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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 3 years

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Eccentricity [Chapter 14: Love Keeps The Monsters From Our Door] [Series Finale]

A/N: Thank you for your encouragement, enthusiasm, laughter, rants, screeches of anguish, and unapologetic thirsting for “sexy undead Italian man” Joseph Francis Mazzello. I hope you love this conclusion more than Baby Swan loves pineapple pizza. 💜

Series Summary: Potentially a better love story than Twilight?

Chapter Title Is A Lyric From: “Til I Die” by Parsonsfield. (The #1 song I associate with this fic!)

Chapter Warnings: Language.

Word Count: 7.7k.

Other Chapters (And All My Writing) Available: HERE

Taglist: @queen-turtle-boiii @bramblesforbreakfast @maggieroseevans @culturefiendtrashqueen @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark @escabell @im-an-adult-ish @queenlover05 @someforeigntragedy @imtheinvisiblequeen @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhyee @deacyblues @tensecondvacation @brianssixpence @some-major-ishues @haileymorelikestupid @youngpastafanmug @simonedk @rhapsodyrecs

Mercy

We have to stay in the Vladivostok palace until her transformation is complete, and I hate it.

The floors are cold and sterile and every clang of noise ricochets off them like a bullet. The earth outside is stripped bare and hibernal. There is no green to interrupt the bleakness of the sky, the cruel absence of color: no spruces or hemlocks or bigleaf maples, no evergreen forests, no verdant fields, only a grey that bleeds from the sky in sheets of hail and driving rain. This land is a stranger. So many of the faces, too, are strangers, although they try. Honora sits with me—her large dark eyes, like mirrors of mine, polished and wet with aching pity—and braids my hair. Morana invites me to bake homemade bread with her. Austin tries to make me smile. Cato visits me as much as he can, because he feels responsible; or maybe he would do it anyway, maybe lessening suffering is as instinctual to him as bloodshed is to so many of our kind. And when Cato is with me, I do feel a little better, like my story might belong to somebody else, like it’s a name I can’t quite remember, like it’s a transitory moment of déjà vu I can catch glimpses of but never touch. And yet, still, I send him away.

I don’t want to be with Cato. It’s painful for him to be around me, I can see that. It’s painful for Rami, and for Ben, and for Joe, and for Lucy and Scarlett. It’s even painful for the Irish Wolfhounds that Cato found locked up for safekeeping in Larkin’s study; they skulk around the palace vigilantly but leave great swaths of uninterrupted space around me like open water. So I conjure up a mask of brave, hopeful acceptance and wear it everywhere I go.

Joe says very little, never leaves the girl he calls Baby Swan’s side, dabs her scorching skin with washcloths soaked in ice water and murmurs in sympathy when she screams through the unconsciousness, from beneath the ocean of fire we all know so well. He nods off sometimes, snatching minutes of sleep like fireflies in a jar, before jolting awake to make sure her heart is still beating. When Ben isn’t checking on them, he’s with Cato, helping to draw up plans for the future, reminiscing about the past with slick eyes and clinking midnight glasses of whiskey. Scarlett sprawls across the desk in what was once Larkin’s study and spends hours on the phone with Archer as she gazes up at the ceiling, telling him how to care for the farm animals and the garden, reassuring him that we’ll be home soon, whispering things to him that I try not to hear; and I know she wouldn’t want me to anyway. Lucy weeps delicate, ceaseless tears as she perches on the staircase landing and Rami entombs her in his arms, never having to ask what she needs from him. And I wander meaninglessly through the echoing, unfamiliar hallways like a moon without a planet.

I know what they all think about me, perhaps even Rami, for I keep it buried as deep as all skeletons should be: that I’m irrevocably kind, effortlessly forgiving. That I’m as incapable of bitterness as I am of aging. But they’re wrong. It’s a choice, and it always has been, ever since a late-November dusk in 1864 when madness eclipsed mercy. Every day I choose whether to surrender to the beckoning, malignant hatred that lurks in the back of my bedroom closet, in the dusty and ill-lit loft of the barn roped with cobwebs, in the twilight tree line of the western hemlocks crawling with shadows that whisper through fanged teeth. Every day I decide whether to become a monster. And it has never been harder to remember why I don’t.

My future is unimaginable. The nights are endless. I feel black, razored seeds of what I am horrified must be bitterness burrowing beneath my skin and taking root there. I am consumed by infected, fruitless questions that I can’t silence: Why Gwilym? Why Arthur? Why Eliza and Charlotte? Why is it always fire?

The first words that Gwilym ever spoke to me, as I unraveled from unconsciousness under a grove of sycamore trees with smoke still clinging to my unscarred skin, rattle around in my skull like windchimes beneath thunderous skies. His voice was colored with an accent I couldn’t place, and yet it sounded like home: You’re in a dark place right now. But you don’t have to stay there.

That might have been true once. That might have been true in the ruinous autumn of 1864. But now I can’t find my way out.

Seventy-three hours after our arrival in this barren corner of the world, Charlie Swan’s daughter wakes up as a vampire. Her heart is perfectly still, her skin faultless, her senses sharp, her mind as impenetrable as ever; at least, that’s what Lucy says when she finds me. And Lucy tugs at my hand, wearing her first smile in days, insisting that I have to come meet the newest member of our coven, to welcome her. I don’t know how to tell Lucy that I’m afraid I don’t have it in me to love this girl, that I don’t have it in me to love anyone but ghosts. And yet—compliantly, yieldingly, expecting nothing but disappointment in the monster I have become—I follow her.

The door is already open to the Swan girl’s room; chattering, beaming vampires flood in and out like the tides. I step inside. And I see the way that Joe looks at her, the way that Ben does; and all those seeds that I had feared might be bitterness blossom into nothing but open air.

It’s Not A Fucking Wedding (A.K.A. 13.5 Months Later)

The ocean is a universe. Its arms are not ever-expanding, spiraling galaxies of suns and planets and nebulae and black holes, this is true; its belly is not a vacuum of inhospitable oblivion, its bones are not invisible strings of gravity, its language is not a silence older than starlight, older than eternity. But the ocean is a universe nonetheless, its borders tucked neatly around the seven continents, slumbering there until the next hurricane or tsunami or ice age comes conquering; and inevitably equilibrium is restored—like defibrillator paddles to a heart, like naloxone to an addict’s blood—and our two worlds can coexist side by side once again.

The ocean’s arms are sighing waves, bubbling and brisk, grasping and retreating in the same breath. Its belly is swollen with life from immense blue whales down to swarming clouds of single-celled, sun-hungry phytoplankton. Its language is ancient whispers; not parched and blistering and brittle sounds like the desert’s but cool, serene, supple, engulfing. And I can hear them all, if I listen closely enough. I can hear the sentient whistling of orcas, the breaking of waves against rocks, the scrabbling of sand crabs beneath the earth, the gruff distant barks of sea lions, the rustling of evergreen pine needles in the breeze. And I understand now why it was always so easy for vampires to be introspective, to lapse into thoughtful, unhurried silences. I could imagine spending decades just sitting here with my knees tucked to my chest and my hair whipping in the brackish wind, watching the seasons roll by like a wheel.

Joe was coming back from the gravel parking lot. I turned to watch him: red U Chicago hoodie, messy dark auburn-ish hair, a pizza box clasped in his hands. The GrubHub delivery driver was returning to his car with the toothiest of grins.

“Buon appetito!” Joe announced, dramatically presenting me with the pizza box. It had become our post-finals tradition each semester: pizza at La Push beach, half-pepperoni, half-pineapple.

“Grazie, sexy undead Italian man. Your accent is getting so good!”

“I know, right?! I’m on a twelve-day Duolingo streak. I can’t let that little green owl dude down.”

“I’m impressed, I’ll admit it. I gotta brush up on my Welsh. Why’s the GrubHub driver so cheery?”

“I tipped him $500.”

I smiled, opening the box and lifting out a semi-warm slice of pineapple pizza. Elastic strands of mozzarella cheese stretched like rubber bands until they snapped. “Aww, really?”

Joe plopped down onto the cool, damp sand beside me. “No. I lied. We’re actually having a torrid love affair.”

I laughed, shaking my head. “How could you possibly have time for all that?” Between school, business ventures, family activities, and me, Joe was very rarely unoccupied. And he preferred it that way.

“I’m so glad you asked. I’m very speedy, if you recall. And that’s just one of the exclusive services I offer. I am a man of many talents. I make people’s wildest dreams come true. Who am I to deny the GrubHub delivery man the wonderland that is my spindly, annoying body?”

“You are the fastest,” I said, winking.

“Oh shut up! I mean, uh, uhhh, silenzio!” He pointed his slice of pepperoni pizza at me reproachfully. “That’s not what I meant. I’m not the fastest at everything.”

“Whatever you say, mob guy.”

He lunged for me, pinned me down in the crumbling sand, both of us laughing wildly as the crusts of our pizza slices bounded off and were snatched up by diving, screeching seagulls. He growled with mock savagery, braced his hips against mine, kissed his way from the corner of my jaw to my lips. That oh-so-familiar commanding, craving ache for him came roaring to the surface; and now there was no bittersweet edge to it, no inescapable backdrop of lambent numbers ticking down from five or ten or fifteen years to zero. Now there was only the calm, unurgent promise of forever.

“Joe—!”

“You have besmirched my honor, Baby Swan. I am left with no recourse but to refresh your clearly flawed memory and prove you wrong.”

“Public indecency? That’s illegal, sir.”

“Okay, you gotta stop stealing my catchphrases. It’s extremely difficult for me to come up with new ones. I’m almost a hundred years old, you know.”

“Alright, I guess you’re not bad in bed for a basically-centenarian.”

He smiled down at me, his dark eyes alight, the wind tearing through his hair, one palm resting on my forehead, uncharacteristically quiet.

“What?” I asked, worried.

“Nothing,” he said. “I’m just really glad we’re a thing.”

“You better be. You’re kind of stuck with me now. You’ve stolen my virtue, you’ve made me fall in love with your entire demented family, you’ve forced your torturous immortality upon me. I’m not going anywhere. Unless you ever stop funding my pineapple pizza addiction, of course.”

Joe chuckled as he climbed off me and took my hand in his, pulling me upright. “It’s absolutely ridiculous, by the way. Your insistence on being a sort-of vegetarian. It’s embarrassing. You’re the wimpiest vampire ever. You’re a disgrace to the coven.”

“I eat animals!” I objected.

“Yeah, when you have to.” And Joe was right: I steered clear of flesh outside of the two or three times a week when I hunted. For environmental sustainability reasons, I mostly consumed deer or rabbits; although the very occasional shark was my guilty pleasure. Joe gnawed on his second slice of pizza and peered out into the overcast, dusky horizon, wiping crumbs from his stubbled chin with the back of his hand. “We only have one more of these left,” he said at last, a little sadly. “One more finals season at Calawah University. One more celebratory dinner at La Push.”

“We’ll just have to get used to a new view. Pizza by the Chicago River, maybe.”

Joe looked over at me, thoughtful again, smiling. He had received his acceptance letter to the University of Chicago three weeks ago. I got mine eight days later. “It won’t be hard for you to leave Forks?”

“It will be. Once upon a time I didn’t think that was possible, but I will miss Forks. And not just because of Charlie and Archer and Jessica and Angela and all the Lees. But it was hard to leave Phoenix, and I’m sure one day it will be hard to leave Chicago. Just because change is hard doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do.”

Joe nodded introspectively. “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”

“Don’t quote classic rock songs at me, mixtapes boy.”

“You love my mixtapes,” he teased, circling his left arm around my waist, pulling me in closer, touching his lips to my forehead. Mint and pine and starlight sank into my lungs like an anchor through the surf. “And that saying actually goes all the way back to Seneca, my dear.”

“Don’t tell me he’s still philosophizing in some cloudy corner of the world somewhere.”

“Not to my knowledge. Although that’s an intriguing thought. We need more famous vampires. Caligula would have made for very interesting conversation. Lincoln, Napoleon, Cleopatra, Shakespeare, Dante...I guess it’s possible that anyone is still around. Maybe we should turn Meat Loaf. You know, for the good of posterity.”

“Is it not enough that they’re already cursed with student debt and global warming?”

Joe cackled, took my face in his palms, kissed each of my cheeks one after the other, then nudged my nose with his. “You ready to go, Baby Swan? I suspect we’re expected to participate in some holiday festivities tonight.”

“I’m ready,” I agreed. We threw our leftover pizza to the seagulls, disposed of the grease-spotted cardboard box, and walked back to my 1999 Honda Accord with our pulseless hands intertwined.

The evergreen trees along Routh 110 fled by beneath a sky freckling with stars. Sharp winter air poured in through the open windows. And I could feel that it was cold, in the same way that I could feel the warmth on Forks’ rare sweltering days; but there was no discomfort that accompanied that knowledge. Pain only came when the sky was unincumbered by thick clouds churning in off the Pacific, and then it felt something like staring into the sun had as a human. Sunglasses helped, but the surest remedy was avoidance, was surrender. And what an inconsequential price to pay for forever.

“Wait,” I said, spying the mailbox that marked the start of the Lees’ driveway. “They still deliver mail on Christmas Eve, right?”

“Uh, I think so, why...?” And then he remembered. “Oh, yeah, let’s check!”

I pulled up beside the mailbox and Joe leaned out, returning to his seat with a mountain of Christmas cards and business correspondence and advertisements from Costco and Sephora. He sifted through them until he found a single white envelope from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. It was addressed to a Mr. Benjamin August Hardy. Joe held it up to show me as we drove down the driveway, the Lee house coming into view and ornamented with a frankly excessive amount of multicolored string lights and inflatable reindeer.

“Oh my god!” I squealed, drumming the steering wheel.

“You want to be the one to give it to him?”

“Are you serious?! Yeah, can I?”

Joe passed the envelope to me as I parked my geriatric Honda, which Archer had pledged to keep alive as long as physically possible. In return, Ben let him and Scarlett borrow the Aston Martin Vantage no less than once a week. I dashed out of the car, up the steps of the front porch, and into the house that bubbled over with the sounds of metallic kitchen clashes and frenetic voices and Wham!’s Last Christmas.

“Ben?!” I shouted.

“Hi, honey!” Mercy called from the living room, where she and Lucy were putting the final touches on Scarlett’s gown. Scarlett was playing the part of semi-willing victim, wearing gold heels and an impatient smirk and her hair out of the way in a milkmaid braid; her train of vivid red lace billowed across the hardwood floor. From the couch, Archer and Rami were playing Mario Kart on the big-screen tv and nibbling their way through a tray of homemade gingerbread cookies.

“Oh wow,” I said, clutching the envelope to my chest, mesmerized. I kept waiting for Scarlett to start looking like a normal person to me, and it never happened. Tonight, in the glow of the flameless candles and kaleidoscopic Christmas lights and draped in lace the color of pomegranate seeds, she was Persephone: a goddess of resurrection, a face that death himself could not pass by unscathed. “You’ve outdone yourself, Lucy. Seriously.”

“One day I’m going to get you out of those thrift shop sweaters,” Lucy threatened me, placing a pin in the fabric at Scarlett’s waist.

“Yeah, okay. Let me know when that shows up in one of your visions.”

“Bitch,” Lucy flung back, snickering, knowing how improbable that was. I still appeared in her visions extremely infrequently, and then only when I happened to be standing next to whoever the premonition was actually about.

“Language, dear,” Mercy tutted, inspecting the hem of Scarlett’s gown.

Joe arrived beside me, his arms still full of mail. “ScarJo, I almost didn’t recognize you! Why do you have, like, no cleavage or fishnets or thigh slits?”

“Why do you have like no eyelashes?” Scarlett replied. “See, I can ask unnecessary and invasive questions too.”

Joe frowned, wounded. “What’s wrong with my eyelashes?”

“Lucy, darling, I think it’s just a tad uneven on this side,” Mercy said, showing her. “Maybe by half an inch...?”

“No, seriously, what’s wrong with my eyelashes?!”

Mercy replied distractedly: “Nothing, honey, you’re perfect just the way you are.”

“Mom!” Joe groaned.

“It really is gorgeous,” Mercy marveled as Lucy flitted around her to investigate the hem situation. “And so Christmasy. So perfect for the season. Scarlett, dear, you were right after all, and I’m so sorry for doubting you. I’d just never heard of a red wedding dress before.”

“Mom, it’s not a fucking wedding!” Scarlett exclaimed, for probably the thirtieth time since Thanksgiving. “It’s a nonbinding, informal celebration of an egalitarian romantic partnership. Will somebody please inform this woman that it’s not a wedding?!”

“Yes, yes, of course, whatever you want, sweetheart,” Mercy conceded dreamily.

Joe pointed to Archer. “Isn’t he supposed to not see the dress until the day of or something?”

“What a great question!” Archer replied, still deeply invested in Mario Kart. “You see, that would be the case if this was a wedding. However, I’ve been informed in no uncertain terms that it is most definitely not.”

Scarlett grinned triumphantly at Joe. “There you have it.”

She might snap petulantly, and she might complain, but Scarlett wouldn’t be doing this if she didn’t want to; we were all intimately familiar with the futility of trying to force Scarlett into anything. The not-wedding, as improbable as it seemed, had been her idea from the start. And she wasn’t doing it for herself. She wasn’t even doing it for Archer. Scarlett was doing it for her mother.

The first six months had been hell for Mercy. She didn’t resent me, as I had feared she might; Mercy made that clear, and Rami confirmed it. But she was gutted. She wouldn’t speak of Gwil, wouldn’t listen to us talk about him, locked every photograph of him away in dark drawers, wandered around with a remote, uncanny, unseeing smile until she walked straight into walls; and then she would blink inanely up at them, as if they had dropped out of the sky rather than been built by her own hands. She baked hundreds of cakes and almost never slept. She told us she was fine every time we asked, which was more or less constantly. But on the very rare occasions when she was left alone, Mercy would unfailingly end up in the field behind the Lee house, gazing out into the forest of western hemlock trees with tears snaking silently down her cheeks, the muted light of the cloud-covered setting sun flickering red and furious on her face like wildfire.

And then one afternoon, a package had arrived from Arviat, Canada, where Cato and the rest of the surviving Draghi had relocated shortly after the rebellion at Vladivostok. It was five feet tall and another three wide, and what we found after carefully peeling away all those layers of foam padding and packing tape was a portrait of Gwilym so skillfully painted that it could have been mistaken for a photograph. Mercy had stared at it for a long time—ignoring Lucy’s attempts to guide her away, deaf to any of our concerns—until she at last picked up the portrait herself and said, quite evenly: “I think we should hang it in the living room, don’t you?”

Things had been better since then—very, very gradually, and yet unmistakably—and Gwil’s portrait remained mounted above the living room couch like a watchman, his eyes sparkling and blue, his faint smile stoic and fond and omniscient. But even in the wake of Mercy’s continued improvement, none of us kids were about to risk another agonizingly despondent Christmas. So the solution was obvious. We would keep Mercy preoccupied with what thrilled her more than absolutely anything else: the pseudo-weddings of her children. Rami and Lucy had already secretly volunteered to go next year...and after that, who knew? And there was one other thing that was making Mercy’s burden a little lighter these days.

Charlie sauntered into the living room, wearing an apron covered in cartwheeling Santas and wiping white dust like snow—powdered sugar? flour? baking soda?—from his ungainly hands. He was palpably proud. “The sugar cookies are officially in the oven. And I managed to fit them all on one baking sheet, isn’t that great?! Cuts down on dishes!”

“Why, yes, I suppose it does!” Mercy said, alarm dawning in her eyes. Had my beloved father placed the globs of dough too close together? Would we end up with one hideous, giant monster-cookie? Only time would tell. Providentially, Archer and Joe could be counted on to eat just about anything.

Joe sniffed the air, his forehead crinkling. “What’s burning?”

“Nothing should be burning,” Mercy replied, almost defensive, forever protective of Charlie and all of his profound, incurably human imperfections. Sometimes I thought that she preferred him that way, that he was a link to a simpler world in the same way I had once been, that he was a puddle of memory she could drop into, that maybe he wasn’t so unlike her first husband Arthur. “Not yet, anyway. The cookies need at least ten to twelve minutes at 350.”

“Wait, 350?!” Charlie exclaimed, horrorstruck. “I thought you said 450!”

“Oh, this is tragic,” Scarlett said.

“I can fix it!” Mercy trilled buoyantly, breezing off to the kitchen as Charlie followed after her with a fountain of apologies. She shushed them away affectionately, patting his chest with her soft plump hands, chuckling about how luckily they had fire extinguishers stowed away in almost every closet just in case. And there were other reasons for that besides Charlie’s perilous baking attempts, but he didn’t know them. Now the record player was belting out Queen’s Thank God It’s Christmas.

Archer lost another round in Mario Kart and exhaled a great, mournful sigh. “Hey, Baby Swanpire, can you do something about this guy?” He nodded to Rami. “This is criminal. It’s nowhere near a fair fight. He knows every freaking time I’m about to toss a banana peel.”

Rami smirked guiltily up at me from the couch, not bothering to deny it.

“Do you mind?” I asked him.

“Not at all,” Rami replied. “I want to show this loser I can beat him even without the benefit of mega-cool extrasensory superpowers.”

“Rude!” Archer cried.

“So rude,” Scarlett agreed, smiling.

“Okay, here we go.” I sat down beside Rami, still holding Ben’s envelope in my right hand, and laid my left against Rami’s cheek. And I felt a fistful of numbness—like instant peace, like milk-white Novocain—pass from my skin into his, rolling into his skull, deadening whatever telepathic livewires had been ignited there in the August of 1916. The effect would last anywhere from thirty minutes to a few hours; and it worked on every vampire I’d met so far.

“Whoa, trippy,” Rami murmured. “It’s still weird, every single time.” He peered drowsily around the room. “It’s...so...quiet?! You guys really live like this? No one is constantly bombarding you with sexual fantasies or romantic pining or depressive inner monologues? How do you function?! Now I’m alone with my own thoughts, that’s actually worse!”

“Hurry up and beat him while he’s all freaked out and vulnerable,” Scarlett told Archer.

Archer laughed, picking up his Nintendo 64 controller, radiant with the promise of vengeance. “Yes ma’am.”

“Any good mail?” Lucy asked Joe.

“Yeah. Coupons and a ton of Christmas cards from random people. The vet sent us one with alpacas on it, so that’s cute. Oh, and here’s one from our favorite Canadians.”

Joe held up the card so we could all see. The picture on the front showed Cato and Honora sitting on a large velvet, forest green couch with a hulking Christmas tree illuminated in the background. The others were arranged around them: Austin, Max, Ksenia, Charity, Araminta, Akari, Morana, Phelan, Aruna, Adair, Zora, Sahel, and a few new faces I couldn’t name yet. They were all wearing matching turtleneck sweaters. And every single one of them was smiling.

Joe cleared his throat theatrically and read the text on the inside of the card:

“Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

(Oh, and Scarlett, congratulations on your not-marriage.)

- Cato Douglass Freeman”

“That bastard,” Scarlett muttered.

Rami offered me his controller. He had just slipped on a banana peel and rocketed off a cliff. “You want a turn?”

“No, thanks though. I have to talk to Ben. Is he around?”

Rami shrugged ruefully. “I would help, but my brain is temporarily broken.”

Scarlett rolled her eyes, taking a gingerbread cookie from the tray and biting into it as Lucy batted crumbs from the red lace dress, exasperated. “I think he’s out in the hot tub.”

“Cool. I shall return.”

Joe took my spot on the couch as I departed, shoveling cookies into his mouth, seizing Rami’s controller and kicking his feet up on the coffee table.

I opened the door to the back porch, and frigid December air rushed in like an uninvited guest. The field was coated with a thin layer of snow, the animals safe and warm in the barn, the garden slumbering. And in the spring and summer, when blossoms of a dozen different varieties came open beneath the drizzling grey skies, Mercy’s calla lilies didn’t bother my allergies at all. Nothing did anymore. Ben was indeed in the hot tub, puffing on his vape pen, wearing only a beanie hat and swim trunks.

“What flavor is that cartridge?” I asked as I approached. “Gummy bear?”

“Close. Strawberry doughnut.”

“Ohhhh, yum!” Ben passed me the vape pen, and I took a drag as I kicked off my boots and sat near him on the rim of the hot tub, slipping my bare feet beneath the steaming, roiling water. Then I handed his vape pen back. “So. Guess what I have for you.”

“Uh.” He glanced at the envelope. “Jury duty.”

“Better.”

“Someone I hate has jury duty.”

I flipped the envelope around so he could see the University of Chicago logo on the front.

“Oh god,” Ben moaned.

“Don’t you want to see what it says?”

“Not really,” he admitted, grimacing.

“Come on, Ben. Open it.”

“Nah.”

“Why not?!”

Ben sighed. “Look, if I open it and it’s bad news, it’s gonna make Christmas weird. Rami will know. They’ll all know. They’ll all feel bad for me and it’ll be pathetic and depressing and awkward. You can look if you want to, just don’t tell anyone else yet.”

“It’s not going to be bad news,” I said, tugging at the floppy top of his beanie hat. He swatted my hand away, but he was smiling grudgingly.

“You have positively no way of knowing that. Unless Lucy’s had a vision I’m unaware of.”

“She hasn’t. You know she never sees anything important.”

“She saw you coming,” Ben countered.

“She saw human-me and Joe in love and gobbling down pretzels at a Cubs game. So I’d say there were at least a few minor details missing.”

“There’s no way I got in,” Ben said, his green eyes slick and fearful and now fixed on the envelope. “We can’t all be geniuses like you.”

“That’s an unfair accusation. I’m far from genius. I’m just obsessed with the ocean.” I’d written my senior thesis on the feeding habits of Pacific angelsharks, and my advisor was still trying to figure out how I, an amateur scuba diver at best, had managed to get so many quality photographs with my underwater camera. The secret, of course, was superhuman agility and not needing to breathe.

“I fucking hate calculus. The MCAT wrecked me. I got a 517.”

“And their median score is a 519, so I’d say you still have a fighting chance. Plus you have like eight million volunteer hours.” Ben had spent the vast majority of the past year either in class or at the hospital. The psychiatrist-in-chief, Dr. Siegel, had been more than happy to take one of Gwil’s foster children under her wing. Every human in Forks except Archer believed that Dr. Gwilym Lee had drowned in a tragic boating accident while he and Mercy were on vacation in Southern California, and that his body had never been recovered. The town had held a wonderful remembrance ceremony and dedicated a free clinic at the hospital in his honor. “Now open it.”

“You do it,” Ben relented finally. “My hands are wet. Go ahead, open it up and tell me what it says. And then kindly euthanize me to end my immortal shame.”

“That wouldn’t work,” I pointed out, tearing open the envelope. I pulled out the tri-folded piece of paper inside, flattened it against my thighs, and read the typed black text.

“...Well?” Ben pressed, vaping frantically.

I looked up and smiled at him.

“No way,” he whispered.

“I hope you like pretzels and bear-themed baseball teams, grandpa.”

And for a second, I thought he might bolt up out of the hot tub, hooting victoriously, splashing water all over the back porch as he danced around bellowing that he’d gotten into one of the best medical schools in the world, that he would be following me and Joe to Chicago. But that wasn’t Ben. Instead, a slow smile rippled across his face: it was small, but perfectly genuine. Pure, even.

“Goddamn,” he said, watching me. Venom doesn’t just resurrect or ruin; it forms a bond that is simultaneously intangible and yet immense. It’s an evolutionary adaptation, a way to facilitate stability and the building of covens in an often violent and ruleless world. And now that he had turned me, Ben had family here in Forks in more ways than one.

“Gwil would be so proud of you, Ben.”

“I hope so. I really do.”

The back door of the house opened, and Joe stepped outside. He studied Ben for a moment, and that was all it took for him to know. “Benny!” he shouted, elated.

“I know, I know. Fortunately, I look amazing in red. Thanks, supermodel genes.”

“This is going to be so fun!” Joe said, sprinting over to wrap Ben—who was characteristically lukewarm on this whole physical displays of affection business—in a hug from just outside the hot tub. “We’re going to go furniture shopping, and eat deep-dish pizza, and find apartments right next to each other, and mail home Chicago-themed care packages, and get you hooked up with some gorgeous Italian woman...or whatever you like, I guess I shouldn’t assume. Women. Men. Gang members. Marine mammals. Jessicas. Whatever. There are options.”

Ben laughed as he playfully shoved Joe away. “Sounds like a plan, pagliaccio.”

“Oh my god, stop learning Italian without me! You realize you have to tell Mom now.”

“I will,” Ben agreed, with some trepidation. “I’ll wait until after Christmas.”

“It’ll be hard for her,” I said. “But she knows it’s what you want. She knows it’s what’s best for you. So she’ll get through it. I think it would be worse for her if you didn’t get in, if she had to see you unhappy.”

Ben nodded, exhaling strawberry-doughnut-flavored vapor, gazing up at the stars, Orion and Auriga and Lynx and Perseus reflected in his thoughtful jade eyes. “She’ll still have Rami and Lucy and Scarlett here with her. And Archer. And Charlie.”

“Especially Charlie,” Joe said, grinning.

Mercy would have to leave Forks eventually, of course. The Lees had already been here for nearly four years; they could stay another ten, perhaps fifteen at the absolute maximum. And there had been a time when ten or fifteen years seemed like quite a while to me, but now it felt like I could doze off one afternoon and wake up on the other side of it, like swimming a lap in the sun-drenched public pool back in Phoenix. We would find a new home somewhere after Joe and I finished our PhDs, after Ben finished medical school, maybe Vancouver or Buffalo or Amsterdam or Edinburgh or Dublin or Reykjavik. Wherever we went, I hoped it wouldn’t be far from the sea. But Mercy couldn’t bear to leave Forks yet. It was the last home she had shared with Gwil, the last house they would ever build together, and leaving it would make his loss all the more irrevocable. She would be ready to leave someday, but not today.

In the meantime, there would still be visits for breaks and holidays. Scarlett and Archer had the shop to keep them busy, a brand new eight-car garage that held a virtual monopoly on both the Forks and Quileute communities. Lucy had opened a bohemian-style clothing boutique downtown, which confounded most of the locals but attracted more adventurous customers from as far away as Seattle. Rami was interning for a local immigration lawyer and entertaining the possibility of applying to U Chicago’s law school in another few years. And Mercy had the farm; and she had Charlie. He had asked her for cooking lessons to try to help rouse her a few months after Gwil’s death, and it had grown from there. If it wasn’t romantic just yet, I believed it would be soon. And there were moments when I thought my father might have figured something out, when his eyes narrowed and lingered on me just a little too long, when his brow knitted into suspicious, searching lines, when the hairs rose on the back of his neck and some innate insight whispered that we weren’t like him and never could be again. But then he would chuckle, shake his head, and say: “You’ve gotten weird, my gorgeous, brilliant progeny. But Forks looks pretty good on you.”

“Can I talk to you upstairs?” Joe asked me suddenly; and did I see restless nerves flicker in his dark eyes? I thought I did.

“Sure,” I replied, climbing down from the hot tub. “Ben, are you coming inside? My dad is trying to bake Christmas cookies and failing miserably. It’s pretty hilarious. Not that you should be the one to critique other people’s kitchen-related accidents.”

“I do enjoy your company a lot more now that I don’t want to murder you and slurp you down like a Chick-fil-A milkshake,” Ben said. “Yeah, give me a few minutes and I’ll be there.” And as Joe and I headed into the house, I saw Ben pick up the acceptance letter that I’d left on the rim of the hot tub and read it for himself with incredulous eyes, grappling with the irrefutable fact that it was his name on the opening line, that he had somewhere along the way become the sort of man who dedicated his immortality to saving lives rather than ending them.

In the living room, Scarlett was back in her yoga pants and absolutely brutalizing Archer in Mario Kart. Rami and Lucy were entwined together on the loveseat, murmuring, giggling, feeding each other pieces of gingerbread cookies. In the kitchen, Charlie was leading Mercy in a clumsy waltz to Meat Loaf’s I’d Do Anything For Love, and each time he fumbled his steps or mortifyingly trod on her feet she would cry out in a peal of laughter brighter than the sun she had learned to live without. Joe spirited me up the staircase, into his bedroom—which, honestly, was more like our bedroom now, in the same way that my room in Charlie’s house had become Joe’s as well—and closed the door.

“You’re in luck,” he said. “Your dad totally ruined our song. Now I can’t hear it without thinking about some moustached guy in plaid trying to seduce my mom.”

“It’s the best Christmas gift I could ever ask for. Meat Loaf is vanquished. Oh, just so you’re aware, Renee and Paul are getting an Airbnb and coming up for New Years.”

“Cool. Do they still think I have a super embarrassing sunlight allergy and will break into hives and asphyxiate and that’s why we can’t visit them in Florida?”

“Yup.”

“Spectacular. Also, can you please tell me what’s wrong with my eyelashes?”

“They’re just a little sparse, amore. But I still like you.”

“Well, I am only moderately attractive, you know.” Then Joe steeled himself, taking a deep breath. Uh oh. He was definitely nervous. I still couldn’t believe I had the power to make him that way, but here we were. “So I get that we’re doing presents with the whole family tomorrow morning, and you do have some under the tree, so don’t worry about that. But there’s one I wanted to give to you alone. You know. With just us. Without an audience. Or whatever.”

“...Okay...?” A secret gift? A naughty gift? “I hope it’s a new vibrator.”

“Shut up,” Joe begged, laughing. “Here.” He reached into the drawer of his nightstand—our nightstand—and produced a small blue box topped with a turquoise bow. It wasn’t a ring, I was sure of that; I didn’t feel especially attached to the idea of marriage, and neither did Joe to my knowledge. How could rings or papers seal commitment when you already had eternity? I was right: the mysterious present was not a ring. When I removed the lid and emptied the box into my palm, what appeared there was a small plastic airplane.

“What is this?” I asked, amused but puzzled.

“Are you not college educated? It’s a plane.”

“Well, yeah, I can see that. But it’s also like two inches long.” I scrutinized the plane. “Are you magically transforming me into a tiny, tiny, little plastic person? Is that my gift? Because I actually got you something good.” And I really did: there was a collection of vintage Chicago Cubs photographs from the 1910s and 20s downstairs under the Christmas tree, packaged in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer wrapping paper.

“We’re going on a trip,” Joe said, grinning. “The day after Christmas. It’s just a short trip, nothing huge, don’t get too excited, we’re not going to Mt. Everest or Antarctica or anything. I think you’ll still like it. But I don’t want you to know where we’re going until we’re there.”

“How will that work? Considering the tickets and signage and pilot announcements and obnoxiously noisy other passengers and all.”

“ScarJo’s going to fly us.”

“Really?!” We were taking the jet. We almost never used the jet. “What’s in it for Scarlett?”

“She found out that Archer’s never had In-N-Out Burger before and is very much looking forward to initiating him into the cult of deliciousness.”

“Oh nice. I could go for a vanilla milkshake myself, now that Ben mentioned them.”

“Obviously I’m gonna buy you all the milkshakes and animal-style fries you want. Bankrupt me, bitch. But we have to get one other thing taken care of first.”

“So it’s somewhere they have In-N-Out Burger...” I pondered aloud. California? Texas? Las Vegas? I felt a brief but unambiguous pang of homesickness for Phoenix. But there was nothing there for me anymore.

“Stop,” Joe pleaded. “I’m sorry. I’ve already said too much. Please forget that. Get a traumatic brain injury or oxygen deprivation or something.”

“I hate to disappoint you, but I’m rather indestructible at the moment.”

He smiled wistfully. “I wouldn’t want you to be any other way.”

There was laughter downstairs in the living room. I could detect the aroma of a fresh batch of sugar cookies baking in the kitchen, mingling with the cold night air and pine trees and peppermint candy canes. I loved Christmas. The entire world smelled like Joe. The U Chicago décor, classic rock posters, and Italian flag were now interspersed with National Geographic pages and photos of the two of us together. The Official Whatever You Want Pass hung in a small, square picture frame on the wall above Joe’s bed. Our bed.

“How real is it, Joe?” I asked quietly. I climbed onto my tiptoes, linking my hands around the back of his neck with the tiny plane still tucked between my fingers. “Seriously. The wishes thing.”

“The world may never know. Akari never met me as a human, so she wouldn’t be able to say. But if I had to place a bet...” He shrugged, grinning craftily. “Kinda real. Kinda not real. Just like vampires, I guess.”

“I am alarmingly glad that you’re real, mob guy,” I said, abruptly somber. “I never thought I’d meet someone who saw me as remarkable, who could make me see myself that way. And it’s miraculous. And it’s terrifying too, honestly. Being a thing with you. Falling for someone you could have for centuries and lose in a second.”

“It’s the scariest thing there is,” Joe concurred, taking my hand to lead me back downstairs.

Joseph

Scarlett looks like a goddess, and she knows it. But she’s not one of those magnanimous, fragile, harp-plucking, pastel-colored goddesses. She’s ferocity and wildness and crimson like blood, and that’s exactly why Archer loves her. And as they stand in front of the Christmas tree with their hands clasped together—ivory on bronze, snow on sun—with matching sprigs of holly in Scarlett’s hair and pinned to the jacket of Archer’s suit, reciting truths but no promises, I can’t help but watch the other faces in the room: Rami, Lucy, Ben, Charlie, Mom with her beaming smile and shining eyes, the woman I met sixteen months ago and now can’t fathom life without. And it occurs to me for the first time that love, in its cleanest form, isn’t something that changes people as much as it allows them to become who they truly are.

On the evening of December 26th, as soon as the sun dips beneath the western horizon, we board the jet in the Forks Airport hangar. It’s much easier for Scarlett to fly at night; otherwise she has to wear two or three pairs of sunglasses on top of each other, and even then it’s still painful, it still feels like blinding needles burrowing into the jelly of her retinas. That’s not a wrench in my plans or anything. It needs to be night where we’re going, too.

Vampire hyper-acuity notwithstanding, FAA regulations require Scarlett to have a copilot, so Archer joins her in the flight deck with his newly-minted license and spends most of the journey flipping through the latest issue of Motor Trend. As we begin our descent, he peeks back at us and teases: “It’ll be your turn eventually, guys. Scarlett and I did our time. Rami and Lucy can go next year. And after that...unless Ben happens to find someone worthy of a not-wedding...” He wiggles his black eyebrows.

“Bring it on,” I reply casually. “Fake wedding are my jam. It’ll be ocean themed. Or Roaring ‘20s themed. And we’ll all do the Cha-Cha Slide in the living room and shame Ben as a bonding activity.”

“Mercy can set up a mashed potatoes bar,” Baby Swan adds.

“Yeah. With pineapple.”

“No. Not on potatoes.”

“Yes on potatoes.”

“Over my dead body.”

“Too late,” I tell her, touching my lips to the knuckles of her cool, steady hand.

We touch down at a small noncommercial airport just outside the city, and Scarlett and Archer stay back to secure the plane as Baby Swan follows me outside. And she realizes where we are as soon as the wind hits her, as soon as her eyes soak up the sand and cacti and cloudless night sky like rain swallowed up by parched earth.

“Phoenix,” she whispers, smiling like a child.

“But wait, there’s more!” I announce in my best Billy Mays voice. I take the little glass bottle from my pocket, walk across the runway to the naked desert, crouch down when I find a suitable spot, and fill the bottle with dry, sandy earth that crumbles in my palms. Then I seal the bottle with a tiny cork and bring it back to give it to her.

“I know what it’s like to have to leave home,” I say. “You’ve had to say goodbye to Phoenix, and soon you’ll have to say goodbye to Forks, and next will be Chicago, on and on forever. You’ll always be leaving the places you learn to call home. Every five or ten or fifteen years, we start over again. Like a snake shedding its skin, like a hermit crab swapping shells. Like the water that travels from rain to seawater to mist and then back again. But now you can always have a little piece of home with you, and maybe that will make it easier.”

She takes the glass bottle and shakes her head in disbelief, in wonder. Because this is exactly what she wanted, what she needed, even if she didn’t know it yet. “Joe...how did you...?”

“What’d I tell ya? I’m a talented guy. Now you have to dance with me.”

She laughs. “Oh no. Hard pass. I don’t dance.”

“When we’re alone in my bedroom you do. So just pretend we’re alone now. In, like, a really really spacious, sandy bedroom. With probably some lizards.”

“Fine. But only because I’m willing to degrade myself for milkshakes.”

She slides the glass bottle of Arizona earth into her pocket and takes my hands. She’s still a pretty terrible dancer, honestly. She hasn’t lost that. And I love that about her. I love damn near everything about her. And it took me a long time to figure out what exactly her subtle yet peerless cocktail of fragrance is, because it wasn’t somewhere I’d ever been. The scent that drifts from her pores—the scent that now lives in my bedsheets like a shadow or a ghost—is sunlight and heat and clarity and resilience and wisdom older than the pyramids. Her scent is the desert.

Now she’s mischievous, her eyes gleaming with the reflections of the Milky Way and the full moon and the stars that are dead and yet eternal, just like us. “So what, you think you’re Vampire Boyfriend Of The Year material now or what? Some dirt and In-N-Out Burger? That’s the height of your game? Is this what I have to look forward to for the rest of my perpetual existence? I totally should have pursued that polyamorous triad with Scarlett and Archer when I had the chance—”

“Yeah,” I say, very softly, smiling, tilting up her chin to kiss her beneath the universe and all its eccentricities. “I love you too.”

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taylorswiftandx · 4 years

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Taylor Swift and Questions

Note: For related lyrics, see posts on Wondering and Asking.

'Taylor Swift'

Teardrops On My Guitar: Drew walks by me, can he tell that I can't breathe?

A Place In This World: Could you tell me, what more do I need?

The Outside: But nothing seems to work the first few times, am I right?

The Outside: So how can I ever try to be better?

Stay Beautiful: Does he know? Will you ever know?

Should've Said No: I shouldn't be asking myself, "Why?"

Should've Said No: But do you honestly expect me to believe we could ever be the same?

Should've Said No: Was it worth it? Was she worth this?

Our Song: He says, "Baby, is something wrong?"

A Perfectly Good Heart: Why would you wanna break a perfectly good heart?

A Perfectly Good Heart: Why would you wanna take our love and tear it all apart now?

A Perfectly Good Heart: Why would you wanna make the very first scar?

A Perfectly Good Heart: How do I get it back the way it was before?

'Fearless'

Love Story: Is this in my head?

Hey Stephen: Hey Stephen, why are people always leaving?

Hey Stephen: Why aren't you here tonight?

Hey Stephen: All those other girls, well, they're beautiful, but would they write a song for you?

You Belong With Me: So why can't you see you belong with me?

You Belong With Me: Hey, isn't this easy?

You Belong With Me: Hey, what you doing with a girl like that?

You Belong With Me: All this time, how could you not know, baby?

You Belong With Me: Can't you see that I'm the one who understands you?

You Belong With Me: Have you ever thought just maybe you belong with me?

Tell Me Why: Why do you have to make me feel small so you can feel whole inside?

Tell Me Why: Why do you have to put down my dreams so you're the only thing on my mind?

Tell Me Why: Tell my why, why?

Forever And Always: Were you just kidding?

Forever And Always: Baby, what happened?

Forever And Always: Was I out of line? Did I say something way too honest?

Forever And Always: Where is this going?

Forever And Always: Did you forget everything?

Change: Can you feel it now?

The Other Side Of The Door: So, babe, if you know everything, tell me why you couldn't see that when I left I wanted you to chase after me?

The Other Side Of The Door: Was she worth this mess?

'Speak Now'

Mine: I say, "Can you believe it?"

Mine: Do you remember, we were sitting there by the water?

Mine: Do you remember all the city lights on the water?

Mine: Do you believe it?

Sparks Fly: Won't you whisper soft and slow?

Back To December: How's life? Tell me, how's your family?

Speak Now: You wish it was me, don't you?

Dear John: Don't you think I was too young to be messed with?

Dear John: Don't you think nineteen's too young to be played by your dark, twisted games when I loved you so?

Dear John: Don't you think I was too young?

Mean: Why you gotta be so mean?

The Story Of Us: Is it killing you like it's killing me?

The Story Of Us: How'd we end up this way?

The Story Of Us: Why are we pretending this is nothing?

Enchanted: Your eyes whispered, "Have we met?"

Enchanted: 2 AM, who do you love?

Better Than Revenge: You might have him but haven't you heard?

Better Than Revenge: Do you still feel like you know what you're doing?

Innocent: Wasn't it easier in your lunchbox days?

Innocent: Wasn't it beautiful when you believe in everything and everybody believed in you?

Innocent: Wasn't it easier in your firefly-catching days?

Innocent: Wasn't it beautiful running wild 'til you fell asleep?

Last Kiss: You told me you loved me, so why did you go away?

Superman: And you smile and say, "How are you?"

'Red'

22: Who's Taylor Swift anyway? ew.

We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together: When you said you needed space, what?

We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together: Remember how that lasted for a day?

We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together: I mean, this is exhausting, you know?

Sad Beautiful Tragic: Could you just try to listen?

The Lucky One: But can you tell me now you're the lucky one?

Starlight: Don't you see the starlight, starlight?

Starlight: Don't you dream impossible things?

The Moment I Knew: What do you say when tears are streaming down your face in front of everyone you know?

The Moment I Knew: And what do you do when the one who means the most to you is the one who didn't show?

'1989'

Blank Space: Nice to meet you, where you been?

Blank Space: Love's a game, wanna play?

Blank Space: Oh my god, who is she?

Out Of The Woods: Are we out of the woods yet?

Out Of The Woods: Are we in the clear yet?

Out Of The Woods: Are we out of the woods?

Out Of The Woods: Remember when you hit the brakes too soon?

Out Of The Woods: Remember when we couldn't take the heat?

All You Had To Do Was Stay: Why'd you have to go and lock me out when I let you in?

Bad Blood: Did you have to do this?

Bad Blood: Did you have to ruin what as shiny?

Bad Blood: Did you have to hit me where I'm weak?

Bad Blood: Did you think we'd be fine?

Bad Blood: Did you think it all through?

How You Get The Girl: She'll open up the door and say, "Are you insane?"

Wonderland: Didn't they tell us don't rush into things?

Wonderland: Didn't you flash your green eyes at me?

Wonderland: Haven't you heard what becomes of curious minds?

Wonderland: Didn't it all seem new and exciting?

Wonderland: Didn't you calm my fears with a Cheshire cat smile?

'reputation'

...Ready For It?: Are you ready for it?

I Did Something Bad: They say I did something bad, then why's it feel so good?

Delicate: We can't make any promises, now can we, babe?

Delicate: Dive bar on the East side, where you at?

Delicate: Is it cool that I said all that?

Delicate: Is it chill that you're in my head?

Delicate: Is it too soon to do this yet?

Delicate: Isn't it, isn't it?

Delicate: Do the girls back home touch you like I do?

Delicate: Sometimes I wonder when you sleep, are you ever dreaming of me?

Look What You Made Me Do: Locked me out, then threw a feast, what?

Look What You Made Me Do: Why? Oh, 'cause she's dead

So It Goes...: But honestly, baby, who's counting?

Gorgeous: But what can I say?

King Of My Heart: Is this the end of all the endings?

Dancing With Our Hands Tied: So, baby, can we dance, oh, through an avalanche?

This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things: So why'd you have to rain on my parade?

This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things: Did you think I wouldn't hear all the things you said about me?

Call It What You Want: You don't need to save me, but would you run away with me?

'Lover'

I Forgot That You Existed: How many days did I spend thinking 'bout how you did me wrong, wrong, wrong?

Cruel Summer: I love you, ain't that the worst thing you ever heard?

Lover: Have I known you twenty seconds or twenty years?

Lover: Can I go where you go?

Lover: Can we always be this close?

Lover: Ladies and gentlemen, will you please stand?

The Man: When everyone believes you, what's that like?

The Man: What's it like to brag about raking in dollars and getting bitches and models?

The Archer: I say I don't want that, but what if I do?

The Archer: Who could ever leave me darling, but who could stay?

The Archer: But what if I'm all right, right, right, right here?

The Archer: Can you see right through me?

I Think He Knows: Where we gonna go?

Miss Americana And The Heartbreak Prince: Where are the wise men?

Death By A Thousand Cuts: But if the story's over, why am I still writing pages?

Soon You'll Get Better: But who am I supposed to talk to?

Soon You'll Get Better: What am I supposed to do if there's no you?

False God: Remember how I said I'd die for you?

False God: Remember how I'd fly to you?

You Need To Calm Down: Hey, are you okay?

You Need To Calm Down: Like, can you just not step on my gown?

You Need To Calm Down: Why are you mad when you could be GLAAD?

You Need To Calm Down: Like, can you just not step on his gown?

You Need To Calm Down: Like, can you just not step on our gowns?

Afterglow: Why'd I have to break what I love so much?

It's Nice To Have A Friend: Wanna hang out? Yeah, sounds like fun

'folklore'

The 1: But we were something, don't you think so?

The 1: If one thing had been different, would everything be different today?

The Last Great American Dynasty: How did a middle-class divorcée do it?

The Last Great American Dynasty: Who knows, if she never showed up, what could've been?

The Last Great American Dynasty: Who knows, if I never showed up, what could've been?

Exile: You're not my homeland anymore, so what am I defending now?

Exile: I'm not your problem anymore, so who am I offending now?

My Tears Ricochet: Even on my worst days, did I deserve, babe, all the hell you gave me?

My Tears Ricochet: And if I'm dead to you, why are you at the wake?

Seven: Are there still beautiful things?

August: Whispers of "Are you sure?"

August: Will you call when you're back at school?

Invisible String: Were there clues I didn't see?

Invisible String: And isn't it just so pretty to think all along there was some invisible string tying you to me?

Mad Woman: What did you think I'd say to that?

Mad Woman: Does a scorpion sting when fighting back?

Mad Woman: What do you sing on your drive home?

Mad Woman: Do you see my face in the neighbor's lawn?

Mad Woman: Does she smile, or does she mouth, "Fuck you forever"?

Mad Woman: Every time you call me crazy I get more crazy, what about that?

Betty: But if I just showed up at your party, would you have me, would you want me?

Betty: Would you tell me to go fuck myself or lead me to the garden?

Betty: In the garden would you trust me if I told you it was just a summer thing?

Betty: Will you have me, will you love me?

Betty: Will you kiss me on the porch in front of all your stupid friends?

Betty: If you kiss me, will it be just like I dreamed it, will it patch your broken wings?

Peace: Would it be enough if I could never give you peace?

Peace: Is it enough?

Hoax: You knew the hero died, so what's the movie for?

Hoax: You knew you won, so what's the point of keeping score?

The Lakes: Is it romantic how all my elegies eulogize me?

'evermore'

Gold Rush: What must it be like to grow up that beautiful?

Tolerate It: While you were out building other worlds, where was I?

Tolerate It: Where’s that man who’d throw blankets over my barbed wire?

Tolerate It: You assume I’m fine but what would you do if I... break free and leave us in ruins?

Happiness: Tell me, when did your winning smile begin to look like a smirk?

Happiness: When did all our lessons start to look like weapons pointed at my deepest hurt?

Dorothea: Hey, Dorothea, do you ever stop and think about me?

Dorothea: But are you the same soul I met under the bleachers?

Coney Island: If I can’t relate to you anymore, then who am I related to?

Coney Island: And if this is the long haul, how’d we get here so soon?

Coney Island: Did I close my fist around something delicate, did I shatter you?

Coney Island: I’m sitting on a bench in Coney Island wondering, where did my baby go?

Coney Island: The question pounds my head, what’s a lifetime of achievement if I pushed you to the edge but you were too polite to leave me?

Coney Island: Do you miss the rogue who coaxed you into paradise and left you there?

Coney Island: Will you forgive my soul when you’re too wise to trust me and too old to care?

Coney Island: Were you waiting at our old spot in the tree line by the gold clock?

Coney Island: Did I leave you hanging every single day?

Coney Island: Were you standing in the hallway with a big cake?

Coney Island: Did I paint your bluest skies the darkest gray a universe away?

Ivy: How’s one to know?

Ivy: What would he do if he found us out?

Evermore: Oh, can we just get a pause to be certain we’ll be tall again?

Evermore: Is there a line that I could just go cross?

Right Where You Left Me: Did you ever hear about the girl who got frozen?

Right Where You Left Me: Did you hear about the girl who lives in delusion?

Other Songs written by Taylor

Babe: How could you do this, babe?

Beautiful Ghosts: Should I take chances when no one took chances on me?

Beautiful Ghosts: Is this hope just a mystical dream?

Best Days Of Your Life: Ain't it a shame, a shame that every time you hear my name brought up in a casual conversation you can't think straight?

Best Days Of Your Life: And ain't it sad you can't forget about what we had?

Best Days Of Your Life: Do you like what you see or do you wish it was me?

Best Days Of Your Life: Does she know, know about the times you used to hold me?

Best Days Of Your Life: Ain't jealousy funny?

Christmas Must Be Something More: What if ribbons and bows didn't mean a thing?

Christmas Must Be Something More: Would the song still survive without five golden rings?

Christmas Must Be Something More: Would you still wanna kiss without mistletoe?

Christmas Must Be Something More: What would happen if God never let it snow?

Christmas Must Be Something More: What would happen if Christmas carols told a lie?

Christmas Must Be Something More: What if the angels did not pay attention to all the things that we wished they would always do?

Christmas Must Be Something More: What if happiness came in a cardboard box?

Christmas Must Be Something More: What would happen if presents all went away?

Christmases When You Were Mine: And were your cousins late again?

Christmases When You Were Mine: When you were putting up the lights this year, did you notice one less pair of hands?

I Don't Wanna Live Forever: What is happening to me?

Ronan: When the blind hope turned to crying and screaming, "Why?"

Ronan: What if I'm standing in your closet trying to talk to you?

Ronan: What if I kept the hand-me-downs you won't grow into?

Ronan: What if I really thought some miracle would see us through?

Ronan: What if the miracle was even getting one moment with you?

This Is What You Came For: Who knows why it's gotta be this way?

Today Was A Fairytale: But can you feel this magic in the air?

Today Was A Fairytale: Did you feel it?

You'll Always Find Your Way Back Home: And you're feeling like you got nowhere to go, don't you know?

#taylor swift #lyrics #taylorswiftandx #lyric parallels #questions

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goatsnails · 4 years

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Atom wipes the blood from his mouth and tears from his eyes as he shakily stood up and continued sweeping. Razz growls.

"That outta teach ya not to disobay me!!!" He snarls. Atom whimpers, he didn't know what he did wrong. But it didn't matter he must have done something. Razz snarls angrily and storms out. Atom shakes and cries. He wanted to get out of here, but he knew he stood no chance. He picks up a discarded newspaper and looks at it. On the front was a picture of a tall, black, handsome skeleton with an alluring, seductive smile and jet black moth wings. His name was Dusk. Everyone knew that. The brave anti hero with a tragic back story. And Dawn's frenemy.

Atom smiles softly. He sorta had a crush on him. He cuts out the article and pasts it on the wall of his hole in the wall that served as his room. Razz told him that Dusk would probably kill him before even thinking that he was worth something. Atom believed him but that didn't stop him from daydreaming. He looks out the window and sighs. He goes to lay down hoping to get some rest before Razz comes back.

The sun shone in Atom's face the next morning. He shifts softly. It went dark again as he felt something touch his lips. A kiss. Atom jolted awake, startled. But there was no one there. He looks around. He was in a strange room in a strange bed. On his lap was a tray with a steaming hot breakfast. His tummy grumbles softly. He looks around and starts eating as there was no one else there, he didn't want to waste food.

If this was one of Razz's tricks he would learn about it later. Beaten to the floor for being so gullible. Atom feels his tummy. Nothing seemed off about it. He didn't feel sick. Usually when he woke up in a bed he was pregnant. But there was nothing. He notices his arms and legs were bandaged. He feels his head. The scars were gone. He was even more confused. He notices his rags were gone, replaced with silk, velvet and fleece. He was clean as well. The dirt and grime gone.

Atom finishes and gets out of bed. He goes down stairs to see if he could find anyone. There was no one. Not a single person. Atom was alone.

"I-i must be going crazy!! R-razz!? S-slim!? Please tell me this is one of your jokes!!!" He trembles and shakes. But then something catches his eye. A note on the table. He picks it up and reads it.

'Dear Starlight, (That's you)

I know you must be confused and scared, and wondering who I am. But do not fret, I will reveal myself in due time but as for now take this time to explore your new home. There is no one here who will hurt you. The fridge and pantry are always full and I advise you eat. You may head outside if you wish I'm sure you'll enjoy it. The shelves are packed with good books, games, movies and puzzles, to pass the time if you get bored. Everything you need is here. If there's anything you want just write it down and leave it here.

Your's truly, <3.

Ps: you can leave if you wish but I don't advise you doing so.'

Atom felt reassured, he relaxed and looked around. It was a nice little house. Cozy and neat. There was only one door that lead out. He opens it and gasps.

Little song birds fluttered in the trees as mice and rabbits moves about in the flowers and grass. A family of deer rested in the shade of a large oak tree as squirrels chittered about. They all stop and look at him. Atom wanders out amazed by the beauty of it all. A little bird alighted in front of him and chirps curiously. Atom smiles and picks the little bird up. He pets it before letting it fly away.

"W-who? W-who could have done this for....me? It......couldn't have been Razz......." He sits down and basks in the sun. It was so peacefull and calm, he felt so safe, he was soon asleep again.

Atom woke up a few hours later, his tummy grumbles softly. He heads back inside. He was stunned to see a large meal already prepared for him. He looks around, hoping to catch a glimps of his kind host. He sighs in defeat and sits down to eat.

When he was done he washes his dishes and puts them away. He looks around for something else to clean. But there was nothing, no cleaning tools either. He sighs, his gaze drifts to the bookshelves. He picks up one of the books and sits down on the couch to read.

Atom spends the rest of the day reading and doing puzzles. He doesn't notice as the time flies by. He yawns as he finishes a maze. The puzzle book drops to the floor as he falls asleep.

Atom was again awoken with a kiss from his unknown host. He was back in bed. He sits up and looks around. Still no one there. He sighs and eats. He heads down stairs again. He pauses when he notices a new note on the counter along with a small box. He picks up the note and reads it.

'Dear Firefly (that's you again)

I've collected some of your old belongings and put them in this box. It took a little longer than expected, I had to break a few necks to get them, but I hope to hear back from you soon.

Your's truly, <3'

Atom gasps softly and opens the box. He pulls out his old plush lamb and blanky. He cries happily as he snuggles them.

"LAMBY!!! BLANKY!!! I never thought I'd see you again!!!" He smiles and pulls out the next item. His journal. He blushes as he looks through it.

"Boy, I hope they didn't go through this......" He sets it down. He pulls out the rest of his stuff. His favorite story book, his scarf and mittens. And even his scrap book full of drawings and cut outs of Dusk. Atom blushes more.

"Oh gosh." He giggles and slips it on the shelf. He smiles and puts his stuff away. He smiles and goes outside.

He starts gardening. Removing weeds and tending to the flowers and trees. The little animals help him plant seeds. Though not without eating a few. Atom giggles.

"Hey! Those are for the garden not your tummies!"

The animals chitter and chirp gleefully. Atom giggles and yawns. He goes under the tree for a nap. The animals gather around him. He rests his head on the buck's side. The doe licks him tenderly. He was soon asleep once more.

The days pass without incident. The days merge into weeks and time seemed non-exsistant. He soon got bored and lonely. He sighs. "....I wonder if they'll allow guests.....not that anyone would visit me...." He thinks and writes a note.

'Dear unknown,

Can I get guests? Please? I just want some one to talk to that's not the animals. Not that I don't appreciate what you've done for me. I thank you for everything. It's just lonely. It's okay if I can't. I'll just be happy with what I have. Thank you.

~Atom.'

He leaves it on the table and goes to bed. His dreams were calm and happy. Like they had been every night since he had been brought here.

He sleeps till he's woken with another unknown kiss the next morning. He wakes up again to a warm breakfast in bed. He eats and gets dressed and heads down stairs.

He pauses in surprise to see Dawn, the gaurdian of the multiverse, in his house.

"D-dawn!?" He scurries over. Dawn perks up.

"Oh hello. You must be Atom. Your friend has told me alot about you." She shakes his hand. Atom was stunned.

"W-when I asked for g-guests I didn't think it'd be the literal guardian of the multiverse." He laughs nervously.

Dawn giggles. "It's nice to meet you too." She smiles warmly.

Atom shakes his head. "Why don't you take a seat. I'll make some tea."

"That would be lovely thank you." She purrs. Atom smiles softly and goes to make tea.

He sits down with her and they talk for a bit. Atom especially interested in her stories about Dusk. Eventually Dawn had to leave. She promised to be back later. She gave him a letter.

"He told me to give this to you."

"Who?"

"Your lover."

"Oh! O-okay."

Dawn leaves. Atom looks at the letter. He opens it kinda hoping it would reveal the identity of his mystery lover. He opens it and pauses.

'Dear Starlight

I know you barely know me. You don't even know who I really am. But I promise you will know in due time. However in this letter I wish to ask if possibly you would grant me access to your body tonight as you sleep so that I may grant you with a child. A child you can keep. I promise that if you say yes you will get a little baby. And I promise no harm will come to you or them. I want a child as much as I know you do. So just leave a note with yes or a no. I will not do anything without permission.

Yours truly, <3'

Atom read and reread it almost a thousand times.

"A...a child?" He holds his tummy with tears. "N-no....t-this can't be real....it's a trick...." He sat down. He couldn't believe it. This person, had already done so much good to him. But would he really give him a child? And even let him keep it?

Atom teared up and cried. All he ever wanted was to hold a child. A child of his own. But everytime he had one before, Razz and the others would kill it. He could only see it when they snaped it's little neck infront of him. Never hold it for even a second. He read the note again. With tears in his eyes he wrote his anwser and went to bed.

The next morning Atom felt strange. He got up and ran to the bathroom to throw up. He hung over the edge of the trashcan goaning.

"Mmngh-" He gasps softly. He lifts his shirt. His eye's widened when he saw a little soul swimming around peacefully. He hugs his tummy tightly. He slowly gets back up and heads back to the room but there was no breakfast in his bed. Atom goes down stairs. He nods when he sees a masive breakfast on the table.

"That would make sense....." He ate and went outside. He gardened for an hour or two before laying down on the grass for a nap.

The next day Atom told Dawn the happy news. He was going to have a child. Dawn smiles and hugs him tightly.

"That's amazing!!! Though....I wouldn't expect him to actually do that.....he never struck me as a family person.....strange...."

Atom looks at her with fear. "H-he's n-not gonna kill them i-is he!?"

"Oh, no, no. I highly doubt it! He loves kids. And....he loves you. I wouldn't think he would do this just to break your heart in the end......he's insane yes....but not crule. Unless you happen to be someone he really truly hates. Oh jeese I might be giving away too much information about him."

Atom nods softly. "If you say so...."

Dawn smiles softly. "You're safe. I promise."

Atom sighs. "Any more letters?"

"No. Not today. But I suggest you write him some. He got really happy when you wrote the one asking if I could come over. Well not me spacificly but you get the point."

Atom nods. "Alright."

Dawn smiles softly. "I'll see you later. Bye Atom."

"Bye Dawn...."

Dawn leaves and Atom sits down to ponder if this was a good idea. He hugs his knees and cries, sobbing endlessly. Someone wraps a blanket around his shoulders. Atom stops and perks up. He looks around. But he was alone. A hot cup of coco lay beside him. He picks it up and sips it.

"Thank you....." He whispers softly. He dries his tears and calms down. He lays down on the couch and falls asleep, holding his tummy tight.

The next morning he found himself in his bed, again woken with a kiss and a tray of warm food with pancakes shapped as hearts. He smiles softly as he eats. He rubs his tummy.

"...maybe he really does love me......who ever he is."

Atom gets up and goes downstairs. He pauses when he sees a wooden box with a note on the table. He picks them up and reads the note.

'My dear beloved firefly,

I was thinking of you the other day and thought you might like this. It's not much but it's the best I could get. I know you'll make something amazing.

Yours truly <3'

Atom opens the box. Inside was a yarn, thred, needles and fabric. Sewing, knitting and needle work. Atom was delighted. He took the box and sat down to work.

He works all day, and late into the night. He wanted to keep working but suddenly felt very tired. He falls asleep soon after.

The days days past easily. Atom had almost forgotten about his past life. He was looking forward to being a mother and hopfully meeting his lover. Dawn visited every so often and they would talk. And then one day Dawn gave Atom some news that made his heart skip a beat.

"H-he wants t-to m-ma-marry me!?" Atom exclaims.

Dawn nods. "Yep."

"But I-I don't e-even know who he is!!!!"

"....well....you kinda do...."

Atom trembles. "W-who!?"

"Me." A deep, smooth, voice said from behind.

Atom jumped and turned around and looks up. He froze in place his eyes wide.

There, near the couch, was a tall, hansom, black skeloton with jet black moth wings and a charming, seductive smile. It was Dusk. "Hello starlight."

Atom faints.

Atom shifts and slowly wakes up. He pauses. He was laying on Dusk's lap, his head against his chest, Dusk's arm around him. A soft blanket was drapped over him. His mind raced. 'No this can't be real. It's too good to be real.' He shook he couldn't wrap his head around it.

"Oh your awake." Dusk smiles and wraps the blanket around him a little more. "Have a good rest?"

Atom nods softly. "Y-yes t-th-thank y-you." He fidgets. "I-is t-this real? I-is it really y-you?......"

Dusk chuckles. "Sure is, Starlight."

Atom was in utter shock. "I-it w-was y-you all t-this time?"

Dusk nods. "Yep."

".....b-but....why?" The only thing Atom could say in the moment. "W-why?"

"Why what?"

"Why.....everything.....w-why did you s-save me? Why? Why didn't y-you kill me? W-why did y-you do this...a-all this

.....f-for....m-me?"

Dusk chuckles softly. "Oh my sweet starlight." He rubs his cheeks.

Atom holds his hand and looks at his eyes. So kind and caring and loving. He saw his future in them. Bright and warm and full of love.

"....." Atom gazes into his eyes. Just then something caught his attention. Dusk wings. He looks at them closely and gasps softly. His wings, they weren't completely black! They shimmered like the night sky. He touches them gently. They were soft and felt like velvet. He smiles softly and looks up at Dusk. He smiles.

Just then he felt a small kick in his tummy. He winces softly. Dusk lays his hand on his tummy.

"Lively one arn't they?" He smiles softly.

Atom pauses as the pieces clicked. "This is.....I'm carrying.....no....this.....you really did-"

Dusk laughs and kisses him. "Yes. And I'm just as excited as you are."

Atom jumps up and wraps his arms around Dusk's neck. "Thank you!!!" He cries heavily into him.

Dusk holds him close and rocks him. Atom sobs. Dusk comforts him as he calms down slowly.

"Thank you."

"It's my pleasure." Dusk purrs. He pets him gently.

"S-so...you're really want t-to marry me?" He looks up at him with wide eyes.

Dusk nods. "As soon as possible. But I'll let you settle down first."

Atom snuggles into him. "Thank you...."

Dusk nuzzles him. "It's my pleasure."

Atom falls asleep once again.

Wedding bells rang cheerfully. Atom stood infront of the mirror, nervous. It was the day of his and Dusk's wedding. He shifts in his dress as he looks at his reflection.

"Is this really h-happening?....Am I..r-really getting m-married?....a-and to D-dusk?" He trembles in both fear and excitement.

Dawn pokes her head in. "Hurry everyone's waiting for you! And Dusk really isn't that patient! Especially on day's like this!"

Atom nods and hurries out. He pauses when he saw Dusk at the alter. He almost fainted again. This was real and he really was getting married to his dream man. He slowly walks down the isle, blushing softly. He gets to the alter and stops in front of Dusk.

Dusk looks at him and blushes softly. "You're beautiful."

Atom blushes more. "Y-you really think s-so."

Dusk nods.

Atom beams as the priest starts. Atom gazes at Dusk waits for those special words.

"Do you Dusk take Atom to be your lawfully wedded wife?"

"I do." Dusk smiles. Atom beams happily.

"And do you Atom take Dusk to be your lawfully wedded husband?"

"I d-do!"

"You may now kiss the bride."

Dusk pulls Atom in and kisses him deeply. Atom blushes brightly as he melts into the kiss. Everything was perfect.

Dusk sweeps him off his feet and takes him to the celebration party. Cross cuts the cake. Atom looks at Dusk. Dusk chuckles.

"Go on. Have as much as you want."

Atom gasps happily and takes as much cake as could fit on his plate.

Dusk pauses. "Okay maybe not that much.....don't want you sick."

Atom pouts and eats it anyway. Dusk laughs softly.

"Cutie~" He winks at him.

Atom blushes. His mouth stuffed with cake. Dusk licks the frosting off his cheek. Atom giggles and boops him. Dusk laughs and kisses him.

Atom gazes up at his eyes again. "I st-still can't belive I'm ma-married! And t-to you of a-all people!" He beams happily. "A-and to think y-you found w-worth in m-me.....instead of just killing or eating me....."

Dusk laughs. "Eaten you!? You were little more than a ration when I found you!" He looks at him and smirks. "But you've definently rounded out nicely since then~" He rubs his waist. "Fit for a king~"

Atom shivers and blushes. "Y-you're not g-gonna eat me are you?"

"If you don't want me to I won't."

Atom nods softly.

There was a scoff behind them. "Well well well~ what do we have here?"

Atom freezes and burries into Dusk. Dusk snarls. "Razz-"

Razz smirks. "Hello Atom. I missed you."

Atom twitches. "Missed what? Useing me!? Beating me to the floor? Abusing my kindness?"

Razz acts offended. "Atom! I thought you were better than this! I just came to congratulate you after you left me with out saying anything! Then get married behind my back with out inviting me! After all the love I gave you? I'm offended. I didn't even have to be here!"

Atom shakes. "Selling the one you love off to other people for money ISNT LOVE! You SOLD me razz! FOR MONEY!! I gave you my heart, my love and my kindness! YOU were the one who WANTED a child an when we did- YOU KILLED IT! I'm MUCH BETTER OFF WITHOUT you! I'm MARRIED to someone whose much kinder and more patient than you EVER COULD BE!! I-i just wants someone to love me.....someone who'll just hold me.....wh-who won't call me an idiot every time I mess up a dish....that wasn't to your liking! IM SO TIRED OF YOU YELLING AT ME BECAUSE IT WASNT PERFECT!!!! WHO CARES HOW THE STEAK IS CUT!?! Who CARES HOW MUCH SHARDINAE IS IN THE GLASS?! Dusk doesn't! Dusk loves me! He took the time to love me! To know me! YOU NEVER DID ANY OF THAT!!! YOU JUST PUSHED ME AWAY LIKE I WAS NOTHING BUT A TOY!!! I'M NOT A TOY!!! AND DUSK UNDERSTANDS THAT!!! HE TREATS ME LIKE AN ACTUAL PERSON!!!! HE LOVES ME!!! YOU!!! NEVER!!! DID!!!" He shakes and runs away.

Dusk watches Atom with sorrow. He glares harshly at Razz and attacks him.

Atom runs and hides in an empty tree hollow. He cries heavily and holds his tummy tight. He sobs. Something pokes at his tummy. Something, large, wet, and black. A huge nose. A huge nose belonging to a huge black wolf with large red eyes. Atom gasps and backs more into the tree. The wolf pawses and whimpers. He tries to wiggle in with him. He gets stuck and tries to pull his head out. Atom pauses and helps him.

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garden-ghoul · 5 years

Text

The Brewer Cat

Far north of here in Ŋísh the land of meadows, Ɵórí SHóry-l was well known as a brewer. When she was born she lived in a small group of compounds, but by the time she was thirty-eight years old it was growing toward becoming a city. Several courts had already asked her to do her work in their cities, but she preferred to stay with her family.

Ɵórí loved children more than anything. There was scarcely a single young child in the SHóry compound who could not call her a parent, and she had a tattoo for each of them.[1] She didn��t want to give up any of her children, nor did she want to ask them to move from the meadows and woods they knew. So she refused the courts, one after another, when they asked her to move. But it was well known that anyone with enough humility to walk into her house would leave with whatever they had come looking for—a barrel of beer to make the soul sing, a salve to soothe the fiercest burn, even medicines to heal tongues that had begun to stutter and breath that had begun to falter. Many small gods came to taste her beer and begged to be bound to her, but she always said she did not need any more help. Brewing was a private thing; sharing her brews a public one.

Now, one month a youth dressed in green[2] came to the gate of Ɵórí’s house. Ɵórí’s young daughter Íváŋ let em in and offered food and introduced em to the small gods of the household. In exchange the youth hummed a tune like the dark of a forest floor spattered with points of light. Íváŋ already suspected what e was, but when she asked how soon e would get yr first tattoo e just laughed, and yr eyes flashed, and she knew for certain.

Íváŋ asked what kind of brew the youth was looking for, and how e meant to pay. “Thirteen barrels of beer fit for the great gods,” e said, and smiled to show all yr teeth. “I will arrange my payment with Ɵórí the Brewer.[3] May I speak to her?”

“She is at work,” said Íváŋ, “but I will sit with you until she is done.”

The full moon was well above the horizon when Ɵórí came out of her shed for supper and found a youth dressed in green entertaining her family with the dramatic tale of a diplomat who got into a riddle contest with 18 Dragon Gathers Starlight. She liked the youth as much as her family did; when supper was over they were already becoming friends. Ɵórí and the youth sat in the courtyard together drinking beer and looked up through the tree branches that cut the full moon into shards.

“This is very good beer,” said the youth. “But do you make beer that is better than this? Do you make beer fit for the great gods?”

“Some people have told me so,” said Ɵórí. “I suppose it depends on whether the great gods have high expectations.”

“Very high expectations,” said the youth. “It must be beer whose very smell could give a small god the strength to uproot a tree.”

“And when do you need it?”

“Thirteen months from today, in the morning.”

Ɵórí did not ask how the youth would pay. The great gods know better than to cheat an honest woman.

The next morning the youth with the flashing eyes was gone and yr bed seemed not to have been slept in. Ɵórí went into her shed and began to think of recipes for a beer fit for the great gods.

In the seven months that followed the beer of Ɵórí the Brewer surpassed everything she had made before. It smelled so good that the head of household had to hire a spirit-binder to keep small gods away from the brewing shed so Ɵórí could concentrate. But Ɵórí was not satisfied. “This is a beer fit for small gods,” she told her head of household, as the woman’s tattooed toes curled in delight to taste it. “It is not fit for the great gods. Ask the young children to find every good herb and spice in the forest.”

In the twelfth month Ɵórí was still not satisfied, and she had grown very worried. If she could not offer a worthy beer to the House of Glass,[4] what would become of her? She sat until dawn in her shed with her hands clasped over her diaphragm, and answers did not come to her.

Just as the sun’s light seared a thin red line onto the wall of the shed, something else came through the window. It was a grey cat that jumped up on top of the high shelf where Ɵórí could not reach it. “You are making a beer fit for the great gods,” said the cat, looking down at her with eyes like half-moons. “So I hear, and so I smell.”

“Perhaps I am, and perhaps not,” said Ɵórí. She was weary. “You must be a clever small god to get in past the bound-gods guarding my shed. I suppose you want to taste my beer.”

“I won’t refuse,” said the cat, licking its lips. “But my reason for coming here is that I want to help you. You only have one month left to make a beer fit for the great gods, and still you don’t know how to do it.”

Ɵórí ladled some beer into a shallow bowl and placed it onto the ground for the cat, which jumped down and began to drink it. As it drank it became larger until it stood as tall as Ɵórí’s waist. “This is certainly a beer fit for small gods!” said the cat. “Now tell me, what have you been doing?”

Ɵórí explained and the cat watched her brew a batch of beer. “This is as good as beer can be made using human arts,” said the cat when it was finished. “But to make beer fit for the great gods you must use godly arts.” It arched its back and some of the hairs flew off to land in the fire, where they spat violet sparks. It dipped its paw into the blood-warm beer and whisked its tail so the steam came up in perfect spirals like nautilus shells; and it sang a song. Of course I cannot tell you what the song is! I’ve been sworn to secrecy! Any other kind of magic might need to be written out, but brewing is wilder magic than what wrote the world. Brewing is a magic that has forgotten ink; it is a magic blessed by the little sister of the gods.[5]

Now when Ɵórí tasted the beer she nearly swooned and her skin seemed to glow. Now when the cat tasted the beer it grew to the size of a lion and began to purr like an earthquake. “Now this is a beer fit for great gods!” it rumbled. “Good! Let us make more!”

They worked night and day and night to make eighteen barrels of the beer fit for the great gods, and four days before the appointed day they were finally able to rest. Ɵórí’s daughters and young children and their other parents had prepared a huge feast. They had roasted roots and locust-flour pancakes with soft cheese. They had porridge with sausage and tender fried grubs and delicate fruit pies. And of course they had beer! You’ve never seen such beer. Sweet beer cakes, small beer for the young children, and everyone had a taste of the beer fit for the great gods. People came from all over Ŋísh to have a taste, but three barrels were all for the House of SHóry. Three days later they were still drunk!

On the morning of the fourth day Ɵórí got her daughters to help her roll the barrels out into the courtyard, and no sooner were they all laid out than the youth in green came knocking on the gate!

E was ushered inside and got to taste the beer. “Yes!” e crowed, glowing like a firefly. “This is a beer fit for the great gods!” A bird flew up off yr shoulder, and soon a procession of teŋríech[6] came in through the gate with saddles ready to take the casks of beer. With them was a solemn person who was not a youth but who did not have the chin tattoo of a grown woman. E was likewise dressed in green, and e presented Ɵórí with a mirror taller than a woman and as wide as two. The frame was brass, carved with every kind of flower and leaf, and all around the edge were protective charms in beautiful calligraphy.

The procession rode away, and Ɵórí put up the mirror in the front hall of the house.

Of course, this was not the last time she saw the youth! She was the favorite brewer of the great gods until she died; but somehow it was always that youth with the flashing eyes who came to give her the commission. She would invite in that great god[7] and sit in the window with em, and with a grey cat the size of a lion curled up under it; and they all three would drink beer until the moon rose.

-----------------------------

Notes on the text

[1] A woman would not go to the trouble of getting a tattoo commemorating the birth of a child who she did not intend to have a large part in raising; this indicates that Ɵórí is not absorbed in her work but rather does what she does for the sake of her community.

[2] In plays, actors wear green to indicate that their character is a god or spirit in disguise. This is generally considered to be an artistic signal, not something that is strictly true in the story.

[3] This would be “Ɵórí Ɵóróshú,” indicating that Ɵórí’s name was picked as a sort of pun (although it’s also a reasonably common name in the north).

[4] Ɵórí assumes, rightly, that the youth dressed in green is one of the children of 6 Mirror of the Forest, whose house is known to be in the dark forest north of Ŋísh.

[5] Despite not being the youngest among the great gods, 10 Creeping Mushrooms is known as their little sister. 10 Creeping Mushrooms is the matron of not only decay but also of fermentation. She is also something of a trickster figure or wild god, considered to be the matron of the large quick salamanders known for carrying off sacks of locusts.

[6] A teŋrúech is an animal with spreading toes and small horns, often used to carry or pull loads. They are not large enough for an adult woman to ride, however.

[7] As listeners to the story we know that this youth was 54 Signal Flash, the youngest child of Glass and the most mischievous; and I daresay Ɵórí had some idea as well, even if e never told her yr name.

#Eŋenty #fiction #read my folk tales!#(Ŋ is a capital letter eng)

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