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Chapter Text

On her way back from Salt’s Neck, Harmony stops for gas. The truck's engine is not made for efficient mileage. Across the road, flailing in the wind, a yellow and brown sign advertises “Fresh Coffee.” It’s a small, stand-alone cafe. The coffee will be piss poor but she is nodding off, as if she’s Irving B.

She finishes filling up, then crosses the street, leaving Hampton’s truck where it is. There’s three other pumps at the station, all empty; the truck won’t cause a bottleneck. She orders from some bumpkin of a teen boy with bad skin, watches as he pours liquid into a styrofoam cup. At least it’s steaming with heat. He ignores her eye, as most young people do.

To mask its burnt edge she dumps in creamer, tosses the single-use plastic into the bin, then makes as if to leave. Her body, however, protests: it’s nice riding high in the truck, but she misses her familiar little car. Her hands hurt from their continuous grip on the wheel, and the truck's seats reek of ether and male sweat. If nothing else, she needs a break from the monotony of the iced landscape and ever-low sun. The cafe, for all its faults, is removed, nearly windowless.

She chooses a seat along the side wall and takes a long sip. Her tongue rakes along her teeth. When was the last time she brushed them? This morning, yes, it feels like eons ago; she washed her mouth out with a bottle of water from under the seat. She’ll have coffee breath now, probably still will by the time she gets back to Kier. She doesn’t have any cardamom pods with her to dispel the stench, but who the hell cares.

Mrs. Selvig probably would; she would apologize, with sincerity, to her widowed neighbor, Mark.

A woman and her daughter enter the cafe, appearances identical: long, thinning hair that has never experienced the cut of scissors; long, denim skirts that end at the ankle. Must be part of a religious sect that lives nearby. As they make their way to the counter Harmony’s eye is attracted downward, and she frowns: both mom and little girl are wearing sparkly pink shoes. Surely modesty would be held in high esteem in their culture; surely their path to Hell was glittered and attention-seeking. She surveys the decor around her, still frowning. Some paintings-no cohesive subject matter-spot the walls. The room has the general air of injured. All things are useful under Kier’s sun, she intones dryly.

The night before, on the road, she answered Devon’s 400th call, her schematics laying in the passenger seat beside her. Mark's sister was frantic; he had been unconscious for over an hour due to Reghabi’s coarse attempt at reintegration. And thus Harmony must swoop in and save the day once again. But this time, it isn’t for Lumon: it’s for Mark, and it's for severance. She has, she smiles a little to herself, a soft spot for both.

She tries to eavesdrop on what the mom is saying to the girl, but she can't hear; she can only watch. The daughter's face looks so content and open as it gazes up at the woman. For some reason, Harmony thinks of the soft insides of an oyster. It makes a chamber inside Harmony's chest feel cruelly impaired.

Someone vaguely familiar has walked into the cafe, shrouded in a curtain of honey-colored hair. Whoever it is looks woefully out of place: tailored brown suit, high heels that smartly clip against the cafe's ambiguously patterned tile. A look on her face, more glazed and fixed than Natalie’s. Harmony startles for a moment: Is it someone from Lumon? No, wait, it’s—She squints harder, stretches her neck. It's a woman who bears a striking resemblance to that famous British royal, the Princess of Wales. What was her name? It's on the tip of her tongue. Kate? Yes, Kate Middleton, that parvenu, the addle-brained wife of William. And in the middle of nowhere, a town smaller than the depressed Salt’s Neck. How curious. The fresh coffee sign is apparently a beacon to a farrago of travelers.

Harmony scrutinizes the back of the stylish woman. The most dominant aspect is her hair, unnaturally full at the ends. It exudes, Harmony decides, a want of keeping. It is, frankly, woefully unkempt. The boy blushes, Harmony can't fail to notice, as he rings up the woman, as if she's some great beauty. Maybe he recognizes her from the internet. Coffee in hand, Kate takes a seat by the front window. From what Harmony can make out, Kate's eyes never lift up from her lap.

Kate Middleton at least climbed her way to the decorated rooms of splendor and royal riches; Helena Eagan was born into it, has done nothing of consequence. She doesn't know the first thing about severance, had never been interested until she volunteered for a PR stunt. And her innie–what a nightmare. Harmony rarely interacted with her.

Harmony covered for Helena Eagan, that thankless, flat-chested bitch, and she lost her job. She could just scream. If she were alone in the truck, she would roll down the windows and scream right into the wind. But everything works out; she'll help Mark Scout save his wife, and she will be the one to rightfully explore full synaptic coupling.

Half an hour has passed, and her cup is empty. This kind of establishment surely gives free refills. She goes up to the counter. The boy’s head is down, his back to her, probably on his phone. She cranes but can’t see what he’s doing. She taps her nails on the counter. She could reach over and steal money from the register and he wouldn't even notice.

“Excuse me.” She clears her throat. Finally he turns around. She sticks out her cup. “That will be $1.00,” he says. It isn’t high, but it should be free. The gall. She watches as he fills the styrofoam nearly to the brim. The genes of his family are clearly-she eyes his weak chin-running out. "Actually, can you put that in a real cup," she says through gritted teeth. "I'm going to stay awhile." The boy doesn't acknowledge her request but begins to pour the coffee into a porcelain mug.

She returns to her same seat. She’s forgotten to get creamer-not that the boy has left any room-but she’ll just down it raw like she used to do at school, sneaking it occasionally between classes in her dorm room; even the shining acolyte of Myrtle Eagan needed caffeine. With her hands cupped around the coffee she thinks of that morning at Devon's, Mrs. Selvig masquerading as a lactation expert. Harmony is one, in fact. Well, if not an expert, she is at least knowledgeable. She has a variety of talents--as if anyone gave a damn until they needed something themselves.

Devon's house, in her estimation, had too many windows, but it was a lovely home architecturally, tucked near the woods. Too many windows, yes, and too many photos of that god-awful spouse, Ricken. They were offensive to the eye and to all of the other senses too. What did Devon Scout see in him? She was a smart, capable woman. How did she put up with that twerp's drivel? On the home tour, Devon had explained the three beds in the baby's room. Oh, is this what they consider trauma nowadays, Harmony had thought, not letting the disdain creep into her facial expression. These people didn't deserve severance. And if it was so harrowing to move beds, why not stay in the same one, as she had, or at least tried to? Devon spoke about Ricken with no trace of condescension. It was the oddest thing. He had even accrued a small cult for himself, people who actually purported to like and follow his books. As if his words were gospel. Thinking about him makes her pine for a neti pot of ether, straight through the nose passages to the brain.

The boy-worker sneezes loudly, and Harmony is roused from her memories, finds herself fiddling with Peter Kilmer around her neck and staring intently right at Kate, or Kate’s doppelganger. Despite such a moneyed appearance, this Kate has as much charisma as a traffic cone with a hair piece on top. There is no way she can detect Harmony through that sheath of hair, so Harmony's unchecked ferocity has gone, she is quite sure, unnoticed. Parts of Kate's hair are rolled into sausage curls, so tight they almost resemble ventilation tubes.

Harmony rises from her seat, not even thinking of bussing her cup. She exits without a second glance at any of the patrons except for the little girl whose legs are swinging as she sits in her chair. She's looking out the window, maybe at a bird or a piece of trash. Harmony wonders what principles the girl has been taught to recite, what prayers she has memorized, who she talks to at night. As Harmony crosses the street to the gas station, to her childhood paramour's beat-up truck, she hopes it is someone who is kind, someone who talks back.

Chapter Text

At the birthing cabin, Mark Scout communicates with Mark S. through a camcorder upstairs. Harmony and Devon busy themselves with tasks on the first floor; Devon grinds beans for coffee while Harmony makes a fire. Harmony finishes first, then sits at the kitchen counter on a bar stool, watching Devon.

Above the women is an ostentatious, raised ceiling with a lattice of wood framing. But in this large house, surrounded by the larger night, Harmony only considers the woman in front of her. She doesn't spare a thought for Jame's mistresses, or the other pregnant women who have haunted the halls. Devon's curly dark hair is pulled back low at her neck, along the collar of her grey sweater. The heat from the living room's fire hasn't reached the kitchen; Devon's cheeks aren't yet flush with warmth.

Harmony winning Most Observant four years in a row at Myrtal Eagan's was not a mistake.

“I hope those two," Harmony’s voice comes out soft, then transitions to a bellow, “get it sorted.” Devon plunks water on the stove to boil.

Harmony tries again: “Before Reghabi’s attempt, had you noticed–-”

Devon turns around towards her, brows furrowed. “Don’t fish around unless it’s to actually help my brother."

Harmony refrains from letting out a sigh. Except for the hum of the stove, and the occasional crack of the fire, the house feels cloaked in a monastic silence. She can't even hear the Marks.

While Devon continues to monitor the pot--her body tense, clothes blending into the shadowed room-- Harmony reviews tidbits Devon told her when she was Mrs. Selvig. Devon was depleted, sarcastic, anxious about the baby and, even then, about Mark; Harmony had sniffed it out like a hound. Was Mark seeing Gemma, in the neighborhood or in his dreams? What did they love about each other? One evening Devon had told her about one of her college flings, a rugby girlfriend. This was long before Gemma or Ricken had entered the siblings' lives. Harmony had never been a big sportswoman, and she had laughed along with Devon, especially at her story of an awkward date in which the girlfriend's brother accompanied them. Should have brought Mark along, Harmony had said, chortling.

On her tongue Devon’s coffee tastes much better than the wacky brew she had at that wayside cafe. Her fingers look swollen around the mug. She is, it's a fact, getting old.

"Christ, can you be still?” Devon is pacing back and forth in front of the kitchen appliances. Her frenetic energy is enough to make any chamomile-doused person flirt with the edge of cardiac arrest. “They’ll work it out. Mark S. is a–” She is about to say a bit of a weenie but edits herself. “He’s a soft, generous man.”

“I’d be still and calm, at home holding my newborn daughter, if your company hadn’t–” Devon stops herself but keeps walking back and forth. Her voice is low and even. “I’m not wasting my energy on you right now.”

Harmony thinks this anger suits Devon perfectly. She begins to protest with what she thinks of as faux indignation. “I came barreling in when you called. Cerberus himself with his three heads couldn't have stopped me." Her voice is theatric, lilting. For a second, she can’t tell if she is Harmony Cobel or Mrs. Selvig. She touches the chip resting near her collarbone; it's like a grounding amulet.

Devon at last stills herself, leaning back against the sink and facing Harmony, her enemy.

“I invented severance,” Harmony tells her simply. “It was me.”

Devon tilts her head as if thinking. Harmony feels a knot in her stomach: from what, she doesn't know. “So you are responsible for all of it," Devon accuses. "And did you choose Gemma yourself?”

She ignores the question. She can feel, in the back of her throat, a cracking, like crisp leaves underfoot. “I had a hard--" Harmony searches for the word“--upbringing.” It comes out rather sodden and sentimental.

“Well?" asks Harmony.

"We all did,” Devon snaps.

“Really? Did we?” Harmony stands up off of the bar stool as if to give herself more height. She feels her heart rate increasing. “Because I know about your mother and father’s lakehouse. You and Mark’s advanced degrees at pricey institutions.” She wonders if Devon’s face will harden in defense or soften in the face of the truth. “I’ve seen,” she continues, “your mid-century marvel of a home. In fact, I’ve seen the original blueprints. Beautiful craftsmanship. Natural materials to integrate man’s work with God’s. Stone fireplaces. Rose-wood framed veranda. Tasteful rugs. I’d never seen such cabinetry before. Heaven-sent. Not all of it paid for with Dr. Ricken Lazlo Hale's royalties.” She hasn't stepped closer to Devon, has kept her distance, but her eyes are narrowed, trying to pierce. And to her surprise, or maybe not so much, she sees Devon accepting what she has said. Devon’s shoulders sag with a small release of tension.

She’s probably relieved to be hearing sense, Harmony thinks, long days surrounded by Eleanor and Ricken’s babbling.

“You know,” Devon finally says, smiling gravely. “Lumon said you were erotically fixated on both Mark and his innie.”

At this Harmony snorts. “Can you imagine? Wouldn’t that be a marvelous time.” Devon doesn’t respond. “And did you and Mark believe Seth Milchick, my oh-so-suave replacement?”

“I don’t think we put much stock in the explanation."

At least, Harmony thinks, she isn’t as hopeless as Helena Eagan. Devon has signs of character. Her hair, Harmony has observed, is always in full bloom.

Mark comes down, shocked and angry: Mark S., apparently, isn't bending to his demands like a skinny willow. Mark's face is covered by an oblong shadow against the fire; he looks demonic. Harmony tells the siblings she will talk to Mark S. Upstairs, after some sharing of information-Mark S. finally growing a pair of balls, Harmony thinks–the train is back on track. When she and Mark descend together to the first floor, Devon looks up at her brother with such relief and love and expectation that Harmony feels, in comparison, her own life’s loves could be written on a walnut, smaller than the one on which the famous Elizabethan author copied the Bible.

The fire is burning low. She misses, as she often does, her twin bed, and her oven, and her mother who smelled of lavender.

In school, Harmony learned that all worthy labor was labor of the hand, and of the body, and each product produced was unique, not a mindless replica. Her penmanship improved quickly, and her teachers applauded her for her accurate depictions of Kier Eagan. Before, her childhood had been endless toil. Using every wit and wile she could conjure, she managed to pack all of that labor into the surface area of the chip around her neck. Clearly contained, invisible at the far end of a tunnel.

_________

She doesn’t have the altar anymore to keep her company, but she does have her notebook, taken from the hollow-headed bust of Kier Eagan, open in her lap as she lays in bed. She thinks of Eleanor asleep in her crib, miles away, three narrow beds waiting for her to choose them one day. There are ways, she thinks, to be victorious over solitude.

In her mind’s reconfiguration of the Scout-Hale house, she traverses to the back master bedroom, where a sweaty Ricken is probably gassing from the mouth and Devon is interjecting the occasional bon mot. She imagines Ricken floating the idea of installing a bidet for his dearest. He was a wordsmith, wasn’t he, but was he handy? Was known to officiate weddings too, Devon had told her: loved to unite a pair with exclamations of eternal joy. At the last ceremony, there had been large vats of nuts bought in bulk, and Ricken had brought her back a bag.

Harmony braids half of her hair, then the other. She reaches over, turns out the light, then covers herself, eyes open toward the ceiling. Maybe the nuts had something to do with Devon's love of Ricken. It was like something Hampton would do after a shift, giving Harmony a bite or gift.

Chapter Text

That morning Harmony wakes and brushes out her hair. It is a shining grey in the mirror, a color she has never considered dousing in unnatural dye. At 7:30 she picks up Devon; a teen neighbor, Devon informs her, is watching Eleanor. Devon is wearing a soft, brown coat, her hair pulled back again. Her eyes are like fireflies, alight with anticipation.

The Lumon parking lot is a massive beast. She cuts the ignition. They are near the back entrance, the one from which, if all goes according to plan, Gemma will surface. They will hide her in the truck bed, as they did with Mark the night before. The fab four will be back together soon, Harmony thinks. But she will make sure she has her time with Gemma. Devon, although hawk-like, is still a breast-feeding, exhausted mother.

It is a day like any other, some workers milling in late. A non-consequential male employee stands nearby, smoking. The energy in the truck, however, is frenzied. Devon is biting the inside of her cheek; Harmony taps the steering wheel absent-mindedly at first, then with more concerted oomph. She doubts either of them register the cold seeping in through the truck's cracks.

"This is the truck of a friend, so excuse the odor." Harmony pauses, sniffs. "Odors." She imagines Devon isn't worrying about the smell, but she feels it needs to be said.

"Our dad was an alcoholic," Devon remarks, as if in response.

"How sad." Harmony says it on autopilot.

Devon must hear the rote quality, because she shifts toward Harmony; Harmony can feel her eyes. "Yesterday you went on a monologue about how wonderful I've had it. We didn't go hungry, but it wasn't all rainbows."

Harmony looks back at her, not shying from eye contact. "And you were the eldest daughter, I take it?"

"If you know about my college education and my rosewood veranda, I'm sure you know my age."

"Eldest daughter in all but name only then," Harmony concedes. "I imagine Mark was never the caretaker of the family." She thinks of poor Mark puttering around next door, asleep midday in front of the TV.

"We all had different strengths." Her tone is genuine and matter-of-fact, not as if she is trying to cover for Mark's flaws. "Mark is sensitive, but he shines in certain environments. He was so sure of himself with Gemma. I hope they can...I can't imagine the horrors that..."

Harmony's attention travels to a day, a long time ago, when she went to a movie theater outside of Kier. A night showing on or near All Hallow's Eve, a silent, old-timey horror movie. She remembers a black-caped figured hovering over some glamorous, buxom woman, the white shock of her exposed neck. The aristocratic vampire: another feudal tyrant, a regular Eagan CEO lusting on torment.

"And how does Ricken play into this?" she asks, tracing her way back into the conversation, although maybe it is more of an ice-pick or claw. She never knows.

"Sometimes," Devon tells her, "sometimes you remind me of him." Harmony's face falls. She can feel a storm brewing behind her clavicle. Her mother would call it Harmony's thunder.

"I really don't think I--"

"You don't know my family, Mrs. Selvig." Devon is looking out the window, out at the building. Harmony doubts Devon has ever been inside; this is probably the closest she has ever been to Lumon's hallways. "You did seem to genuinely love those salves." She sighs, shifts uncomfortably in the seat. "Gemma has been here this entire time. I can't believe it. I can feel the anticipation even in my boobs. Weird, right?"

Harmony smiles. "A woman's breasts are marvelous weather vanes."

Chapter Text

A month passes. Mark S. and Helly R. are still on the severed basement floor, leading a revolt. Gemma is staying with Devon and Ricken. Harmony has made herself scarce enough; she doesn’t want to tempt fate and be excluded completely.

She pulls up to Devon’s house one afternoon and sees Gemma standing alone among the property’s tall trees, touched by the late sun. She could do a hairpin turn and go home–no need to disturb such solitude-but she has driven all this way and she is antsy. She approaches Gemma from behind.
“Hello, Harmony,” Gemma says, without turning around.
“Hello, Gemma. How are you today?”
“I’m fine,” she says softly.
Harmony quiets a moment. “I hear some troubles,” she prods.
Gemma doesn’t turn and doesn’t speak. Harmony thinks about saying more, but doesn’t, not wanting to widen the fine cracks.

With that Harmony makes her way to the house, through the snow. On the porch Devon sits crocheting what looks to be a sweater–for Eleanor, for Gemma?- a basket of yarn down by her feet. Harmony tells Devon that she has brought lavender cachets for all of the girls to place under their heads at night. Devon keeps her eyes glued to her weaving needles.

From this vantage the tops of the trees look more crimson than the evening sky. Harmony feels as if they are in a medieval enclosure at the edge of the world. She remembers all those years at the literal edge of the world–Salt’s Neck–but this feels different.

She wonders if Devon would like a miniature rendition of the house and property, if Harmony could carve one as expertly as the one she made of Kier’s home which sat for so many years on her altar. She could include the house’s central tree, and the veranda, and maybe even Gemma on the porch, sitting or standing, she isn't sure. Harmony turns her face directly into the wind, letting tendrils of hair be lifted and pushed. She closes her eyes and hears chimes singing from the back of the house.

She rubs her boots on the mat and lets herself inside the house. She makes a pot of tea and adds in fresh lemon and chamomile-laced honey.

Chapter Text

She realizes she is cranky, and that the crankiness is partially from hunger. It reminds her of a younger self. She steps out onto the porch where Devon is staring absently into the evening, the unfinished sweater draped over her lap. The outdoor lights have come on automatically.

“Shall I order Chinese?”

Devon startles, roused by Harmony’s voice. “I didn’t notice how late it is.”

Harmony waves her off. “We’ve distanced ourselves from the sky’s callings.”

The darkening day looks the same as it has a hundred times before: an attitude, she thinks, of indifference. Every woman for herself.

“I have a menu in the kitchen, Harmony,” Devon says, getting up. The crochet needles fall with a clang. Harmony starts to bend down but Devon beats her to it, shaking out the sweater.

She still isn’t used to hearing her real name out of Devon’s lips. It is incongruous, like mixing history and fantasy. “Do you know what Gemma would like?” Harmony isn’t sure Devon appreciates this name coming out of her mouth, but what else can she call her? She can’t say Ms. Casey, or Mark Scout’s wife, or the other woman. That would all be stilted and archaic and strange. Devon shrugs to the question. Her hair is pinned in the back with a barrette, curls like a woman from a fairy tale.

Inside Devon rummages around in a kitchen drawer. Harmony peers out the window overlooking the back. Gemma isn’t visible, and it is nearly pitch-black beyond the outdoor fixtures. Then the front door opens and Gemma slips in, hanging her coat and shedding her gloves, then down the hall like a ghost, most likely retreating into her room in the back of the house, the same room where Harmony left Eleanor all those months ago.

Ricken and Eleanor are doing father-daughter bonding at Ricken’s mother’s house, two hours away. The house feels larger without them. Gemma doesn't seem to take up any space at all.

“Here it is,” Devon says, satisfied, crumpled menu in hand. Harmony isn’t sure Devon even heard Gemma’s entry. Devon scans the menu, frowns. “Not sure we need it. Doesn’t everyone always get the same thing from Chinese restaurants?”

Harmony says she wouldn’t mind taking a look and plucks it from Devon’s hand. “Peking duck,” she muses.

“No to the duck,” Devon says definitively.

“Protein is crucial.” Why does she say it? She doesn’t even eat duck. Neither she nor Mrs. Selvig or any self in between.

"Keep looking.” Devon leaves her alone in the kitchen. She must have heard Gemma.

Harmony realizes then that Devon still had her jacket on, firmly buttoned. In the face of everything, Devon is as cool and stable a person as she has ever known. Ricken, she recalls, has a fancy therapist based in New York whom he meets weekly online. She doesn't think Devon has one. And herself? Well, she always had teachers, and Kier, and mantras. She had incantations that held any feelings she had. And now, now she has an opportunity to take what is rightfully hers, namely her intellectual property. She can continue to experiment. Maybe she can make things right, even if she has no idea how to start.

“Okay, one chicken and broccoli. Extra rice.”

“And what else?” Harmony is writing it down.

Devon’s face is impassive. “Gem and I will share.”

It's the first time Harmony has heard her shorten Gemma's name. As Harmony calls in the order, Devon sets out dishware and matching placemats for three on the dining room table. "45 minutes," Harmony exclaims after hanging up. She leans in the doorway of the dining room. "Hell will freeze over before we eat."

Devon shakes her head. "I'm going to go pee." Harmony stands awkwardly, then decides to wait on the couch. She hears the firm bang of the bathroom door shutting, then the crisp bolt of the lock. She thinks she can make out a stream of urine hitting the water. Then a flush. Then nothing.

After counting to thirty slowly she rises and stands outside the bathroom. She hesitates, then knocks. “Are you okay, Devon?”

“It’s been two minutes, Harmony.”

Harmony frowns. “Well, alright. I was just worried.” She pauses. "And take off that jacket when you're finished. No one can relax in that." She returns to the couch, chastised. She gives the fireplace a hard look.

“I haven’t had Chinese since before Eleanor.” Devon takes another bite of rice, then pushes the plate away, exclaiming that the rest is for Gemma. Gemma, who still hasn’t joined.
“Your hair is gleaming in this light,” Devon adds, her head resting in her hand. “Silver.”
“Let me fill your glass,” Harmony answers, pouring more red wine.
“Let me fill yours.” Devon reaches for the bottle once Harmony sets it down.
“I should cut mine with water,” she interjects.
“You can sleep here, it’s fine.”
“Oh, I couldn’t impose,” sings Harmony. She feels like a nightingale, or something more vervy, like a peacock.
“You’re drunk. The last thing we need is for you to die near the property. Or anywhere around here, honestly.”
“How thoughtful.”
Devon ignores her. “Kier is full of hollow places.”
“Because of Lumon?”

"Can I tell you something awful?"

Harmony clasps her hands under her chin. "Of course, Devon. Of course."
"Sometimes I wish... no, that isn't right. But I imagine if Gemma had..." Her voice cracks. "If Gemma had really been in an accident and died. How simpler that would have been?" Her brow creases deeper, and she avoids looking into Harmony's eyes. "She's just hurting so much, and I can't reach her." Her fingers are worrying at the placemat. Harmony gently places her own fingers on top, encouraging them to still.