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Medea Schneider is born on a gloomy Wednesday in the middle of April to an unusual pair of parents. Although they do not know it yet, while she has inherited her mother’s thick black hair and short stature, she will exude her father in the way she walks and talks and holds herself in a room full of men who would wish to see her bow even closer to the floor. But that is years from now, so while the drizzle pounds against their run-down house, and the candles flicker from the wind the shudders can’t quite keep out, Matsuko and Ludwig Schneider coo down at their baby girl.
Her parents do not know it yet, but she will grow up quickly, as children who live through war often do. But even before the war-induced poverty begins, she has few toys to call her own. She enjoys the two dolls crudely carved out of wood from her papa’s knife, though she does not play with them as most children do. At three, she is covering them with fallen leaves, using their stems or long blades of grass to fashion dresses and skirts and blouses for wooden figures. These small works of art last only a day or two before they wilt or become discolored, and Medea cries every time her creations are ruined and her mama comforts her as best she can.
(
“Shhh, Darling. It’s alright, my dear Medea. These outfits are wonderfully marvelous, and it is okay to mourn them. But do not let your pain of what is lost keep you from creating, from doing something you truly love.”)
And then World War I happens, and Ludwig is called into duty from reserve. The morning before he leaves, Medea makes him a necklace from a smooth obsidian rock and what used to serve as the string keeping their broom together. She makes him promise to wear it every day, and as mad as her parents are at her for dismantling their only broom, he agrees to, if only because her eyes are red and wet when she offers him the gift. She’d had a nightmare last night after over-hearing him and Matsuko talking about the order, and he knows she’s upset about him leaving. And her relief is so clear, he can’t help but promise to keep it on always.
(Her parents wonder at how she got the rock, but accept her answer easily enough when she says she found it after digging in the valley. How are they to know that she searched for only ten minutes, and that she happened to dig two feet in just the right spot with her bare hands to find it, as if it was calling to her in a voice only she could hear.)
Her father returns ten months later with an injured shoulder and a story too miraculous to believe if he hadn’t lived it out himself. The necklace his daughter fashioned him not only lasted for nine months, but protected his heart from a bullet that would have killed him within seconds. Both rock and bullet shattered, sending fragments into his arm that the medics did their best to remove. But it is the early twentieth century and medicine is not what it will one day be, so when he loses partial function in his arm due to nerve damage he is discharged and free to go home. Ludwig apologizes for breaking the gift his daughter gave him, but unlike with the skirts and dresses made of dead plantation, Medea seems almost happy at its demise.
(“It did what it was supposed to, Papa.” She smiles up at him, still barely reaching his knees despite her being five already.
Ludwig and Matsuko exchange glances as she twirls away, back to designing a dress that will just so happen to be the biggest hit of the most popular German pattern magazine of 1915, not that anyone will know.
They refuse to think of it any longer, knowing what happens to individuals with gifts during a war. Their daughter will not be buried in a shallow grave because a random government official thinks it is okay for a child who does not understand death yet to fight in a war that is not of her own making.
They never speak of the necklace again, and as children are wont to do, Medea soon forgets all about the talisman.)
But Medea was never meant to live a life sheltered in the countryside, learning little more than how to read and write and complete the tasks expected of a housewife at the time. She designs and designs and designs, asking not for dresses or dolls or candy for birthdays and Christmas but for sheets of paper and charcoal pencils. She asks her parents again and again to allow her to send her designs to an art school, or to submit them to be published so that she may afford to attend a school where she can create. Her mama insists that the education her papa received was plenty, and that she should be grateful that she gets to go to school when she herself did not.
Finally, when Medea has pushed her to her limits, Matsuko agrees to allow her to go to the city and send a few of her designs to pattern magazines for publishing on the condition that she finishes school first. Matsuko does not realize the change her words will spark in her still so small daughter, for what Medea lacks in height she makes up for with ruthless intelligence and
drive.
She begins to dominate over each and every student in the small school house half a mile away, until the teacher is forced to admit Medea has learned everything she could possibly teach her at the age of ten, four years younger than her oldest students.
(Poor Miss
Bauer
is baffled when one day, like a switch, Medea starts paying attention in class instead of using up chalk with doodles of fancy dresses and blouses and parasols. She thinks she is cheating the first time that she doubles her score on a test, only for it to happen again and again and again. Medea asks for more homework, plows through every book the school has in a matter of weeks, and has a fire in her eyes the likes of which Miss
Bauer has never seen when she asks to be tested out of three years in only six months. She agrees, if only because she is scared that if she didn’t that fire would burn her and Medea alive.)
She sells her designs under a pen-name, both to protect her privacy and to prevent anyone from trying to take advantage of her or accuse her of plagiarism if she were to ever reveal her true age or status. No one in her family is surprised when her designs are accepted with reserved but exuberant praise. The Schneiders begin to see actors and actresses modeling the suits and dresses Medea designed before the year is through.
Medea saves up enough money to go to a fancy boarding school in lower Saxony, and though it was not her first choice, not by a long shot, it was the only school willing to take her with her background and lack of steady funds. Something about her must have impressed the administrative board, at the very least, and while Medea questions Miss Bauer on what she wrote in her recommendation letter, she never does find out what was written.
(
Miss Bauer says that Medea is the brightest student she has ever met. She also says that this fact is the least remarkable thing about Medea, and that the board would be fools if they didn’t accept Medea because Miss Bauer would bet her life that one day Medea will become more famous than any other student they currently have. The board thinks the letter is a pompous exaggeration until they meet the girl themselves.)
Medea is not quick to make friends. It was one thing when the students in the school house teased her, because even if her marks didn’t reflect it, she knew she was smarter than them. Here, where the students mock her height in French and her nose in English and her wardrobe in a mix of the two, she feels woefully out of place in a way she never truly has before. She has always known that she is different, but at home, it was always a good thing. Now, for the first time in her life, she’s not so sure.
However, Medea has never been the damsel in distress that her parents sometimes wished she was. Her parents knew that wasn’t who she was when, at the age of five, she declared she’d simply tame the dragon and free herself from the tower if she was kept captive without any supplies with which to create. But, more importantly, Medea knew that she could never betray herself to be a lackey to such obnoxious, self-centered, poorly-dressed children.
And while she does not ask for a savior, and would have in fact hissed vehemently that she had no need for one, she does find a friend in a Dorothea Modalität, better known simply as Thea. Thea finds Medea’s resilience remarkable, and they discover a shared delight in sketching. While Medea doesn’t reveal the sketches that she sends away to be bought under her pen-name, she does find great satisfaction in designing outfits for the many characters that Thea brings to life with paper and pen. The two become close almost overnight, and the teachers do not question how the duo end up rooming together come next fall.
(
“Dea!”
“What?”
“I’ll be Thea, and you can be Dea! It sounds absolutely wonderful, don’t you think?”
“It sounds like the start to a nursery rhyme made by a drunk sailor.”
“Well I like it, and I know you’ll grow to as well.”
“Thea, don’t you dare
—”)
Dea is fourteen when she wakes up from a dream with shivers running down her spine and a cold sweat making her clothes stick to her skin. She doesn’t understand it, but she feels the need to create in a way she never has before, at least as far as she can remember. She takes the thickest blankets she has and cuts them up before she even knows what she is doing, sewing them into pants, a shirt, and a dress. Thea questions Dea repeatedly on what she is doing up, who she’s making the outfits for, and how she knows the measurements from the top of her head, but Dea is too far under to hear her let alone answer. Alarmed, Thea can do naught but watch as Dea works in a semi-conscious haze to create a masterpiece, unaware that Dea could sew as fast and accurately as the sewing machine Thea’s mother has on display.
Morning light is creaking through the window drapes when Dea stares hard at her creations for one final moment, before shoving her feet into shoes and just barely remembering to grab money and a coat as she races out the door. She still doesn’t really know what she’s doing as she mails the package to her parents, knowing that it is late April and that they would never wear such clothes in the field or their small wooden house this time of year. Still, it feels right, and only after she has sent the clothing off does she feel some small relief, a tiny chink of her previous anxiety being chipped away.
The feeling of unease remains for weeks, though her hands are still, until she receives a letter informing her that there was a fire and that her parents are in the hospital being treated for extensive burns. She leaves immediately with little more than the clothes on her back, knowing that Thea will explain her disappearance for her. She takes trains and cars and at one point even a horse, desperate to reach them as she is. She makes it to the hospital to find that infection has ravaged their bodies, and they are little more than husks of the people she once knew, only their eyes familiar to her.
(The doctors explain to her that they did what they could, but the third-degree burns on their chests were largely untreatable. They tried to keep them as comfortable as possible, and maintain a clean environment, but their condition was only deteriorating. They ask her if she has any other relatives to inform, and the way her head shakes is little more than a jolt.
She can do nothing but watch as they fade away, silent tears streaming down her face as her papa passes in the late hours of the night, her mama following him less than a day later.
It is Miss Bauer, now Mrs. Erneurer, who helps her bury her parents. The funeral is small, the gravestones even smaller, but it is all she can afford with the little bit of money she has saved away in case of emergencies. On the day before she is to head back to school, she visits her childhood home one last time, or what remains of it at least. A few pieces of dishware are all she finds in the ash at first, until she unearths the wool clothes she had sent what feels like a lifetime ago.
She stares at the singed fabric, thinking of the highly flammable cotton her parents must have been wearing, and wonders. She wonders that night, on the train ride home, and when she is burning the clothes in the school library. It takes half an hour for the clothes to turn to ash as well, and she watches and wonders.)
Dea spends summers with Thea, after that. Her family welcomes her as one of their own, despite the fact that the size of Thea’s room is equal to the entirety of Dea’s old house. They play games in the backyard with Noah, Thea’s younger brother, and act out the plays that Thea writes with makeshift costumes made from old pieces of clothing. Even Henri and Hannah, Thea and Noah’s parents, ask Dea questions and have their chef make her favorite meals. For Dea, who has never known what it is like to have siblings, who still thinks of her parents with tears in her eyes every night, the open invitation and easy acceptance are like water to a man in the Sahara Desert.
Dea is sixteen when one of the more persistent bullies, Mila, steals Dea’s sketchbook from off her desk. Mila eyes Dea’s designs in silence, her mouth parted just enough to display her obvious surprise, a rare expression on the haughty girl’s face. She points at one dress in particular, a stunning blue evening gown, and asks her how much she’d have to pay for Dea to make it. Dea blinks at her, about to refuse her request, when Thea blurts out an astoundingly large amount of money.
Dea whips her head around, and is so busy glaring fiercely at her friend that she hardly hears the easy acceptance. She turns more slowly this time as Mila rattles off her measurements, as well as her request for it to be finished by the Winter gala, so that she could wear it with her new pair of shoes. She flounces back to her seat before Dea can protest, and then class starts back up, and Dea never gets the chance that day to tell Mila that she absolutely cannot make a dress for her, no matter if the commission fee would pay for half a school year's tuition. After all, the gala is in five days, and they have final exams, how on
earth could she–
It is Thea who convinces her to make the dress, insisting that she could use the money to make a dress for herself for the gala for a change instead of wearing the same navy blue one she’s worn for the event for the last three years. Thea has offered, of course, to pay for a new one, and her parents have tried as well, but Dea has always set the line at clothes. The
Modalitäts can pay for her food, and her necessities, and even give her her own room for the summertime, but she refuses to accept anything so permanent as clothing. Dea can’t put into words why the Modalitäts buying her clothes feels so wrong, but they see the fractured look on her face every time they offer, and do not push the matter. Even twelve-year-old Noah understands that if he wants to get Dea a gift, it must be candy or hair ribbons or something of the like.
(Dea knows that she is different, and she believes the seamstress would look at her with pity or derision, for being different in a land where blue eyes and blonde hair is the worshiped norm. She refuses to mention that every article of clothing she owns was made by her or her mama’s own hands, and to make anything for herself without her mama working next to her makes her heart hurt. She can’t even think about how she made her first dress when she was five under candlelight on Mama’s lap. Her motions were clumsy, and she pricked her fingers more than once, but it was a masterpiece nevertheless.
And the navy blue dress she continues to wear every year, even though it is no longer in style, was never really in style in the first place…well. How could she wear anything else but the last dress her wonderful mama made for her?)
Dea makes Mila’s dress, in the end. She requires a fraction of the payment upfront for the supplies, and Mila hands the money over readily with only a muttered warning of what she would do to Dea if she made Mila look like a fool. The words do not cow Dea in the least, and she soon finds herself picking out the fabric and other materials required for making such an extravagant dress. She works for a total of eighteen hours, and it is early morning the day of the dance when she stares at her creation and feels
wrong, wrong, wrong.
Her fingers itch with a scratch she can’t reach, and she lets them do what they wish as they add a small secret pocket, and pearls coming up from the hem of the dress instead of the snowflakes she was going to embroider.
She stares at the completed work of art, and though she knows it is slightly different from what Mila requested and that she will be furious, Dea’s bones are no longer rattling under her skin and that is enough for her. She boxes up the dress, drops the package by Mila’s door, knocks, and runs away before Mila can come after her in rage. When questioned by Thea what on earth Dea did to the dress and why, Dea sniffs, stating that, “her artistic vision is not always appreciated by those of little minds.” Thea laughs at that, and then they get ready together as best they can with only a small mirror between the two of them, because neither are willing to brave the hallway and community bathrooms while Mila is still on a rampage.
(Thea wears a wonderful violet gown that makes her cerulean eyes seem to glow, and Dea wears the same navy blue dress as always. Dea claims she didn’t have time to make a new dress for herself, and wonders what excuse she will come up with next year when Thea asks again.)
The duo arrive at the gala thirty minutes late, just in case Mila decided that not arriving on time was worth getting revenge on Dea, only to find that the banquet hall has been transformed into an underwater palace. Dea and Thea stare at the decor, bewildered, having expected the “surprise” theme to be a winter wonderland like it always is. It does not take long to find that a small crowd has formed around Mila, with all the girls and even some teachers questioning how she knew the theme and planned her dress accordingly. Mila plays it off as a secret informant, insisting that she cannot reveal her source, but practically glows when people compliment her gown and how well it goes with the fake coral and sea shells scattered across the room.
Thea asks Dea more than once that night how
she
knew the theme when no one else did, and why she didn’t tell her. Dea insists that she didn’t, but has no viable explanation for why she added the pearls to the dress. Or the secret pocket, for that matter, not that Thea knows about that change. What is she supposed to say, that her hands have a mind of their own now, and she can’t control them? If she’s lucky, the Modalitäts would pay for her to be put in a nice loony bin. But if not…
The next day, right before students are scheduled to leave for winter break, Mila comes pounding on their dorm room door, demanding to speak to Dea
—
alone.
She insists rather fervently that Dea tell her how she knew what the theme of the dance would be, and why she kept it a secret when it would have saved her the hassle of being chased down. But Dea knows she can’t use the same excuse here, can’t
afford
to be labeled as the even weirder kid by the same girl who would just as soon tell the teachers that she’s mental as she would blackmail Dea into doing her bidding. So she tells her that that information is classified, if Mila doesn’t want the whole school and her parents to know about her smoking problem.
Because Dea is, above all else,
smart.
She knows that her creations serve a purpose, down to every stitch she sews, and that surely if the pearls were necessary then the
hidden
pocket was too. That, and Dea can smell the smoke faintly from Mila’s clothes, likely due to the fact Mila wanted to get one more cigarette in before she was sent back home, to a place with much heavier surveillance.
(Mila’s eyes widen, and she opens her mouth as her face slowly turns red, but
—
“I wouldn’t say anything too loudly.” Dea whispers as a shriek of laughter is heard from a room down the hall. “The walls have ears, after all.”
Mila’s mouth slams shut.
“Now, I’ll take this
—
” Dea grabs the mountain of Reichsmarks, physically tearing them from Mila’s hands. “And we’ll consider our deal done. And, as long as you don’t bother Thea or I ever again, I see no problem letting bygones be bygones, hmmm?”)
Thea also questions why they’re not being bullied anymore by Mila when they’ve been back from school for three weeks post-Christmas. Dea claims that it’s good will on Mila’s part, and that she took Dea into the hall to apologize for their mistreatment and to ask for forgiveness. Thea doesn’t really buy this, but as she has no other reasonable explanation for why Mila is avoiding them in the halls and barely glances their way now in class, she doesn’t push the matter.
It helps that there’s a rumor going around that, apparently, Dea is a demon. Word got out that Dea made Mila’s dress, and because Dea won’t say how she knew about the dance theme and Mila simply says that she “made a deal”, the school is abuzz with curiosity. Students start to ask to commission Dea for everything from a new outfit for the theatre club, to a dress for an upcoming first date. Dea accepts nearly all of the jobs, mostly because of the pressure from Thea to do so. Where Dea is worried about exposing her double life, or worse, her strange gift,Thea only sees future opportunities for Dea in every eager Reichsmark spent.
(
It is not the money, really, that Thea cares about. But Thea sees the way that Dea sometimes looks at her bright white dresses, at the new, scuffless boots she wears each autumn. And Thea would gladly gift her these things and more, if she thought they would make Dea happy. But she knows how Dea would see it, just as she knows that as smart as Dea is, brains will not pay for food and shelter once she is out of school. She understands that Dea probably has a scholarship of sorts, though she’s never asked. But while Thea will likely marry rich and be a stay at home wife like her mother, Dea was not built for that type of life
—
it would kill her. And Thea wants the very best for her sister in all but blood, but Thea is the moon to Dea’s sun, and there is so little she can do. So she reflects Dea’s light, pushes her to show her talents to the world, and she’s not sure if it will be enough but knows that it has to be.)
The name Demon Dea sticks, to Dea’s chagrin, but the commissions do as well so she doesn’t complain too much. She earns enough to pay the rest of her tuition in advance, and then some, and tries to pay back the Modalitäts for all they’ve provided for her. They refuse the money, of course, but receive lavish suits and dresses for their birthdays the upcoming year, which are tailored perfectly to their measurements, though they have no idea how Dea got them. They try to pay her for the materials, at the very least, but Dea declines the money and instead goes on to make a suit for Noah as well.
Time ticks on, and Dea and Thea are in their last year of school at last. Thea has a date to the winter banquet this year, and she loves him, truly, though she is incredibly nervous. Dea reassures Thea again and again that the dance will go splendidly, she will not step on his feet, she will not ruin her makeup, she will not tear her dress, and she will not accidentally laugh so hard that punch comes from her nose, really, Thea, honestly—
Thea begs Dea to make her a dress, and Dea readily agrees. Dea has never made anything for Thea before, partly because she worries it would be presumptuous of her but mostly because she knows how much Thea likes designing her own clothes and Dea does not follow other people’s patterns. She never has, and never will, because her very body rebels against doing so.
(
She spends countless hours on the dress, trying to get it just right. Her hands fight against her mind though, and she doesn’t know what to do, because she knows her hands are right even when her mind tells her no. She’s learned the hard way to trust her hands, she truly has. But she wants Thea to shine at the banquet. She knows Thea thinks of her as the sun to her moon, but what Thea fails to understand is that a sun that shines alone does not shine at all, for how can a sun see its own brightness? It would be like a tree falling alone in the woods, never making a sound. Nay, it is the moon that allows the sun to see its own glow, that shows the sun that it does not glow for naught.)
The dress comes out sleeveless and made from a material so thin that the slightest of breezes would cause goosebumps to spread across Thea’s milky white skin. Thea sees what Dea has made, and is stunned. She knows of Dea’s ability in the abstract way one knows that milk spoils when not cooled. That is to say, she understands by now that Dea creates with nary a thought, but an instinct that was born into her bones that always rings true.
But this, this disaster of a dress
—
(“I…I don’t understand.”
“Thea, I
—
”
“I’ve
—
I’ve never asked you for anything, Dea, and I don’t…did I do something wrong?” She hurries to ask, tears coming to her eyes. “Because I’m sorry if I did. Tell me, what did I
—
”
“You did nothing! I don’t know why there are no sleeves, Thea. Truly, I don’t.”
“...”
“...”
“The dance is tomorrow, and I know you still have two other commissions to finish. Can you just
—
”
She pauses, taking a deep breath, then pulls out thick wool and fur from her shopping bag. “Can you make this into a coat for me, at least? So that I don’t catch my death.”
“Thea, I
—
”
“Please.”
“...”
“...of course, Darling.”)
She makes the coat, but it is a struggle the likes of which she will never have again. She pricks her fingers a hundred times, sews the buttons on crooked first, and the stitches aren’t as tight as they should be. She works through the night and morning to get it to a point where it is of passable completion before the banquet. Again, Thea eyes the coat with a disappointed, heartbroken resignation, and Dea says nothing as she leaves for the banquet alone.
(How can she say that she did not mean for the dress or coat to turn out like this when everything else she has made was magnificent in every way? How can she tell Thea sorry when it is her own two hands that refused to cooperate for reasons she still doesn’t understand? And how can she explain that with every stitch she made of the coat her fingers screamed wrong, wrong, wrong?)
She eyes her navy dress, and puts it on, if only for old-times sake. She falls asleep to light peeking through her curtains and wakes up far past dark to Mrs. Aber shaking her. She stares at her teacher, utterly baffled, unaware that the teachers even
came
to this side of the school, when—
(“My dear, there’s been a horrible accident.”
“I don’t
—
what happened, where is
—
”
“Thea told Oskar she was going to use the facilities, to freshen up. She seemed happy, but nervous, according to him, so he wasn’t surprised when she didn’t return right away. After twenty minutes, though, he became worried, and asked Maria to check on her
—
”
“Mrs. Aber, where is
—
”
“They found a pile of clothes. Thea’s clothes.”
“I don’t…I don’t understand! WHERE IS
—
”
“She’s gone, Dea! Thea, she’s…she’s gone.”
“...gone?”)
Latent powers, they call it. Emotion-fueled catastrophe, they say. Students are sent home early with tears in their eyes, wondering how this happened. How could someone be suffocated by their own clothing? How could you be fine one moment, and then the size of an apple seed the next, with no warning at all? It is confusing, and
terrifying, and
—
Dea stays in Thea’s room, that winter break. She says something at Thea’s funeral, staring at the mostly empty casket, her voice strong as her hands shake like a boat in a storm. They do not celebrate Christmas, not really. Henri and Hannah make an attempt, but Noah refuses to leave his bed, and all Dea sees is memories of Thea painted across each and every room. It feels wrong to be here without her. To be here when she isn’t, when she
can’t be, because she
—
She returns to school as soon as possible, vowing silently to herself to never return to that house ever again. She believes to her very core that to do so could break her. And it hurts, because she loves Henri and Hannah and Noah like they are her own family. But she is a puzzle piece that doesn’t fit anymore, and to shove herself into their home feels too much like trying to
replace her
—
School is just as bad, though. The teachers do not scold her when she falls asleep during class, do not question the drop in her grades. Even strict Mr. Meyer says nothing when she fails one of his tests. And the students give her a wide berth, though they whisper and look her way even more than when she first arrived, if that was possible. And most of it is pity, she knows that, but some of the students feel differently. They call her Demon Dea, but because her designs always come at a price. They say she must have known about Thea’s powers if she’s done secret pockets and hidden toothpicks and reflective blouses, so surely she could have designed something safer.
They
blame her
, and it
hurts
, but it’s fine,
it’s all fine
, until the day Noah returns his suit to her. She finds it outside her door in a box, and though she’s made dozens of suits by now, she knows whose it is at first glance. There is no note, and the suit is in perfect condition, and it is this that hurts more than all their words. This is a rejection she has never felt before, and she doesn’t know how to handle it. For the first time, she truly
feels
like a demon.
And as she sits in the school library that night and watches the wool suit burn, she wishes she were a demon, because if she were, Thea wouldn’t have died. A demon would have refused Thea’s request, the tears in her eyes meaning absolutely nothing. A demon would have been able to bring her back, once she died. But perhaps most of all, she wishes she were a demon because she had Thea’s soul, in all the ways that counted. Thea already did nearly anything she asked without question, so great was their bond, but if Dea was truly a demon then Thea’s loyalty would have surely been worth safety at the very least.
So Dea wipes the tears from her eyes, deciding that if being a demon was the only way to keep others safe, then so be it. Never again would she go against her instinct, against the singing in her hands. She would make a new name for herself, one untainted by her mistakes and forged with the steely mask she vowed to always wear. She would go somewhere new, where no one knew who she was or what she was capable of. And she would use her gift to make suits for those with powers, so that…so that what happened to Thea wouldn’t happen knowingly to anyone else, ever again.
(Dea leaves within a week, the only notice being a short note she leaves on her bed giving the sparsest details of her withdrawal. She spends the rest of her money on a boat to America, hoping she can find work when she arrives. She vows that there, things will be different. She will not bow to the whims of others who think they know better than her, and her creations will be centered on utility first, design second. And she will stand strong on these two points, no matter what others say. She will be Demon Dea, she will always be Demon Dea, even if she can never truly be Demon Dea again.
Dea will be known, and respected, and perhaps even loved, but never again will she be seen. For who can look at the sun, truly? The moon alone is privileged enough to glimpse its rays, and with no moon…)
Medea Schneider dies, and Edna Mode rises from her ashes like a bright phoenix bursting into the night sky aglow with flames.
(And if Edna Mode is an anagram of Demon Dea, if Mode is the English form of Modalität…well. No one’s there to call her out on it, and she likes to think that if she had asked, all those years ago now, the name, too, would have been freely given.
Edna tells herself she does it on a whim, and doesn’t let herself ponder her reasoning all too long. To keep looking back in this new country would be her doom, of that she is sure.)
Edna struggles for barely a month making ends meet, before people start to look past her appearance and age and see her for the creative genius she is. Her ability to protect heroes is second to none, and the materials she uses in her suits are the likes of which people have never even
heard of
, let alone
seen
. They ask her where she gets her ideas, how she seems to think of every single contingency, but she merely smiles and claims its a designer’s secret.
(The truth is she has learned her lesson, and doesn’t think people would believe her if she told the truth. Worse, she’s terrified of what would happen if she said her hands know things her mind doesn’t, that she doesn’t know what she’s making herself until it is complete. They would blame her, if anything happened while the heroes were wearing her suits, or ask her why she didn’t just warn heroes in advance of the danger, if she “knows” what is going to happen. Worse, she could be labeled a superhuman, and be sent away to some hidden military bunker, never to see the light of day again. Her papa told her what happened to those with gifts during the war, and Edna is no fool
—
she knows no one will care if she just turned eighteen or is a woman, not when it comes to power. Every rule has been bent for the sake of power at some point or another.)
And she’s happy doing what she does, truly. She buys herself a house even larger than the one the Modalitäts owned, something she would have never thought possible a couple years ago. She finds herself in countless fashion magazines, and while she doesn’t dislike the fame, she realizes that she does miss her anonymity a bit sometimes. It does not help that she is still a woman in a man’s world, and that even if she weren’t, she sounds and looks so different from anyone else in this country that she sticks out like a sore thumb.
(She finds herself distantly glad that Thea’s favorite subject was English. She remembers countless nights of conversations shared in the language, hushed laughter filling their room every time they used unconventional phrases and words to get their point across. Thea always gently corrected her blunders, but she smiled so dearly every time Dea made one that she found herself making mistakes on purpose sometimes, if only to see her pseudo-sister grin when she was feeling down. If Thea knew what she was doing, she never called her out on it, so Dea’s not sure if she ever realized…
But that was a different time. Here, she cannot afford to make mistakes, to be shunned for being other. She has no support, no parents or sister to lean on for aid, so she practices her English relentlessly, until one day she finishes a business negotiation and realizes her English is probably better than Thea’s ever got the chance to be. And later, when she finds herself alone in her too-large house, sitting in front of a brightly burning fire, she wonders if Thea would still be proud of her despite how much she’s changed.)
And life is good, for a time. Her twenties pass in a blur of all-nighters spent creating the latest fashion hit, meeting superheroes she remembers reading about as a little girl, and avoiding everything that reminds her of her past life. It is not perfect, not by a long-shot, and it takes her years to learn to fall asleep without the sound of life, of someone breathing nearby.
(She never quite masters that particular skill, but she invests in the best brand of concealer money can buy, and learns to work through exhaustion.)
But then Edna wakes up one night in a cold sweat, her trembling hand clutched to her chest where her heart is beating what feels like a million beats a second, and
she knows
. She races to her work station, and falls into a daze of measuring, cutting, and sewing until she finally emerges 60 hours later with five new bulletproof vests. She
knows
with unwavering certainty that four are meant for old classmates: for Christoph, who always shared his notes; for Carl, who asked her to the winter banquet her third year of high school, and took rejection with kindness and dignity; for Gunther, who always shared his exotic, Japanese snacks with her; and Oskar, wonderful, sweet, caring Oskar, who will always be Thea’s Oskar in Edna’s mind…
She asks for Windweaver, a hero with supersonic flight, to deliver the packages to five different addresses in Germany. Windweaver seems confused, but Edna has never asked anything of her, no matter that she’s lost four of her free suits in the last year alone to her mischievous children and own forgetful nature, so she does what she asks without question.
Meanwhile, Edna sits, and she waits, and she worries, and she wonders, until Windweaver comes back three hours later, only one vest left in her hands. She had done her best to explain to the aged mothers who answered the doors who the suits were for, and who they’d come from. While the women were confused, they recognized the name Edna Mode and accepted the gifts with tears in their eyes, along with a sickened sort of
knowing.
(Edna doesn’t need to ask to know who rejected the vest, and she takes it back with a muttered thanks. Windweaver leaves, still not quite sure what to say, and understanding she can do nothing to fix the hopeless, broken look she recognizes in Edna’s eyes. That night, Edna burns the vest in her own fireplace, thinking about the boy she once played with what feels like a lifetime ago. It takes setting the heat to over 100 ℃, and even then the vest does not burn easily, taking four hours to disintegrate into a lump of melted, useless fibers. She resolutely does not wonder what will happen to Noah without the vest, and ignores the whisper in the back of her head that asks if this death is technically her fault too.)
She listens to the radio broadcasts about the war starting in her old home, and imagines what her life would be like right now if she had stayed. She would most likely be dead, she thinks. And she makes, and she makes, and she makes, until she’s left staring at the emerald evening gown encrusted with diamonds for her latest client, and she feels ashamed. She knows she has done what she could, but it doesn’t feel like enough, it never feels like enough, not when she knows she could always do
more.
(
And when the US government comes calling, she already has a prototype and designs for how to mass produce protective uniforms that will keep the soldiers as safe as possible. They assume she’s spent the last three days ever since the radio broadcast about Pearl Harbor in a designing frenzy. They never realize that she finished all of it on Thanksgiving day, and sat and waited because she could feel that something bad would happen in her bones but knew too little to do anything.
This is the first time Edna allows herself to wonder if her ability is a gift or a curse.)
The war started with a bang and ends with one too. She is invited to a party to celebrate for her contribution, and she attends for appearances sake, feeling more like an outsider than she ever has in her entire life. The wives cling to their husbands with large grins on their faces and perfect hair to match their perfect proportions. The men talk of the success of the atomic bomb, of shutting down the camps and shooting every Nazi in sight. They question how men could do such despicable things, and blame it on the German and Japanese culture that breeds such brutish ways.
(No one notices when Edna leaves early. They do not think about her past, about who she was before “Edna Mode” besides perhaps noting in a distant way what remains of her accent. They have no clue that her family on her mother’s side live
—
lived,
in Nagasaki. They have no idea that the countryside she grew up in is a barren wasteland now, filled to the brim with corpses. And they certainly don’t know that she is mourning the loss of the school and house she considered her homes, destroyed by bombs and vengeful soldiers.
She knows, distantly, what likely happened to Henri, Hannah, and Noah. To
Mrs. Erneurer and her husband and the children she surely had, and those she grew up with. She doesn’t search for their names though, lets herself dream and hope for once that they are all okay, because if they’re not, there’s nothing she can do either way. She lets herself have this fake piece of happiness, if only because it feels like it is all she has left sometimes.
She dives back into designing bright suits and tosses aside the dark colors she had to employ for the uniforms of superheroes who fought on the front lines. She mourns all who were shot down, who lost their lives for the sake of using their powers to help others. She meets Elastigirl and Mr. Incredible, who seem so very young to her, so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and unjaded by the hurts of the world. When she wakes up the next day, and designs a logo that is a combination of their respective emblems, she smiles and arranges for them to end up on a blind date together. She grins even larger at their wedding, feeling rather proud of herself for her silent involvement.
And then, in what feels like a bad dream, superheroes are outlawed in what seems like the blink of an eye. Edna stares at the Newspaper that day, utterly flabbergasted, wondering what idiot thought
that
was a good idea and wishing that
she
could run for president instead. She does what she can, and gives money to various non-profits and individuals through anonymous sources to help the shaken and hurting superheroes. She designs suits in secret for those who still wish to help, denying her involvement and acting puzzled as to how new suits were being made when
she
certainly wasn’t the one doing that,
do I look like a fool to you? I helped out in the war, how dare you assume that I would ever go against the government in such a way
—
No one dares to arrest or argue with her after that, even when heroes are arrested wearing suits made of materials everyone knows only Edna holds the patents for. Stratogale is another young hero, following in the footsteps of her now departed mother, Windweaver. She begs Edna for a replica of her mother’s suit, and when Edna explains that it doesn’t work like that, that she needs a suit all her own, Stratogale leaves in a huff. Edna watches her go with pursed lips, her fingers twitching to make a suit she knows the young girl is too stubborn to wear. Still, she spends the rest of the day and most of the night creating it, in the hopes that someone will be able to talk some sense into her.
(She wakes up the next day to see Windweaver’s display suit has been stolen. She is furious until she reads the paper two days later, the headliner a story about a terrible accident with a superhero and a plane engine. She makes it two sentences in before the words become too blurry to read. She burns the suit that will never be used, but she doesn’t watch the fire, busy as she is upgrading her security. She tries to convince herself that this death, at least, isn’t her fault. It can’t be, she did her best, there was nothing she could do.
…right?)
But as the rogue superheroes are few and far between, she uses her ability to take commission after commission after commission. Money piles high in her bank account, and she wonders what she should do with it. She will never spend it in her lifetime, couldn’t if she tried, and she doesn’t plan on having kids. She decides not to do anything with it yet, as she has ideas for the money that the foolish government would not permit. Yet.
(She wants to build a school, perhaps, for children with powers. Or fund one, at the very least. Or perhaps finance a research project to see if genetic testing to discover if a person has powers, and what they could be, is possible. She knows these are ambitious plans in a country where having such powers is looked down upon, but she has time and isn’t so vain as to need to see these ideas come to fruition in her own life. If need be, she will pass down the money to someone she trusts who can carry out her plans for her. In the meanwhile, she watches the news and listens to the radio and wonders and dreams and hopes.)
But then the nightmares start, and they don’t stop. Her hands are practically vibrating each time she wakes up with goosebumps running across her skin. She makes suit after suit for people she
knows
are in hiding, and she doesn’t understand it. Why would they need suits, if they’re not stopping crime? She knows they need them, knows it as deeply as she knew her parents needed those wool outfits and Noah needed that vest; but she has no way to explain the suits and worries she will reveal the location of some of her deepest friends and comrades, so she delivers the suits personally.
Some have the good grace to accept them, at least, but no matter what she says she can see they don’t understand. She sees, in their eyes, confusion, followed by disbelief, followed by wariness. She knows they think she’s crazy, or worse, dangerous. She tries even harder when people start going missing, those she had started designing suits for first, but no one believes her. No one ever believes her, do they?
(She knows now that her ability is a gift as much as it is a curse. It has taken over fifty years to realize this, but she understands now. She thinks her mother was apt in naming her Medea, but that Cassandra would have been more accurate.)
And when she wakes up one night, and makes an entire set of supersuits, one so tiny it is meant for a
baby
, she is terrified because she
knows
. She
knows
what will happen if she goes to the Parrs, knows it will end up going just as badly as it did with the others, so she forces herself to wait. Wait for what, she isn’t sure, but she knows Helen and Bob went even deeper under than other heroes did, and isn’t about to risk her presence ruining that for them. And then Bob shows up of his own volition, and she nearly cries with relief, but he wants just the one suit, and not even that.
She pauses, considers the tracker she installed in his suit alone, and insists that he needs something fresh and modern. She makes him wait, of course, because it would be strange if she had a suit perfectly tailored to his new measurements just sitting in her storage. And then Helen comes in, and she takes all the suits, and Edna can finally
relax
when she sees them stop Syndrome on the news.
(She feels bad for not being able to tell Helen about why Jack-Jack's suit is made the way it is. She knows Helen won’t believe that Jack-Jack will see any danger, and so she lets her keep that false sense of safety. Truthfully, even she isn’t sure exactly if the suit design is for safety or decency, which isn’t as bizarre as some people seem to think in her line of work. She makes Helen’s suit in particular out of Egyptian cotton. She doesn’t think about the dress she made a lifetime ago of the same material, but if she did…she would admit to seeing hints of Thea in Helen, of Oskar in Bob, and both Thea and Noah in Violet and Dash.
She keeps tabs on all the superheroes she’s helped, but the Parrs in particular. She goes to Violet’s and Dash’s school events when she’s feeling particularly bored or nostalgic, and watches the way they bicker and fight afterwards. They never see her, covered as she is in her own invisible suit, but she feels less alone for a couple hours and that is enough. It has to be enough.)
And then she sees Elastigirl save a train full of people, and her hands spasm so badly she drops the remote.
She’s not wearing the suit, why isn’t she wearing the
—
She is secretly delighted when Bob shows up with Jack-Jack, and she gets to see just why she made all those delightful additions a week ago to a new version of his suit. It’s fun, to see her designs on television, but to see such a range of abilities in the span of one night and connect them with each feature is absolutely
delightful
. It is a puzzle the likes of which she knows she will never know again, and she relishes in it.
And then she sees the treaty signing, and she clenches her jaw at Elastigirl
still not wearing her suit
, and panics when someone that is obviously not Helen starts speaking using her body. She throws her remote at the TV at the insufferable ignoramus that passes for a news reporter these days, nearly pulling her hair out of her skull. But then the boat turns at the last second, and all of the Parrs show up wearing her suits, and she collapses onto her couch in pure relief.
She goes to sleep that night on the sofa in front of the fireplace, a smile on her face.
In a few days, she will go to that hidden mansion the Parrs have been staying at, and scold Helen something fierce while she rips that horrid suit from her fingers. She will bring each of them a new wardrobe too, of course, as she knows their house was recently destroyed. She thinks she should have done so earlier, should have started immediately when she saw the “freak accident” on the news, but she knows the clothes will likely be appreciated either way. Maybe she can label them a house-warming gift.
(Edna can never say or show how much they and the other supers she has helped mean to her. Perhaps some day, though, they will understand the love she holds for them in the suits she painstakingly designs every detail of through countless sleepless nights. Because Medea Schneider wore her heart on her sleeve and it killed everyone she loved. But Edna Mode pours every ounce of her love into every sleeve she designs and hopes that her care is seen between the seams.
No one ever does notice that Edna Mode’s designs bear a striking resemblance to Demon Dea’s, and while some magazines wonder what happened to the budding artist, no one searches for Medea Schneider.
But decades from now, when Edna Mode dies, she is not surrounded by people who are there for Medea Schneider. She is in a posh hospital bed encompassed by all of the heroes she has helped as Edna Mode, along with their families as well. To say the room is full is an understatement, and the funeral is even worse. Indeed, where Medea Schneider died with a whimper, Edna Mode’s passing is a bang. There are lines going out of the visitation room, and a literal fist-fight over who carries the casket. The grave itself has fresh flowers for weeks and months and years to come, the tombstone always clear of dirt.
For as often as Edna Mode was lonely, she was never alone, not truly.
And when, in the next century, The Heroism and Excellence Academy (T.H.E.A., for short) visit Edna’s grave as part of a field trip to learn about the school’s history, a young, orphaned girl volunteers to read the message on the stone out loud.
“Here lies Edna Mode
—
” she says.
“The protector of the protectors, the giver to the givers, and the strength to the strong. May the world forever remember the woman who devoted her life to superheroes, and the millions of lives she saved in the process. Gone, but never forgotten, her spirit lives on in each super who had the honor of wearing one of her suits, for to receive one was to receive a piece of her heart.”)