Eerie, Indiana fanfiction: Lillian

[froodle]

Have some fic specifically about Marilyn's mum, you guys!



Lillian Bancroft paddled her feet in the inflatable kiddypool, leaned back in her faded lawn chair, and sipped her Bloody Mary. The sunflower-patterned awning cast a protective shadow over her head and arms, shielding her from the brutal heat of the New Jersey summer, and the cool water soothed her scorched soles. She stretched, feeling herself full of sleepy contentment.

Beside her, a paper shopping bag full of ripe oranges lay next to a cardboard shipping crate and a roll of brown tape. In the reality where everything was pirates, her favourite grandson had suffered a nasty bout of scurvy. Lillian didn’t think the Jersey postal service shipped to alternate timelines, so she would have to settle for making sure the Marshall Teller in this world got enough Vitamin C.

The gramophone behind her played Billie Holiday. Raudive voices whispered to her in the hollow places between notes, murmured her name, hissed that they were watching her.

“How horribly boring that must be for you,” said Lillian, and stirred her drink with a paper umbrella.

Idly she scanned the rippling water that lapped around her ankles, seeking out the rest of her family. She knew Marilyn would scold her if she found out – “Mom, use the telephone!” – but the truth was that a parent never really stopped worrying about her child, even when that child was fully-grown, even when (in Lillian’s admittedly biased opinion) that child was smarter and more capable than anyone in the waking world.

It didn’t help when that child – her only child, her only daughter – had moved to a small but supernaturally significant town at the behest of her husband’s company, a corporation so clearly bent on world domination that Lillian was surprised the dress code didn’t involve black waxed moustaches and opera cloaks.

The glittering surface resolved itself into a fractured, wavering image of Syndi in what Lillian assumed was her bedroom. She was sat at her desk, feet up, chair tilted backwards at the kind of spine-breaking angle that made anyone over thirty wince in sympathy. She was writing furiously in a spiral-bound notebook, and her fingers were smudged with ink.

Marilyn and Edgar were on the long L-shaped sofa in their living room. Marilyn was reading a heavy paperback with her feet in her husband’s lap. Edgar rubbed them as he stared at something out of sight, presumably the TV. Lillian felt a swell of affection for her son-in-law, a good man doing his very best to push back against his mad scientist instincts in this and all the other worlds.

Marshall – Mars, she must remember that he preferred Mars – was in the Eerie Cemetery, standing by a grave marker in the shape of a weeping cherub. He was talking to the Heartless Boy, and when he threw back his head and laughed, the grey haze that mimicked the form and face of Devon Wilde looked at him with such hunger that Lillian shuddered in the oppressive August heat.

She pulled her feet out of the little pool, slipped on her well-worn and comfortable house slippers, and went inside to book a flight out to Indiana. Marilyn would be annoyed when she realised why she’d come, but Lillian knew her daughter. A flash of irritation at her mother’s long-distance fussing was nothing compared to what she would do if her only son was taken by a graveghast. If anything in that small, weird town hurt her children, Marilyn Teller would burn the world down to get even.

And Lillian would hold her daughter’s coat while she did it.






Teller Family History

First Date by froodle, in which a young Edgar Teller shows off one of his earlier inventions

Popcorn by froodle. Friday night is always movie night in the Teller household.

Hometown by froodle, in which Mars and Syndi visit New Jersey

Invitation by froodle, in which Marshall cannot leave the house until he finishes his chores

Brunch by froodle, in which Marilyn does not appreciate Edgar's help in the kitchen

Tornado Day, Revisited by froodle, in which Syndi learns exactly what it means to be Miss Tornado Day

Culinary Delights by froodle, in which Syndi's terrible cooking may or may not have been an accident

Without Due Care and Attention by froodle, in which Syndi finally becomes mobile

Camping by froodle, in which Syndi cannot sleep

Artist in the Family by froodle, in which an immortal creature takes a liking to Syndi

The Teller Home for Displaced Youth by froodle, in which Edgar harbours some doubts about his new home town

Comments

[froodle]

Thank you!

Sadly I don't have a kiddypool so I cant give you a definite answer, but... probably yes.