Dedications: This one's a shocker.
My Nazi-like first block teacher: For giving me such easy work today that I finished an hour early and composed my chapter in secret.
Chapter 4: Problems Arise
The hotel was no Hilton or Holiday Inn, but it looked cozy in its own way. It gave the impression of a lodge from the outside with small rectangular windows, a brick exterior, a roof that escalated then flattened suddenly, and leaf-less trees flanking the entrance. The only feature that reminded one of the city was the limestone clock tower in front of it. Three thin windows climbed up toward the black-faced clock like snowman's buttons. The largest tombstone-shaped window laid just below the clock itself.
Dodging several pairs of feet and swinging traveling bags, Lily and Dinah made their way to the glass doors that gave entrance to the hotel. A cheerful bell jingled overhead as the door swung forward and they stepped into the quaint lobby. On the mantle of the inactive fireplace, dolls, pictures and old wooden toys were arranged upon doilies that had yellowed with age. Portraits of the surrounding Alps drew interest to the otherwise drab red brick walls, and the wooden staircase leading to the upper floor gave the feel of a log cabin.
A young man in a crisp, white, long-sleeved shirt smiled pleasantly at them from behind the check-in counter. Lily regarded him warily, but returned the smile after a moment. Dinah noticed her hesitance.
"How may I be of help to you?" He spoke with an accent.
"We need a room for the week," replied Lily, digging through her bag for her envelope of money.
"Single or double?"
Lily bit her lip and stole a glance at Dinah. "I don't want my own bed," she whispered.
"Single," answered Lily, exchanging a smile with Dinah. Her mother used to do the same for her when they'd traveled together. The odd thing was, Lily had been frightened of witches as a child. Fabricated, fairy tale witches, of course.
"Would you like to pay now or later?" asked the young man.
"Now, please." That way, she could do all the shopping she pleased without worry.
"Two-hundred and sixty-five Francs, please." Though she had more than enough money, the price sounded exorbitant to Lily. She'd only ever had small chunks of currency at a time before that morning.
"I only have pounds with me," said Lily uneasily, fearing an incident. "British pounds." She held the money out toward him and he accepted it; she pulled away brusquely when his fingers brushed hers.
"This is not a problem," he assured her. The drawer of the cash register clanged when he pulled it open to exchange her money. He handed her far more Francs than she'd given him pounds; she felt strange, as though she were stealing.
"Are you sure you gave me the right amount?" she asked. "This is quite a lot of money." She held the three hundred Francs out for him, which he pushed back toward her.
"I am certain. It's the exchange of rate, yes?" His mix-up with the term took a moment to register with Lily.
"If...you say so," answered Lily, tucking the money into her robe pocket. She then realized she was wearing her old school robes in the Muggle city and hoped no one took notice.
"I do," he replied with a smile. "And here is your key to the room. Your meals are included with the price." He held out a sole silver key on a ring tagged '#25'. Lily took it and muttered her thanks. Dinah slipped her hand into Lily's and they shuffled up the narrow staircase with their bulky luggage.
They came out in a hallway papered with pictures of dancing Swiss girls with old-fashioned dresses and bonnets. Their room, number twenty-five, laid at the end of the hallway and Lily unlocked its door with the key the young man had given her. Dinah tossed her backpack in the corner by the door and kicked off her worn saddle shoes before running to jump on the queen-sized bed in the center of the room. Lily rolled her eyes, smiling, and locked the door behind them.
"Don't dirty the bed," she said.
"I'm-not!" panted Dinah as she bounced.
Lily snatched her in mid-air, stumbling backward with the force. Dinah giggled and threw her arms about her neck, her head coming to rest on her shoulder.
"What are we going to do today?" she asked. "Ski? I don't know how to ski."
Lily peered out the window at the mountains. Snow only capped the highest peaks; the rest of the land was green and lush. Definitely not skiing weather.
"I don't think we'll be able to ski this week," said Lily, disappointed. "But there are other things to do in Sierre."
"Like what?" Dinah played with a piece of Lily's hair.
"Well..." Lily walked to the dresser, shifting Dinah to her hip to allow herself a free hand. She flipped open the tourists' guide and they looked through it together. They saw pictures of gorgeous waterfalls, old-timey houses, prestigious restaurants, trolley tours, nature hikes, bike trails, a playground made to look like a forest...that was all Dinah needed to see. She grabbed the book and wriggled from Lily's grasp, tapping excitedly at the page.
"Oh, a playground! Can we go, Lily? Can we, please?" She clasped her hands together and jumped up and down.
"Where is it?" She reached for the book but Dinah pulled it out of her reach and checked herself.
"T-Ter-ra-clear St-str-ee-t," Dinah drawled, sounding out the name.
"You can read?" Lily felt a flutter of pride in her chest.
"A little," said Dinah shyly, closing the guide. She traced the outline of Switzerland on the cover with her finger.
"Who taught you?" Lily doubted it was her mother this time.
"A lady on the TV," answered Dinah, confirming Lily's suspicions. "I wasn't allowed to go to school, so I had to learn from shows on TV."
Lily crossed her arms slowly over her chest, a crease between her eyebrows. She was still trying to process what Dinah had told her. "Why wouldn't your mother send you to school?"
"There were...problems. ...Can we go?" she changed the subject, tugging gently on her arm. "I want to play."
"I need to change my clothes first," said Lily, rumpling Dinah's hair. "And a shower would be nice." She'd neglected her hygiene at the Manilas' house.
Dinah looked down at her own clothes and ran her fingers through her hair, which had grown slightly oily from a couple days without bathing.
"I need a bath too," she agreed. "But should I wait until we come back from playing? I might get dirty again."
"We'll take that chance," said Lily, taking two fluffy towels down from the shelf outside the bathroom. "We definitely need to clean up." She placed a towel in Dinah's arms.
"You can bathe yourself, right?" asked Lily. She prayed so. Playing a mother was fine and all, but she wasn't ready to bathe a child.
"Yes," said Dinah. "Only the really little kids got help at the orphanage; I had to learn."
"You can go first," Lily offered, pushing open the bathroom door. "But take a shower, not a bath. I want to explore more of Sierre than just the playground and we'll need as much time as possible."
"We're doing more than just playing?" Dinah's eyes lit with energy. In her everyday life, she was lucky to do one interesting thing during the day.
"If we were only traveling to Sierre to play at a playground, don't you think it would be a waste of money?" asked Lily. "There are playgrounds in Little Whinging."
"That's a yes, then?" Dinah grinned.
Lily smiled. "It's a yes."
Dinah jumped and cheered ecstatically and hurried into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. Lily heard water flowing, but even after several minutes it wasn't replaced by the gentle pattering of a shower. She rapped on the door.
"Dinah?" she called, pressing her ear against the surface of the door to hear better. "Are you drawing a bath? I told you to take a shower."
She heard a muffled cry from inside, but no words.
"I can't hear you," she said into the crack of the door. "Put a towel on and open up."
The door opened a moment later and Dinah stood before her wrapped in a fluffy towel, expression frantic.
"I can't make a shower!" she cried, close to tears. "I make a bath by accident!" She indicated the tub, which was nearly overflowing. As Lily ran to shut off the water, Dinah backed against the wall and said,
"You're not mad, are you Lily? I didn't do it on purpose! Please don't hit me!"
Lily walked toward her and she cowered. "Why would I hit you?" She knelt beside her. "I know it was an accident. I'm not angry." Lily tucked a loose curl behind the child's ear. Dinah collapsed into her arms.
"My"--she sniffled--"my mother used to get very angry about my accidents. If I didn't do everything exactly as she said, she'd spank me."
Lily rubbed circles on her back while she cried.
"I"--she hiccuped--"tried to fix it before the water got too high, but it kept coming and coming! I'm sorry--I won't do it again! Don't send me back to the orphanage!" She hiccuped again and Lily sat down on rug, placing the red-faced girl in front of her.
"All right, Dinah. We need to talk about a few things." Fearful and melancholy, Dinah nodded, eyes wandering to the carpet. "I am not like your mother. I don't drink, I don't do drugs, and I definitely don't hit children. You don't have to worry anymore about making little mistakes, because I'm not going to punish you for them."
"So I'm not going back to the orphanage?" she asked, looking up from the floor.
"No," said Lily, pulling her close. "You're not going back and neither am I. Unless you...want to go back."
Dinah's eyes opened wide and she shook her head vehemently. "Never! I want to stay with you!"
Lily mussed her hair affectionately. "We'll see about that. I don't have much money. I don't have a job. I don't have a degree or training...none of that. I don't know how good of a guardian I'd make for you."
"Where will I go then? I don't want to live with anyone else." She grew scared. "They can't take me away from you, right? The ladies at the orphanage?"
"I don't know," Lily admitted, growing worried herself. "Let's not think about this right now. We're here to have a vacation--to enjoy ourselves. And to start feeling better about our families."
Dinah stood up and readjusted her towel. "I already told you: I don't feel bad about my mother dying. She wasn't good to me; you know that."
"You don't even miss her a little bit?" whispered Lily. "She wasn't good to you some of the time?"
"Hardly ever," said Dinah. "Once she brought me ice cream from town, but that was the only nice thing. It was nice when she wasn't home, though."
"You stayed home alone?" Lily's eyes expanded incredulously.
"All the time," said Dinah, as if she were talking about how often she viewed the television rather than her true subject of discussion. "I spent most of my time home alone. I took walks around our apartment building's lake and fed the ducks with some of the bread from our house. Mother never noticed when it went bad; she ate in town most of the time."
"Why was she gone so much? Work?" Lily's mother had been a stay-at-home mother and found the idea of being alone at home odd. She'd never been home alone before.
"She worked and she went to school," explained Dinah. "She said when she finished school everything would be better and we'd have a real house and she'd be home more. But I never believed her. I knew she wouldn't keep those promises; she never kept promises."
"What promises didn't she keep before?" asked Lily.
"She promised I could go to school when I turned six," said Dinah. "But when I turned six and I talked about it again, she said seven!"
"Why? Did she give reasons?"
"She said she was busy enough during the day. She couldn't take me to school and pick me up; and no buses came to our apartment because no other kids there went to school. They were all babies and kids with cars."
"There were no other children your age?" Privet Drive was chock full of children Lily's age. She'd played with them everyday when she was younger.
"Nope. We lived in a small apartment building."
"I'm sure you could have found a way to get to and from school," said Lily. "Your mother didn't try hard enough."
"That wasn't the only problem," Dinah continued. "She didn't make enough money to pay for the things I needed for school. I don't have a lot of clothes and I need a whole lot if I go to school. And she couldn't pay for my lunches or supplies, either."
Lily said, "Maybe that was the reason she killed herself. She didn't make enough to pay for everything she had to pay for, so she got rid of her problems."
"But she didn't kill herself," insisted Dinah. "The drugs killed her."
"When she was found dead, was there anything near her? Pills? White powder?"
"Yes...pills. There was medicine on her beside table. A whole bottle full. Well...not a whole bottle. Half of it was empty. And she just bought it that night!"
"That's how she did it, then," said Lily. "She overdosed on pills." Drugs were a strange thing to discuss with a child. She wondered if Dinah would fully grasp the situation.
"Is overdosed when you take too many?" asked Dinah.
Lily nodded. "And usually when people overdose, it's not an accident."
Dinah thought for a moment, working this out. "So she did it on purpose? Because she was poor?"
"I think so, love," said Lily. "She probably felt like she couldn't ever fix the mess she'd gotten herself into. Going to college--the school your mother always talked about--isn't cheap."
"But she had a job!" cried Dinah. "Jobs pay money! She could have used it to pay for everything!"
"Some jobs don't pay enough," muttered Lily in disappointment. "That's why I can't adopt you. I can't take care of you either."
"Yes you can!" Dinah teared up again. "You're taking care of me right now and everything's fine!"
"I can't afford it for long, Dinah," Lily said softly, cupping her cheek. "I only have enough money to last us for...maybe a few weeks. And only if we leave Sierre when the week is up."
"Can't you do anything to get more money?" A tear rolled from each of her eyes down her cheeks. "Use magic!"
"I can't use magic to get more money," said Lily gently, cuddling her again. "I don't know if it's even possible to duplicate money with magic and it would be illegal even if I could."
"Can't you get a job or something?" she suggested desperately. "And a cheap house? Do you have a car? We can live there until we have money!" Lily could tell Dinah would go to any lengths to make her dreams become reality.
"No, I don't have a car," sighed Lily. "I don't have a driver's license either. But...we wouldn't live in the car unless we absolutely had to." Lily couldn't imagine living in a car. Sharing the back seat with her sister during road trips was bad enough.
"It sounds like we do," pouted Dinah. "It sounds pretty bad." The child was right. They were in an awful situation.
"We might have to go back to the orphanage," mused Lily.
"Didn't your mother leave you any money?" asked Dinah.
"No." Lily hated her diaries and trinkets then. She wished her mother had given her their house.
"Not even a little?" she pressed.
"Not even a little. Only personal things. Family things." Useless things, she thought.
"What kinds of things?" she asked, curious.
"Old jewelry and silverware," said Lily. "A few dishes and cups. And there were some other odd things mixed in as well."
"Are they worth money?" asked Dinah, hopeful.
"I can't sell them," said Lily softly, stroking the child's hair. "They were my mother's. If she wanted them to be sold, she wouldn't have left them to me."
"Lily, please!" cried Dinah, and more tears leaked from her eyes. "Don't you want me to live with you?"
"Of course I do," said Lily honestly. "But I can't afford to take care of you! I can't even afford to take care of myself!" Lily's depression was returning to her. She began to feel nearly as bad as she had the day before.
"Then what's gonna happen to me?" sobbed the child. "Where will I live?"
"I don't know, Dinah," repeated Lily. She rubbed her back again in an attempt to soothe her. The child's sobs soon changed to hiccups and sniffles and not long after to muffled, shaky breathing. Once she wiped her eyes and finished calming down, Dinah said,
"I don't want to play at the playground anymore. Not today."
"Neither do I," muttered Lily. "Why don't you play in the bath and I'll wait in the other room until you finish. After I clean up we can go down for lunch; I'm starving."
"Okay," said Dinah quietly, avoiding eye contact. She stood up and Lily moved to her feet, taking leave of the room.
Lily felt so drained from the stress of their conflict that she didn't turn on the small television on the dresser by the travelers' guide; she didn't rummage through her duffel bag for a book to occupy herself; she didn't even cry, something she felt a strong inclination to do.
She let her problems sink momentarily into the abyss and collapsed onto the freshly made bed to give slumber to her restless mind.
O O O