Chapter 13: Chapter 11 – Mrs. Fahrenheit

The moment I reached the door of my apartment, the realisation hit me as hard as Victor lunging for me. A-B01, A-201, A-401 and A-701 had all been affected by Leonard’s fuckup. Four floors out of eight. And I figured, might be useful to check up on the other apartments. I turned right around and went up one floor, to check on A-301. 

If I recall right from the name tags on the mail boxes, a Mrs. Fahrenheit was living there. Of course, since I never had any reason to go higher than my floor, I doubted I ever encountered her. A quick knock on the door, and shortly it opened. 

“My oh my, bodymoding has come a long way since I was young. I expected centaur cyborgs and such back then, not someone getting their skin dyed candy red and getting a pair of horns.” The older lady chuckled. She was wearing glasses, her hair was relatively short and in a braid. Her smile and laughter had a note of ‘oh young people, the amazing things you do’, compared to the generic ‘young people, the crazy shit you get up to’ you might hear from other elderly. And oh, I hadn’t considered that angle. Or realised I was still in Lily mode... Maybe I could spin it that way? But it’d be pretty weird if I figured out how to look human while being Lily. I realised I had been just kind of staring for the past minute. “Fried your brain a little bit there, did I? Apologies for that. How can I help, dear?” 

I cleared my throat a bit to answer. “Sorry, ma’am, I don’t think you can help with this particular problem.” 

“Oh nonsense, dear, come in for a chat and some tea. Only thing I can’t help with is heavy lifting, can barely move myself at my age.” She grabbed my wrist and gently pulled me in, closing the door. Her apartment was as cosy as cosy gets. Armchairs and couches and a coffee table in the center, fit to seat 20 people. A cabinet full of trinkets and cups. I think a bunch of them were old consoles? And figurines of characters. I was curious as to who they could be. The only ones I recognized were Kirby and a Pokémon trainer, because of the Pikachu next to her. I turned to look around the room more, noticing a chunk of wall that was covered in framed photos of people, none resembling the elder woman. She let go of my wrist once inside. “Do take whichever seat you like. Mind you, the one with the knitting basket next to it is usually where I sit.” She walked over to a small cabinet, the smell of teas coming off strongly from there. “Oh my, where are my manners. Lost them the moment I saw your bold appearance. What do I call you, dear?” 

“Lily.” One of the smells was coming off strongly from the tea cabinet. It stood out, like a yellow umbrella in a sea of black ones. The nostalgic feelings it was giving me were so familiar, I felt my eyes water, as I followed my nose to the source. 

“Lily’s a pretty name. What kind would you like?” Mrs. Fahrenheit opened the cabinet, making the tea smells even more prominent, and I saw the source, pointing to it. “Jasmine tea, huh.” She grabbed the tin, turning it over. A look of familiarity in her eyes. The corners of her mouth turned up just a little bit, as if getting ready to turn into a smile. “Why go for that one?” She turned to face me, obviously noticing I was on the verge of tears. 

“It’s… it’s the kind Mom used to drink.” I sniffed a bit, obviously ready to break the dam on tears.

“Used to?” That question cracked the damn, as I let a couple tears lose. She smiled sadly back at me. “Jasmine it is.” It clicked that I was sobbing in a stranger’s home, and I quickly wiped my eyes. She started making the tea at that moment.

“Sorry, don’t know what happened there.” I walked over to the wall of photos, looking through them. Really, nobody resembled Mrs. Fahrenheit even remotely. “Would it be rude of me to ask who all these people are?” 

“They’re my former patients. Every time they moved, either on or away, they brought me a cup, and I took a picture to remember them by.” I looked through the photos a bit closer. Patients? So she was a doctor? But of what? “A few got me tins of tea as well. The jasmine one you picked was from one of my dearest ones.” 

“What kind of a doctor are you?” My sight landed on a familiar face on the wall. 

“A therapist.” She handed me a cup, as I stared dumbfounded at the picture. “If it wasn’t for the red skin and horns, and truth be told height, you’d be a splitting image of your mother when she was your age.” I turned to face Mrs. Fahrenheit as she smiled at me. Any semblance of a filter I had shattered in that moment. 

“This isn’t a body mod. I woke up a couple days ago looking like this. The guy in A-101, Leonard, did some stupid rituals and turned at least four people into demons. I know for sure about me, Félicie in the basement, Amy in A-401 and Victor in A-701.” My lips were trembling, a bit out of panic, because this woman knew my mother, and recognised me. And she snorted out a laugh. 

“How much worse could he have made Victor, honestly? That man was already a harpy and a creep.” She gave me a shoulder pat, and urged me to sit down. “So my home is turning into a nest of demons? Were you checking in on me to see if I was affected too?” I nodded to answer her. “Kids these days. Nevertheless, thank you for being concerned, Lily. I remember Marie mentioning a different name for the child she had.” 

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“Yeah, I can… I can turn back into that form. Although, after the last couple of days, I’ve been spending more and more time like this.” I took a sip of the jasmine tea. Another nostalgia bomb. “And it’s… brought to light a lot of the ways Father traumatised me, after Mom passed away and I had to live with him.” 

“When did she… leave you.” Mrs. Fahrenheit sat down, it looked like she was entering therapist mode. 

“When I was ten. The doctors couldn’t do anything. I had a dream last night, with her in it. I was ten again, but kind of like this. And then he had to come in and ruin it.” I sighed and rubbed my eyes. “What did my Mom visit you with?” 

“Well, patient confidentiality is important…” she looked thoughtful for a moment, before mumbling something that sounded like ‘and you’ll most likely be hit with it as well’. “... but I think it’s important as well that you know, in this case. Anxiety and depression, mostly. But there was also a deep generational trauma component to it. Based on what she shared, all the women on your mother’s side have it. Like something descendants of Holocaust survivors have.” She drank from her cup, and I did as well, processing everything. “You know, Lily… if that’s the name you don’t want me to use, I can switch to the other one if you’d like?” 

“No, no, uhm… Lily is fine when I’m like this. It would be weird in the other form.” I scratched my chin as Mrs. Fahrenheit nodded. 

“I’m still in practice. Not just therapy, but also psychiatry. I don’t take on new patients often, but… I think you should consider it. The familiarity with your family might help. Don’t decide now, but come again once you do make the choice.” She sipped again. “For now, in my professional opinion, I think it would do you good to just sit back, sip tea, and let the tension go.” I nodded to her, as my eye caught a glimpse of an obituary open, on the tablet on the coffee table. It was for Victor. 

“Yeah. Thank you, Mrs. Fahrenheit. I’ll consider it.” All I could think in that moment was ‘Good Riddance’, though, after noticing the flying fuck didn’t make it. 

 

After finishing the pot of tea, I said goodbye to Mrs. Fahrenheit, and made my way up the stairs again. I knew that A-601 was currently unoccupied, as the windows were open and nothing was inside said apartment, which left me with just one apartment to check: A-501. I knocked on the door, and it was swung open by a frazzled looking redhead, barely older than me, circles under her eyes, her hair unkempt, wearing an open flannel shirt over clothes that bordered on pyjamas. 

“Is that a cosplay or are you here to drag me to hell?” She sounded exhausted.

“Uhm, not here to drag you to hell, the answer to the first depends on… if anyone has recently underwent any changes here? In a… kind of specific way?” 

“Yeah my girlfriend turned into a fucking quetzalcoatl girl and is stuck to the ceiling because she can’t control her flight. What about it?” The redhead crossed her arms, making me gulp. 

“Leonard in A-101 is responsible and can fix it. I got hit too. Amongst others. in the 01 line of apartments.” I held my shoulder nervously, as she nodded at me. 

“Josie. The one stuck to the ceiling is Robyn.” She pointed behind herself, and I peeked in, noticing a girl with a feathered snake tail for legs, along with feathered ears stuck to the ceiling. She waved at me, and I waved back. “But I’m going to go drag that greaselord’s ass up here right this second to get my girlfriend unstuck from there.” Josie gently pushed me out of the way and stormed out, giving me barely any time to follow and make sure she didn’t kill Leonard on the spot. The local idiot deserved an ass whooping, not to be murdered.