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Agatha was a cheerful child.
Of course she was. The locket didn’t give her a choice.
She slept often, and deeply; it seemed to be the only thing that would end the headaches the locket caused. And it caused many; any time Agatha began to show signs of anger, of frustration, of upset, of curiosity or excitement, the locket struck her, and she fell to her knees or further, tears in her eyes and hands grasping at her hair, tugging as if she hoped to pull the pain out with her hair. Then Adam or Lilith would pick her up, carry her home, and they would tuck her into bed. Adam sat by her and stroked her hair while Lilith got her something warm to drink, and brought it up. Often she would fall asleep before Lilith got back, cheeks streaked with tears. She was always tired, even though she took these naps every day, and usually more than once.
When she woke up she would smile again, but the brightness in her eyes was a little dimmer every time.
Agatha grew older and taller with time, but the locket did not allow her to grow up. Instead it distorted her. Curiosity, determination, even her quick anger still shone through in bright glimpses, but they were tangled beneath a quiet, tired girl. She argued with no one, because she could not argue; she learned slowly, because she could study for only minutes at a time. She made a friend, and lost him the next day after a headache attack made him decide she was strange. She made another, and lost her. Another friend. Another.
She stopped making friends. “It never works,” she told Lilith flatly.
There was nothing Lilith could say. It would all either be cruel, or be a lie. Either would only cause another flare of temper, and another attack from the locket.
Agatha’s eyes grew distant, distracted. Lilith thought it was because of the way her vision had become poor at first, then attributed it to the glasses that her eyes were newly hidden behind, until she had to admit it was just Agatha. Her gaze skimmed over things, or fell toward the ground; she rarely focused on anything for more than a moment. When she did, a headache often followed.
Agatha’s reactions became more subdued. It was, Lilith thought, partly her age; Lilith tried hard to teach her manners and proper behavior, both to help her get through the world and so that she could disguise a few restrictions of her own making. (Agatha had had a sip of coffee once, and spent the next two days in bed with her eyes squeezed shut, whimpering.) But it was partly experience. Lilith was certain the headaches were no gentler, but over time Agatha stopped screaming, stopped crying, and went about her day with pained lines around tired eyes. It was no easier to watch.
It couldn’t be worth it. There must be other options—a move to Asia, perhaps; Bill and Barry had made only a few trips East, but made friends when they did go. Some of them would still be able to recognize Punch and Judy, and at least one must be willing to raise and protect Bill’s child.
Some, too, would be eager to help Lucrezia’s daughter, and they could usually be found in the same places. It was best to stay clear of those ones, Lilith thought.
Still, there were any number of places the Heterodyne Boys had never been, where Adam and Lilith could live unrecognized. But Agatha—
Either she would live, still, under the weight of the locket, or she would be a spark—a brilliant, young, unprotected spark; exactly the sort guaranteed to disappear into someone else’s service. And, likely, to die as soon as their master feared a rival.
Bill was dead. Barry was missing. Klaus was an enemy. Mechanicsburg was his, unwillingly or not. A long trip away would escape his notice, but only replace him with other sparks, likely still clashing over power. With the locket, Agatha was miserable; without it, she would be locked up in someone’s lab, or dead.
There must, Lilith thought, be a better way. Adam nodded solemnly. But they could never find it.
Even with all the pain it caused, the locket was barely sufficient. Agatha’s classmates, Beetle warned them, noticed she was odd, but fortunately never connected it to the spark. But seeing her at home—Lilith would have thought she was a minor spark, but she could not imagining anyone who was able to observe Agatha for long would believe she wasn’t a spark at all. Her inventions failed, and the headaches cut off her rants and cackling before they began, but she invented constantly, thought of new things to build and ways to make them work, rushed to her projects with a determination that would, Lilith knew, have been followed by strangely resonant humming and a triumphant laugh if only it weren’t followed instead by a crash or small explosion, a startled yelp, and dejected silence.
The disappointment soaked through Agatha, made her eyes drop and her shoulders fall. Her projects became less and less ambitious, but the stream of them never slowed; at least once a week she would rush off in the morning to the university with a new gadget to try. She usually came home even quieter than usual, carrying only pieces.
She smiled, still. She was polite, and kind, and worked hard, flitting from studying to helping Lilith with canning to cleaning the house. The fast changes seemed to help prevent headaches from building, and Lilith got used to letting several chores sit half finished around the house each day. Agatha would finish them by evening most days, and when a few were left undone it wasn’t hard for Lilith and Adam to finish them.
Lilith wanted, sometimes, to tell Agatha about the locket. But she had promised Barry not to, and if she was honest with herself, she wasn’t sure she would be able to tell Agatha, and was even less certain that she could then insist Agatha keep the locket on. How would she tell a child that everything she hated about herself, everything that hurt and humiliated her, had been inflicted on her by her uncle? Agatha still comforted herself with daydreams about Barry returning. And how could Lilith, having told her that, then insist Agatha wear the locket anyway? It was easier to let her keep believing there was nothing to be done. At least Agatha didn’t have to choose to make herself miserable all her life that way. It was the best that they could do.
So she didn’t tell Agatha, and Agatha kept trying, kept dreaming about all the things she’d do when her next invention worked. Lilith nodded, and asked polite questions, and did not beg Agatha to give up, to resign herself to her limitations, and make the most of what she was allowed to be, find what happiness she could within the confines of the small and safe life that Barry had given her. But she wished Agatha would on her own; wished she would stop beating herself against a wall she could never break, so that at least she might suffer less pain.
But then, to see Agatha resigned, hopeless—Lilith couldn’t bear the thought of that, either. Agatha was a bright, eager, optimistic child; Lilith could not imagine her otherwise, no matter how the locket showed her exactly what it looked like.
Agatha was a cheerful child. She had to be.