dichroic | Phoenix Pat

Inspired by rachelmanija’s alternate ending for Emily of New Moon. Only while hers is what really happened to Emily Starr, mine is what Pat Gardiner never said.

Phoenix Pat, a playlet
(set immediately after the last line of Mistress Pat)

SCENE: a beautiful night, with trees sighing in a light breeze and a half moon and stars rising above the shell of a house gutted by fire.

NARRATOR: And then the old orchard heard the most charming sound in the world: the low, yielding voice of a girl held prisoner by her lover.

HILARY’S mounth lowers to PAT’S. The lights dim, but not enough to hide a brief struggle.

PAT: Let - me - go!

HILARY, confused: What? But you just kissed me. Aren’t you mine now?

PAT: I’m mine now! Oh, Jingle, let’s not go home right away, not even to your new house in the West.

Hilary, hurt: But I built it for *you*, Pat. You’ll love it.

PAT: I will. And I’ll love you. But let’s travel the world first - I want you to show me a moonrise in Japan and twilight in the Old World. Oh, Hilary, I feel like the princess from an old fairy tale, kept in a tower all her life. Only I never knew it until this minute. Even burned, Silver Bush held me. But now - you have set me free.

She takes his hand and looks up in his eyes, at the moon’s reflection.

PAT: You always understand, Hilary.

HILARY, taking his hand back: I will always need to travel for my work, Pat. And I had envisioned coming back to the home I’ve never had - with you in it, making it live. I can only give up my dream on one condition.

He steps closer, but is careful not to hold her except with his eyes.

HILARY: Pat, if you won’t wait at home for me - will you travel with me? You were always all that meant home to me.

PAT steps closer and lays her head on his shoulder. Her words are slightly muffled.

PAT: We’ll have a real home, Hilary. And we’ll come back to it together. But we’ll leave it sometimes too. “Home” isn’t “self”, Hilary. I can’t be that for you - you’ve had to learn to be your own self and now I have to learn that too. We’ll face the world together, instead of facing only each other.

HILARY puts his arms around her, but gingerly, as if afraid to bruise a wild thing.

HILARY: We will.

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.