the sun will take her artificial light, ( her light. )

Get a story, get a life and get back. You've got nothing to shout about. You're over ( and out. )

Its a littered path to paradise honey that will always steer you wrong. Put your hands where I can see 'em, put your hands next to mine. I wanted something to believe in before I got sold on the lie. Get it in throw in your cheap shots, cheap shot baby. Isn't that all life really is, a bunch of have nots? And the gods will laugh when you think you've found your lot and take it ( all away. )

Well it hides in the dark, like the withering vein. We didn't give it a mouth so it cannot complain. It never really had a chance. We'd never really make it through. I never think I'd believed, I believed I could get better ( with you. )

The snail, while he's feeding on the rose; stay frozen. Compromise what I will I am. Bend around the wind silently blown about again. I'm treading so soft and lightly, compromising my will. I am, I am, I will. So no longer will I lay down, play dead, play your doe in the headlights - shut down and terrified. Your deer in the headlights, locked down and horrified. When push comes to pull comes to shove comes to step around this self destructive dance that never would've ended till I rose, I roared aloud ( here, I will, I am. )

The fences that you cannot climb, the sentences that do not rhyme. In all that you can ever change the one you're looking for. It gets you down, it gets you down. There's no spark, no light in the dark. It gets you down, it gets you down. You traveled far, what have you found? That there's no time, there's no time to analyse, to think things through, ( to make sense. )