"This mic came with a USB type-B cable," Harmony grumbled discontentedly, glaring balefully at the mic. "This thing must have been on the shelf for a long time. Anyway, you plug it into the USB A port on the back of the keyboard here so that you can use the keyboard's speakers or have fun with the vocoder effect. This bad boy just happens to have a slot for D batteries, so you won't even need to be near power to play if you feel like playing somewhere away from your house.
"Ah yes, power," Rhapsody murmured thoughtfully, tapping her long slender finger to her lips.
Harmony was almost certain that Rhapsody didn't intend for it to be provocative, but as she felt the sensation of a ghost finger gently tapping her lips, it became very provocative. Her breath caught as her sensitive lips tingled with what felt like a promise of things to follow.
Rhapsody blinked, then looked down at her finger and grinned sheepishly at Harmony. "Sorry, I forgot what that would do to you."
"No, it's fine!" Harmony assured her quickly, feeling that old fear of being a burden return. It whispered that her broken brain would be a nuisance of epic proportions to anyone in a relationship with her. "You don't need to worry about anything like that. Just pretend like you never knew I was retarded and carry on as if I wasn't."
Rhapsody's face firmed as she stared at Harmony with a level gaze. "Harmony, please don't ever say anything like that again," Rhapsody spoke in a quiet voice that was filled with pain. "It hurts me to hear you talk about yourself like that. Yes, I get the irony."
Harmony stared back at Rhapsody in chagrin. She would walk on hot coals to avoid hurting the diminutive woman. "I'm sorry, I just... it's just... I don't know, it's just how I think of myself. I'm not trying to be offensive; I'm just being brutally honest."
"I know I've got a lot of work ahead of me getting your self-esteem back to healthy levels," Rhapsody acknowledged with a gentle smile. "If we're being brutally honest, I'll tell you what I see when I think of you. I see a young woman who has been hurt so badly that she can't see the brilliance that shines out of her own soul. She's convinced herself that the light has been extinguished, instead of realizing that it is so bright that it is blinding her. I see a young woman full of radiant love and selfless devotion. She's so worried about her perceived faults that she doesn't comprehend how endearing those traits are to the people who love her. If I didn't know better, I would suspect she was an angel in disguise. She fills me with mystery and wonder, with a drive to be a better person and prove that I'm worthy of her love. That's who I see, Harmony Fay Conifer. I love you, and I never want to hear you talk bad about this angel that's stolen my heart. Don't you dare tarnish the honor of this beautiful creature, because she deserves so much better."
Harmony's eyes had grown wide as Rhapsody spoke, filling with tears that pooled in her brilliant blue eyes before cascading down her cheeks. Rhapsody stepped forward and leapt into her arms. Harmony felt her walls start to crumble as tears of wonder and love weakened the foundations. The devil that sat on her shoulder telling her how worthless she was had been drown out by the musical voice of her goddess. As the mental blocks she had built to protect herself began to fall, she gasped as new memories flooded into her mind, memories she had locked away to stay sane. She gasped as the horrors she had forced herself to forget, suddenly plowed through her mind like a herd of angry bulls.
She found herself transported twenty years in the past. There her father was, wearing a lab coat with the label "DAD" stitched onto it. All of the walls in the rooms were a dull white with enough lights to make shadows nonexistent. She was crying as she sat in a restraining chair with electrodes attached to her head, neck, stomach, and feet. Her head was held in place by plastic brackets molded to fit her head perfectly and keep her from moving at all. There were tubes going into the back of her head and into her brain. There were two small tubes, one pushed through the inner corner of each eye. They went through her orbit cavity and into her anterior communicating artery, where they slowed and sped up the flow of blood to her brain. She remembered them talking about it, stuck in a cast of plastic restraints for hours at a time and unable to move while they added chemicals directly to the blood in her brain. She remembered her mother, melting down in tears when she saw her child undergoing medical experimentation. Then the night her mother showed up with law enforcement and had her father arrested for falsifying the symptoms in his daughters to justify medical experimentation. Most of all, she remembered the pain of years of unnecessary procedures where they refused to sedate her because they needed her conscious for the tests. It was more pain than she could handle without her mind breaking, so she had shut it away.
"You're okay, Harmony," her mother's voice was saying soothingly. "You're safe."
She realized she had been screaming herself hoarse as she relived the hell of her early childhood. Rhapsody was sitting on the floor, holding her head in her lap with an expression of horror and rage. Her nieces were behind her mother, tears streaming down their faces as they watched her with terrified expressions.
As Harmony slowly reoriented her mind, she felt tears building up behind a dam. She took a deep breath to speak, but all that came out was a wail of grief and pain as the dam broke and tears flooded down her cheeks. She began hyperventilating as she tried but failed to get enough oxygen. Her nieces' eyes stared at her in stark terror. Rhapsody laid a hand on her forehead.
"Peace, Harmony," Rhapsody whispered softly. She felt a wave of calm fold over her like a warm blanket on a snowy winter night. Her breathing returned to normal, and her tears slowed.
"She needs rest," Rhapsody told them gently. She stood up and bent over, easily picking Harmony's much larger form up. She carried her out of the studio and up the stairs to her room. She stared at the beautiful mane of red hair as a sleepy lassitude tried to pull her into sweet oblivion.
"Thank you, Rhapsody," Harmony rasped, her voice raw from screaming.
Her nieces and mother had followed them up to Harmony's room, their teary eyes watching her fearfully.
"It's okay," she croaked with a sleepy smile. "I'm fine now."
It would have been more believable if her eyes weren't still producing silent tears that leaked down the sides of her cheeks and onto her pillow. She tried to shut them off, but she could still feel horrors waiting just around the corner. She knew they would be waiting for her in her dreams. She had unlocked her own Pandora's Box. Looking at her beautiful goddess, she realized that it was worth it. There was no price too high to pay to be with this angel.
Rhapsody's lips curled up slightly as she brushed Harmony's hair out of her face with her fingers. Those beautiful fingers, so graceful and long. She felt like a silly poet when Rhapsody was around. She could describe her beauty for hours without running out of descriptors. She reflected that her Grandma Dotty did just that.
Her nieces tentatively came over and climbed onto the giant bed, wanting to be close to Harmony so that she could feel their love.
"We're here for you, Aunt Harmony," Aurora laid her hand on Harmony's shin supportively.
"I know you are," Harmony whispered tiredly. "You're my angels."
"Rhapsody, is she going to be alright?' Serenity whispered fearfully in a barely audible voice.
"She'll be better than alright," Rhapsody assured them in a gentle tone. "She'll be whole. She needs to process some grief and pain from long ago that she's had locked away. You'll see another side to your beautiful Aunt. She is going to be so much fun."
XXXXX
Harmony woke up confused. Was she in her bed still? Was she even awake? She looked around her hazy room and decided she must still be asleep.
"Hello, Harmony," Rhapsody greeted her warmly from where she had just appeared. Except she had wings and no glasses, scarves, or hats.
Harmony suddenly remembered the first dream she had where she saw Rhapsody in her true form. The memories came crashing back, both the memories of Rhapsody and the memories of her childhood. Rhapsody held out a hand, and the memories took on a more physical form.
"We're going to see these memories without the powerful emotional attachment," Rhapsody explained as more memories lined up like film. "That way it won't break you."
"Thank you for coming here with me, Rhapsody," Harmony told the fairy with a grateful smile.
"Anything, for you, Harmony," Rhapsody smiled at her with her heart in her eyes.
"I can't believe I'm still holding out in the waking world," Harmony shook her head in amazement. "I know you can read my mind. Somehow, I've made an exception for it and accept it as a thing that you do, but not really. I'm such a goof."
"The hottest goof I've ever seen," Rhapsody declared, looking her up and down approvingly.
Harmony laughed, her cheeks coloring as she stared back at the gorgeous fairy. "How much longer is my stubborn mind going to hold out, do you think?"
"Two more days," Rhapsody answered confidently, her lips curving into a mysterious smile.
"What happens in two days?" Harmony asked curiously.
"I don't want to ruin the surprise," Rhapsody answered airily. "It's going to be pretty awesome though."
"Can you see into the future?" she asked Rhapsody intently, her eyes fascinated.
"Of course not," Rhapsody scoffed with a twinkle in her gorgeous eyes. "It hasn't happened yet. You can predict that the sun will rise tomorrow, and it will probably happen. I just have a little more information about events in the world, so my predictions might get a little more detailed and look like I can see into the future."
Harmony stared at the beautiful fairy. Her beautiful fairy. The thought sent shivers of delight down her spine. She couldn't imagine how much knowledge must be in her pretty little head. She was at least thousands of years old, probably older. How much had she witnessed in her lifetime, both good and bad? It was a wonder that she was so cheerful and full of life with so much sorrow behind her. Harmony was pretty sure she would have lost faith in humans long ago and done something permanent to them.
Rhapsody stared back at her, listening to her one-sided musings with a patient smile. She had so many questions for her fairy, but she knew this wasn't the time. Maybe she could ask them in two days, when she was apparently going to finally give up her role as a skeptic.
"Okay, I'm ready, I think," Harmony let out a long breath that trembled as she psyched herself up for what she was about to see.
"Okay, Harmony," Rhapsody smiled at her with compassion in her eyes. "I'll be right here beside you the whole time."
Harmony nodded with another grateful smile. Her hazy bedroom vanished and was replaced by a hospital room. She was only two years old but could clearly remember the scene in front of her. She was on her mother's hip, standing next to a hospital bed. Her sister was eleven and was covered with medical equipment. Her mouth had a tube going into it, along with additional tubes going up into her nose and into her stomach. It was all her mother could do to keep her from crying at the scary sight of her sister.
"We've been given permission to move her over to our lab," a man she recognized as her father told her mother excitedly. "I'm sure we'll make a lot more progress on figuring out what is wrong over there and get her fixed up as good as new."
"I hope you're right," her mother murmured worriedly, her face creased with worry. "It's so hard to see her like this. Harmony is such a trooper, but she isn't happy about seeing her sister so transformed."
"Yes, well, she'll have to get used to it. At least for a while," her father declared, and there was a light in his eyes when he said it that was terrifying.
Her mother glanced over at him with an unreadable expression. Her face held no real warmth for the person she had married and had sired two of her children.
"What is it that you plan to do over at the lab that can't be done here?" her mother asked in a voice full of reluctance.
"We have a lot more equipment, state of the art prototypes that aren't available to anyone else," he replied, and the excited gleam was back in his eyes. Her mother noticed it as well.
"You aren't losing sight of the fact that we're trying to heal our daughter, not test out fancy new equipment, right?" she asked in a voice full of warning.
"Of course," he snorted derisively as his eyes lost any hint of warmth. "I don't need you badgering me about how to be a proper father. You're damn lucky that I am their father and that they have this chance at all."
Harmony's mother ground her teeth as she stared back at him, her eyes full of frustration.
The memory faded and a new one began. She was laying on the kitchen floor shaking so hard from a seizure that her head smacked the tiles until blood appeared. Her mother turned around from the stove and her eyes widened in horror. She rushed over to Harmony and lifted her off the floor. She quickly rushed outside of their large house and ran to the neighbor's house. She pounded on the door, screaming for help as she tried to calm the shaking Harmony. A middle-aged woman answered the door hesitantly. She gasped when she saw Harmony's mother and the blood all over her arm where Harmony's head had smeared it. She drove the two of them to the hospital, her eyes wide and terrified.
Her next memory was waking up in the facility her father owned. She was covered in tubes and wires coming out of her neck, eyes, nose, and mouth. She remembered the horrible feeling of being so thirsty and not being able to swallow due to the tubes in her throat. It was torture, never ending pain that she would have happily ended her life to escape. She felt a small hand clasp her own hand. She let out a breath as she looked down at Rhapsody. She remembered why she held her breath now. She had done it to stop the pain that breathing caused with all of the tubes in her throat. She would hold her breath for as long as she could, sometimes passing out for a short period. It must have been a holdover from her memories when she felt intense emotions.
Rhapsody leaned into her arm, offering her support as the memories continued.
Twice a week they put her through a device similar to shock therapy, except this connected directly to her brain and made it feel like she was being shocked in different parts of her body. They had a program monitoring the rapid shocks, mapping the locations throughout the body that reacted to the different signals in duration and intensity.
They had just reached the memory she had been dreading. Along with simulating the feeling of being shocked, they had been simulating other sensations as well. The weeks they experimented with fire were like being in hell, condemned to suffer with no hope of escape. Her skin was perfectly healthy, but it felt like it was on fire. They kept her in a soundproof room, operating computers from other rooms remotely. They didn't have to hear the agonizing screams of someone burning alive with no hope of finding solace with death.
Every few weeks there would be several men in suits who would accompany the scientists in to observe her. They had cold, emotionless eyes that were as terrifying as the manic look in her father's eyes when he would tell her that she was making the world a safer place. They never said anything. They just looked at a tablet the lab technician or scientist was holding.
The memories continued for over a year, a never-ending nightmare of being treated like a lab rat. She idly wondered if her hidden memories had influenced her decision to become vegan. Being treated with clinical detachment as you were tortured for data was something no creature should have to suffer.
The worst part was seeing her mother. She was so devastated each time she came to see Harmony and her sister, Melody, that it broke her heart. She was four years old when her mother showed up with dozens of police officers and medical staff from surrounding hospitals. Her mother had spent much of their childhood wracked with guilt for not preventing the actions of her husband. He had been slipping bath salts into their food for weeks before their seizures. Their mother had found the container in his study when she became suspicious. She became even more suspicious when he tried to prevent her from visiting. Up to that point, she had spent hours each day with them, mostly when they were asleep. She had spent six months trying to gather evidence and start a criminal lawsuit. Harmony could only imagine the amount of gaslighting her mother had endured before she broke through the lies.
Her father had received funding from several pharmaceutical companies, as well as black budget money from three-letter agencies. Harmony never discovered what they were really trying to accomplish. After learning some of the history of medical experimentation carried out by the government, she was sure it wasn't in anyone's best interest.
The memories finally ended, leaving her mentally exhausted. She couldn't believe that anyone, let alone a father, could do such horrible things to other people; to children. Now she knew why her mother always claimed her father had abandoned them. It would have been kinder than explaining the truth.
She wept new tears for her sister. She had been given such a raw deal in life. Not only had she been subjected to the same treatment, but she had also been older and remembered. Her sister's extended bouts of severe depression made more sense now. To add insult to injury, her sister had ended up with a horrible excuse for a human as her husband. He had always been angry or irritated about something. He had treated Melody like something he had stepped on, and his daughters not much better.
"It's time for you to have some real sleep now," Rhapsody told her gently.
The world faded away and she was back in her bed. Rhapsody was still there with her. The fairy laid down in the bed sideways and laid an arm across Harmony's abdomen. She stared into Harmony's eyes, twin orbs of love and compassion.
Harmony smiled as tears leaked down her cheeks. "I'm so glad I met you, Rhapsody. You've made my world sing with color."
"You're very special, Harmony," Rhapsody told her softly. "Forces of great power have tried to extinguish your light for fear of what you will become. They failed. You have an indomitable spirit and a will to match it. You have a long, amazing life ahead of you."
"Are you really a fairy?" Harmony asked sleepily, resting her hand on top of Rhapsody's on her stomach.
"You'll see in a few days," Rhapsody smiled her mysterious smile. "Why do you ask? Do I not look like what you expected fairies to look like?"
"No, that's not it," Harmony murmured drowsily. "I just feel like there's something more to you. So much more that I can't comprehend it. Are you a goddess for real?"
The bed shook slightly as Rhapsody laughed. "No, I'm not a goddess, Harmony. There are no such things as gods or goddesses."
"I beg to differ," Harmony mumbled lazily. "You're my goddess."
"There are entities who pose as gods," Rhapsody remarked with a disapproving frown. "They had nothing to do with creation or any kind of divine law. They are just like Azeban, intelligences that seem powerful and wise to humans, but are just as petty and childish."
"Hmm," Harmony smiled slightly as she opened her eyes again to stare into Rhapsody's mesmerizing gaze. "So, you're the next level up from gods. Or maybe many levels up."
"I'll give you a tiny hint," Rhapsody whispered, her lips curving up slightly. "I've told you where I came from before. You thought I was joking, but I was actually telling you the truth. I'll tell you in a few days if you haven't figured it out."
Harmony smiled ruefully, giving Rhapsody a reproachful stare. "We both know I'm not going to remember this when I wake up, so how would I figure it out before the two days?"
"You won't," Rhapsody admitted with a wry twist of her lips. "But now I can say I played fair and gave you a hint."
"Who was that guy at the music store that bowed to you?" Harmony asked, finally catching one of the swirling thoughts flying just out of reach of her consciousness. "Was he really an elf?"
"Yeah, he was an elf," Rhapsody acknowledged with a snort of laughter. They're kind of a nuisance. You know how I told you in your last dream that I don't want your worship, I want your friendship?"
"Yeah, I remember," Harmony nodded slightly, feeling her eyelids droop. "I still want to worship you though."
Harmony smiled as she heard Rhapsody's golden laughter, a sound of such majesty and joy that the world seemed noticeably brighter every time Harmony heard it.
"Well, elves want to worship me and won't take no for an answer," Rhapsody growled in disgust. "They're immortal entities and have been around long enough to understand how silly venerating someone like a god is. I could deal with it if they weren't so weird about it. They're like druids on crack."
"How so?" Harmony asked, fascinated in spite of her drowsiness.
"Think of the different idioms of speech throughout the ages," Rhapsody began, her lips mesmerizing Harmony as she spoke. "Now imagine a group of people that speak in High Chant. Now imagine that we're talking about personality instead of language, and you'll have a good idea of what elves are like. They make my teeth itch, and my hair hurt. You will absolutely understand when you spend more than a few hours with a group of them. They spend all of their time trying to think on a higher plane, but all it does is make them confused most of the time."
"Do you know how surreal it is that I'm talking to a fairy about elves inside of one of my dreams?" Harmony asked with a smile just short of laughter. "What a beautiful place this world became when you entered my life."
"Don't forget that you're a psychic too," Rhapsody reminded her with a slow smile. "You're in for some very enjoyable experiences, Harmony Fay."
Harmony felt her pulse quicken, all thoughts of sleep fading away. Her lips parted as she began breathing faster under the smoldering gaze of the flawless woman next to her.
"Sorry, I'm getting ahead of ourselves," Rhapsody smiled wistfully. "You really do need to get some sleep, or those memories are going to slip out of the slots they've been assigned to. We don't want them having emotional attachment to you, or there will be trouble. How about I read you a story to put you to sleep properly?"
Harmony felt a flash of disappointment but quickly pushed it away. They would get their time, eventually.
"Which book?" Harmony asked curiously, forcing herself to relax and let her fatigue pull her back towards sleep.
"The Chosen," Rhapsody decided with a smile. "I always think of you when I'm reading about Riah."
"Okay," Harmony sighed with a happy smile. "I know that I wrote it, but I love reading it as much or more than I enjoy other people's novels. Does that make me a narcissist?"
"No, it just makes you a good author," Rhapsody assured her with a squeeze of her arm. "Okay here we go."
"Where is it?" Harmony asked, looking at her in confusion.
"It's all in my head," Rhapsody tapped her head for emphasis. "Now hush."
Harmony closed her eyes as a contented smile lit her face.
"Riah stood up from her morning stretches and groaned contentedly..." Rhapsody began, her voice soft and soothing as she read. Harmony didn't make it past the first two paragraphs before she was asleep.
XXXXX
Harmony felt gentle fingers brushing her hair out of her face. She slowly opened her eyes, feeling a sense of disorientation as her dreams slowly faded. Her mother was sitting on the edge of the bed. It had been her hand brushing Harmony's hair out of her face. She smiled when she saw Harmony's eyes open. Her cheeks were red with tear stains and her eyes looked haunted.
"Hey Mom," she greeted her mother with a groggy smile. "Are you okay?"
"I'm sorry you had to deal with those memories again, Harmony," her mother grimaced sorrowfully. "I guess I had hoped they never resurfaced. How are you feeling?"
Harmony thought about the question for a moment, mentally auditing her personality and mood. "I'm actually feeling really good. I'm a little fuzzy on everything after my breakdown. My throat doesn't hurt anymore, at least. How are the angels?"
"See for yourself," her mother responded with a wry smile and gestured at the other side of the bed. Her nieces were spread out across the other half, several limbs colliding with each other.
"As you can see, they still turn into pinwheels in their sleep," Harmony spoke quietly in an attempt to not awaken them. This had to be pretty rough for them. "How long have I been asleep?"
"About twelve hours," her mother replied with a sad smile. "Rhapsody said you would need it, but that I should wake you up in the morning."
"Where is Rhapsody?" Harmony asked with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.
"She's around," her mother assured her with a warm smile. "She just has some responsibilities at home she needs to take care of. She said she would be back tomorrow morning, and that you were in for an epic adventure when she returned."
Harmony's lips formed a brilliant smile as she thought of her beautiful goddess. The deific word triggered a hint of a memory, something just out of reach. There was something about elves? It must have been a dream then, because this is reality.
"Harmony, you were too young for me to do this properly last time I had a chance," her mother began, her eyes filling with tears. "I'm so sorry I didn't keep you safe, Harmony. There were so many red flags I've realized in hindsight that I should have been far more suspicious. I know words will never be enough, but I'm so sorry."
Harmony pulled her mother into a comforting embrace. "Mom, you rescued me from hell. All I have for you is gratitude and love. So many mothers would never have questioned someone like Dad or would have been easily overwhelmed. I'll never be able to repay you for rescuing me from that horror show. I just feel so bad about Melody now, knowing what she went through already, just to get stuck with that piece of shit. All the guys she dated were like that too. She never got to fall in love with someone worthy of her. I wish I could travel back in time and find her a Mister Right to make up for all the hell that she went through."
Her mother shook in her arms, and it took her a moment to realize that she was laughing.
"What's so funny?" Harmony asked suspiciously.
Her mother pulled away to look at her, cheeks wet with tears. She stared at Harmony with loving eyes and a wondering smile. "Even in your darkest moments you are always thinking of others. You really are an angel, Harmony. I'm so very proud of you. Despite all the crap this world has thrown your way, you have pushed right through it and kept your smile. You have such a wonderful heart. I can't think of a better person in the world for those two girls to see as a role model."
Harmony closed her eyes as tears leaked out of her eyes. She felt like a brazier had been placed in her chest as warmth spread throughout her body. She might have had a rough start, but she had spent the majority of her life in a loving family, with a mother who would batter down the gates of hell to save her. She dreaded the day she lost this guiding light in her life. She wished she were in one of her fictional novels and someone could cure her mother of MS.
"I'm going into the doctor today to get an MRI," her mother told her, as if she had been listening to her thoughts.
"Didn't you have one a month or two ago?" she asked her mother with a worried frown. "Did something change?"
"Yes, Harmony, something changed," her mother smiled, her eyes filling with tears again, triggering Harmony's own eyes. "I think I've been healed."
Harmony stared at her mother worriedly. "Mom, I know you have been feeling better for the last day, but I don't want to see you get your hopes up and have them dashed. That would be pretty rough. You know it goes into remission sometimes."
"Oh, I know," her mother agreed wryly. "But you don't go from feeling like I did three days ago to how I feel now if it's just a fluke. Rhapsody healed me."
She stared at her mother cautiously. She didn't want to remind her that magical healings were fiction when she was clearly already convinced that she was healed. There was no putting the honey back in the jar. "I'm glad you're feeling so good, Mom."
Her mother laughed at the Harmony's walking-on-eggshells expression. "I know you don't believe she's really a fairy, Harmony. You'll see soon enough."
"You're such a goose, Mom," Harmony sighed in exasperation. "I'm well past the age of believing in fairy tale creatures and magic. I've been pretty damn close to Rhapsody over the last two days, and I did not feel any wings on her back."
"It's probably something magical," her mother shrugged, a faint smile on her face as she observed her skeptical daughter. "I feel like the list of coincidences is getting a little too thick for Occam's Razor to slice through. I can tell you know that she can hear your thoughts. You know she carried you up here like you were a sack of flour."
"What, she made a mess?" Harmony asked dryly. She ignored her mother's observation about Rhapsody's seeming telepathy. That was getting too difficult for Harmony to dismiss, so she ignored it. She didn't really understand how gravity worked, but it still did. Maybe Rhapsody was good at reading micro expressions and reading people. She had heard of people that were so good at reading other people that they were nearly telepathic.
Her thoughts were derailed when she felt someone tapping on her back. She turned, a smile on her face as she expected to see Rhapsody sneaking up on her again. Instead, there was nobody there. She turned back to see her mother staring at her triumphantly, one eyebrow raised in a way that would make Serenity proud. She had one hand bent behind her back, where she had clearly been using it to tap on her own back.
"So, would you like to explain how you feel touch remotely even when you can't see the person do it?" her mother asked archly. "I'm excited to see what you come up with."
"I'm working on a theory," Harmony assured her mother confidently. She had no idea what that theory was yet, but it would be a doozy.
"Let's hear what you have so far," her mother urged her eagerly, her blue eyes sparkling with suppressed mirth. "Maybe I can help you develop it further."
"Well... you know how bats have echolocation?" she asked, pushing her brain into overdrive.
"Seriously, Harmony?" her mother asked incredulously. "You think you are using sonar to map the room around you to see behind people's backs?"
"Dolphins do it," Harmony pointed out defensively. "Maybe we have some kind of built-in sonar as well, but we just stopped using it and it only popped up in my genes because my brain got hacked."
Her mother lost some of her playfulness at the reminder. "Well, that could explain the sonar, but why can't you use it all of the time if that's what you're doing? Why does it only work if someone is triggering your synesthesia?"
"Maybe it's always pinging out around me," Harmony began slowly as she adjusted the gears in her brain. "But I'm not consciously aware of it unless the part of my brain that triggers the synesthesia notices it."
Her mother stared at her thoughtfully, a smile appearing on her face. "Okay, you definitely did not disappoint. You should get a job working for the Men In Black as their PR spin doctor."
"If the position existed, I'd take it," Harmony declared airily. "I'll always be here to poke holes in everyone's superstitions and fantasies."
Her nieces started stirring, mumbling sleepily as they looked around the slowly lightening room. Serenity was the first one to wake up all of the way. Her gaze sharpened on Harmony, and she rolled over several times until she was next to her.
"Are you okay, Aunt Harmony?" Serenity asked, her concern warming Harmony's heart.
"I'm doing much better," Harmony assured her with a sanguine smile. "Thank you for keeping me company. I love you and Aurora to pieces."
Serenity wrapped her arms around her and sighed with relief. "Don't you ever scare us like that again, do you understand?"
"I copy that, loud and clear," Harmony responded in her best redneck voice.
"And don't you ever speak in that redneck dialect again," Serenity warned with a dangerous edge in her voice.
Harmony started laughing at her bossy niece, finding the growing confidence in her niece to be adorable.
"Are you laughing at me?" Serenity demanded incredulously, releasing Harmony to pull back and glare at her.
"Not at you," Harmony denied quickly. "Just at the situation. Now run along and get ready for school. It's Monday."
"Ug!" Serenity groaned, rolling the rest of the way off of the bed. She sighed as she zombie-walked out the door. "I can't wait for summer."
"On that note, I better get ready to head into the doctor's office," her mother announced with her own groan as she stood up. "I was planning on staying the night here again, if that's okay with you?"
"You don't need to ask that, Mom," Harmony scolded her in exasperation. "This is your house too."
"Thanks, dear," her mother smiled wistfully, her eyes concerned. "Just call me if you need to talk or anything at all, okay?"
"Okay," Harmony returned her mother's smile warmly. "Thanks Mom."