I might have said it before, I don't remember, but while Return of the King the movie has its flaws (more so than the other two imo) no other film has ever come close to making me feel the pure relief and elation of the last half hour. I can't even put it into words. No other happy ending feels that earned, no other journey feels as long and as complete as this one. People can joke about the 5 successive ending scenes but I'd gladly sit through 10 more of those because it feels like coming home and home is heaven.

Butterflies in the Garden

Written for the ‘Fools in Love’ Persona Fan Zine (@personafoolsinlovezine)

Genre: soulmates, soulmate indentitpre-romance, M/M Rated: K Characters: Souji Seta (Yu Narukami), Akira Karusu (Ren Amamiya), Margaret, Izanagi, mentions of the IT Warnings: none Status: zine fic, oneshot; complete

Your name is Souji Seta, and you do not have a soulmate.

Your name is Souji Seta, and you do not have a soulmate.

Even as a child, when your classmates started sprouting colors, Lover’s Marks around their wrists, Platonic Marks across their backs, your skin has always been blank. You used to watch the other children as they gleefully showed off their growing ink and giggled over whose Marks might match their own. You envied them at first. Now you just feel numb.

Over time you’ve come to accept your Mark-less existence. You don’t like it, you don’t want it, but a lifetime of changing schools and absent parents means you’re no stranger to being alone. Eventually you just stop caring. At least, you tell yourself you’ve stopped caring; it’s easier than facing the gaping void of loneliness threatening to choke you whenever your guard is down.

Maybe this is better, you think. Maybe your lack of Soul Marks is the universe’s way of helping you deal with the isolation in your everyday life.

(You chant your “maybe’s” in your head and stop crying yourself to sleep by the time you reach age 9.)

---

Your flowers finally bloom when you turn 16.

A year is spent in a rural town called Inaba, where, for the first time in your existence, you actually feel alive. There are murders, a mystery, but in between the stress and combat there are people, and as you slowly get to know them you can feel your garden grow.

They start as tingles across your shoulder blades, the sensation of warm water spreading like ink along your skin. You wake one morning to find stems and buds. You wake the next to petals and leaves. Sunflowers for the Magician, hyacinth and amaryllis for the Chariot and Priestess. Gladiolus, then pink roses; lilac, then iris. There is freesia for your cousin, a dahlia for her dad. An entire field of Platonic Marks springs up almost overnight, and little by little they bury the emptiness beneath vibrant shades of love until you’re covered neck to waist in watercolor blooms.  

But for all the tattooed beauty of the flowers on your back there is still a blank spot on your canvas, and the colors fade in sadness on the day you have to leave.

---

You stop dreaming about the Velvet Room when you move back to Tokyo. You miss it, the way you miss everything else about Inaba, but your contract has been fulfilled and the logical part of you knows you have to readjust to life as a normal person. It takes ages, but you begrudgingly fall back into your boring, lonely life. You clutch at your shoulders when it gets to be unbearable; when texts and calls to your garden of friends just aren’t enough, you find your fingers searching out the comfort of the blossoms on your back.

Months pass by the time you’ve finally accepted that you’ll never see the liminal blue dreamscape again, and it’s because of this that you’re so completely unprepared for the night when, out of absolutely nowhere, you feel that familiar sensation of falling just as you’re drifting asleep.

“Honored friend,” comes the silvery-sweet voice of Margaret in your ear. “May I ask a personal favor?”

You do not hesitate, you simply tell her, “yes.”

The world around you is cold and harsh when feeling returns to your body. You open your eyes to find yourself in a… cage? Stumbling to the bars, you look out into the blue-tinted room beyond your cramped enclosure and realize that you are not in a cage, but a prison.

The walls curve away from you in a circle of cells too dark to see inside, but from what you can tell, the center of the space is empty.

Someone lurks behind you in the dark; you do not need to turn to know who it is. “There is something wrong with the Velvet Room,” Margaret whispers over your shoulder. “I cannot seem to contact my Master and I fear this new guest may be in danger.” You hear her move, hear the creak of her Compendium as it opens.

Faintly, from all the way across the room in the cell directly opposite yours, there comes the sound of rustling chains. Instinctively you step back into the safety of the shadows as a figure, clad in white-and-black prison garb, shuffles up to the bars of that distant cell. You cannot make out features, only the monochrome of skin and charcoal hair.

“Hello?” the figure calls, and the voice is male.

“Hello?!” he calls more insistently, voice hitching in building unease. “Is anyone there?”

You don’t like this. You don’t like what the Velvet Room’s become and you don’t like that there’s a boy in chains across from you in the empty dark. “Let me help,” you whisper, eyeing the oppressive space around you with creeping dread. “This isn’t right, let me help.”

You practically feel Margaret’s smile. “I was hoping you’d offer.” The Compendium snaps shut.

Something rises from your soul: an old, familiar presence that you nearly weep to feel again, lightning-charged and sizzling through your veins like a pulse. There’s a surge of ethereal blue light and past the glow, through a pair of eyes not quite your own, you see the boy in the other cell take a step backwards in shock.

When the light dims, Izanagi stands triumphant in the center of the room.

Through your Persona’s vision you see the boy more clearly. He’s roughly your age, with curling black hair and wide dark eyes set in a beautiful, seraphim face. He stares up at you-not-you in fear and awe and somewhere in the back of your head you hear Izanagi’s voice like a rumbling, distant storm.

I am thou.

But thou are not I.

The boy’s bow furrows in frustrated confusion. “I don’t understand.”

You watch through Izanagi’s eyes as he silently appraises the boy in the cell. Eventually you feel him nod.

You’ll do.

The world glows white-hot.

There’s a sensation of something shifting – relocating – and suddenly you’re blind. In place of your sight, however, comes an acute awareness of someone else, like your awareness of Margaret behind you only stronger, deeper, like you’re somehow folded up in another person and they in you. Any hollow place that once existed within you is gone, filled to the brim with this feeling of him, the boy who now holds the most profound piece of your soul.

It’s the most intimate thing you’ve ever felt in your life and you are very nearly brought to tears.

Your vision fades back in, leaving you once more inside your own body, and from across the way you can see the boy staring at his hands in pure wonder. He flexes his fingers, brings them up to press against his chest as if he’s feeling for something past his sternum. He looks up, and those dark, wide eyes meet yours.

“Who are you?” he whispers, but you feel it in your head all the same.

You get no chance to answer. Margret’s hand is on your shoulder before you can open your mouth, and into your ear she murmurs, “It’s best if we leave now, honored friend.”

You want to protest, shake her hand off, shout your name back at the boy and ask for his, but your body feels weightless, detached from your surroundings, and you blink to find the room around you blurring at the edges.

You wake up alone in the physical world, blinking away fresh tears. The feeling of completeness is still there, though, and as you stare up at the ceiling and focus, you can just make out the faint stirrings of Izanagi from somewhere far away. “Come back,” you whisper to the boy that cannot hear you. “Please …”

When the sun rises a few hours later, flooding your bedroom with light, you notice something beneath the cuff of your shirtsleeve. There, on your left wrist, in brilliant cyan-blue, is a Lover’s Mark in the shape of a swooping butterfly.

---

Life doesn’t change too much. You weren’t sure if it would because you’ve never had a soulmate before and don’t know what it’s meant to feel like, but the garden on your back hadn’t really changed anything either, so you suppose this is normal. Something that does change is the way you can sense his emotions whenever they’re strong enough.

Determination comes through a lot, as does defiance. You wonder what kind of life your soulmate is living where he’s constantly on edge, constantly tense or stressed. Anxiety and anger are common as well, and you don’t like that the negative emotions are what you get most often because you can’t tell if they’re what he feels the strongest or what he feels most frequently. Neither one is good.

You worry for him, send him thoughts of strength where you can, whisper, “you’ll get through this, I believe in you” into the butterfly, and pray that it reaches him when he needs it. You don’t know him, not even his name or where he is, but you’ve wanted him your whole life and now that you know he exists you already want to protect him. Sometimes there’s a flicker of something in return, but you can’t make out what it is.

There are times, however, when you swear you can feel his happiness. It’s soft, more focused than the other emotions, and always at night when you’re lying in bed thinking. There’s something like longing hiding in there as well, and you know this because you’ve known forever what longing feels like. The butterfly on your wrist tingles with warmth; you dare to hope it means he’s thinking about you, too.

It’s during those witching-hour moments, when you’re alone with the memory of dark eyes and even darker curls, that you press your palm over your new Lover’s Mark and pour every ounce of yearning and curious affection from your heart into this budding bond between you. You like to imagine that the faint, giggly joy you feel afterwards is him answering you back.

But your luck always runs out.

You awake in a feverish sweat one terrible, soul-rending night in November, with after-images of torture flashing behind your eyes and fear crackling in your ribs like Izanagi’s being torn apart from the inside out. It doesn’t let up even after you blink away the nightmare, and your entire body shakes violently with adrenaline not wholly your own.

You gasp into the darkness, searching for any scrap of familiar feeling you can use as an anchor to ground the both of you on either side of the bond. All you feel is chaos, a steady stream of spectral pain. You curl in on yourself then, instinctively wrapping your hand over the butterfly and clutching until your knuckles turn white. “I’m here,” you whisper, hoping against hope that he can hear you. “I’m here, I’m here, I’m here…”

There’s a feeling like something slotting between the fingers of your left hand, like someone is desperately gripping it, and you clench your fist in response as if you could hold his hand from far away and not let go. You stay that way until everything fades into a drug-like silence, sobbing against your Lover’s Mark and rocking back and forth until well after dawn.

Later, as you’re sluggishly getting ready for school with the morning news in the background, it’s announced that the leader of the infamous Phantom Thieves killed himself last night while in police custody. Somehow, with a gut-dropping surety that you cannot explain, you know.

You don’t go to classes that day – instead, you crawl back into bed in a daze and lay there with your lips pressed against the faded butterfly, your heart freezing over inside your chest.  

---

Your Mark is silent after that.

Your hope begins to dim to embers, not yet dead but slowly dying as the months roll by. Sometimes, at night, it feels like maybe there’s still something there – an echo of lonely sorrow ghosting across your soul, but it always vanishes too quickly for you to catch. No matter how fervently you plead afterwards, there is never any response.

You look for solace in denial; old “maybe’s” sit like poison in your mind and you quickly discard them when all they do is make you sick. You cling to your garden of platonic flowers, but even they bring little comfort now that you’ve had a glimpse of something deeper.

Ever observant, your Magician is the first to notice your despondence. He calls you, asks if you’re okay, doesn’t believe you when you tell him you are. He calls again later to say he’s bought a train ticket to Tokyo for spring break, and despite your hollowness the sunflowers on your back grow a little brighter at the news.

March arrives and with it comes your friend, his presence a balm to your shattered heart. You talk for hours, catching up those months spent apart and, miserably, you tell him about your once-vibrant Lover’s Mark. It’s grey now, the color all but gone in your despair, and you’re grateful when he empathizes but doesn’t ask to see.

Three days into his visit you’re… better, so he drags you off to Shibuya for a change of scenery. It’s fun, hours passing with easy laughter, and you realize you’d forgotten what it felt like not to hurt.

You’re halfway to the arcade when it happens.

Out of nowhere comes a sharp, stinging pain – it lances up your arm, tracing the lines of your butterfly like lightning, and Izanagi roars to life inside your soul.

Go.

You run.

You don’t know your destination, nor how your feet know where to go; it doesn’t matter. You follow the pull inside your heart, letting Izanagi direct you left, right, straight for a block then down into an empty, open alleyway, heedless of your Magician calling out behind you.

Then Izanagi’s presence abruptly disappears.

You stumble to a halt. Heart hammering and confused, you nearly miss the sound of pounding footsteps steadily coming closer until they’re just beyond the opposite entrance to the alley. You turn as a figure rounds the corner—

and freeze.

Wide eyes stare at you from behind crooked glasses, dark beneath darker curls in a beautiful, seraphim face. “You,” he whispers, taking a step towards you.

And then you’re both moving. You meet as one in a tangle of grasping desperation, tugging at each other’s wrists to reveal an identical pair of butterflies in shining, brilliant blue. Your fingers in his hair, his arms around your waist, and somewhere in the middle your lips connect in a kiss that feels and tastes like home.

“You’re alive,” you nearly sob when you pull apart, at the same time he murmurs in awe, “you’re real.”

Your name is Souji Seta, and you are 17 when Akira Kurusu calls you his soulmate.

Stories told of the vibrant bloom that lay hidden within the dark forest. Many had heard the tales, but few were brave enough to even look for it. Eventually, though, the temptation would lure in some souls and they would delve into this ancient land. Wild beasts and insidious plants haunted this grove, driving away the weak and unsure. Some, however, would brave these threats, believing the reward to be well worth the price. For the tales spoke of a plant that could tell the future, giving invaluable advice and knowledge to those who found it. Even if they did find its resting place, their struggles would not be over. These same legends also mentioned that one face of this creature would speak lies and foul words, leading fools to graves instead of fortunes. Only those who discovered its true face would be privy to the real reward, and they would be granted fortunes that would guide them well. To those who finally stumbled upon this colorful being, it was now time for bargains and riddles. The rooted dancer brought awe with its beauty and its silver tongue often won many hearts, but such things were mere illusions. This was not what they truly sought for, as this graceful being would only grant them ruin. They must find the hidden speaker of truths, and that is no easy feat. At this points, the tales diverge. Some say that fitting offerings are what bring forth the true face, while others say that solving a riddle is the key. Perhaps speaking with this divine creature will grant one clues to this task, and they may finally uncover the true prophet. No one knows for sure, for the answer seems to change with each individual. If one is clever and giving, then the great flower will relent. From its mouth will emerge a small flower, who shall bow before the triumphant hero. This tongue holds the true face, and from it will come its invaluable words. At last granted this sage advice, the victor shall leave and fulfill their destinies. Those who wield this knowledge wisely will find fortune and fame, which will then be followed by a sudden and miserable demise. For this small bloom speaks true, but it fails to mention things like consequences and what will happen after. Legends and tales can speak truth, but much of it is obscured by vagaries and hyperbole. Stories passed down through time and faulty minds lose details and grow murky. It is why people vanish into ruins and jungles for vaults that have long been emptied. It is why folk hold hope for the return of gallant heroes who have actually been dead for decades. And it is why dreamers seek the future when many find such destiny to be a pretty miserable one. All they know is that the true, hidden face will give the great reward and that is what they go off of. So when the grand flower vomits forth another head, they do not think twice. Surely this is the true face the legends speak of! This has to be the prophet that I have searched for! Right? In all actuality, no. The small hidden bloom is not the face that they seek. In fact, those who stand before the writhing flower have already lost the game. This vibrant symbol of beauty is not at all what they are after. What they are searching for isn't even in the sacred grove at all, it is actually under it. Hidden by centuries of overgrowth, ruin and half-remembered stories is a tunnel, one that leads down into the earth. Those who somehow find this buried, invisible entrance shall walk its ancient path and find some gnarled thing deep in the dark. A creature of knotted roots and misshapen growths, its appearance would bring revulsion to those who see it (if anyone even found it, that is). Though some may be disgusted, they should not flee, for this is the prophet they actually seek. She is the true face. Buried down below, she is the one that holds the wondrous knowledge and promising fortunes. The problem is, is that no one finds her. Ever. It has been centuries and no one has found the overgrown entrance and plunged downward to see her. No heroes to ask for aid, no dreamers to inquire about their destinies. Not a soul. For all this time, she has just sat down in this dark pit, rooted to this single spot. She vainly hopes that someone will come and visit. That someone will come to talk with her, but so far no one has. Those few who find this grove instead speak to the flower that sprouts from her body, and that is not the same thing. The beautiful plant is a separate being from her, having its own desires and thoughts. Such a growth may be some kind of parasite, taking over the role she once had so long ago. Or perhaps this vibrant thing was once a part of her, a bitter thought that grew and grew. After so long of being alone and forgotten, such poison is sure to brew. Let the shallow fools come, and may their assumptions take them to their tomb. She couldn't help thinking these things, but sadly it is too late now. Her venom now dances above her head, claiming any who could ever give her hope. Oh when will somebody find me? When will somebody come to visit? It is so lonely down here.... ---------------------------------- Just felt like drawing some plant monster one time. Nothing too special or crazy here!

Treasure amidst the City

It was a lazy Sunday morning, I had just woken up, took my phone and plugged it for charging and sat on the sofa still waiting for my body to come out of slumber. This was a daily routine. I sat there gazing at the greenery outside from my living room balcony. My balcony faces the garden from where you can see the Ashoka trees with their thick foliage, few coconut trees at a distance and a badam tree and a peepal tree at the periphery. There is something soothing and calming in this sight of the leaves fluttering in the breeze, movement of birds from one tree to another and the melody of various bird sounds. Obviously the crows are the lead vocalists you hear but in the background one can hear the different artist pitching in and it is those artists and contributors that make it a melody.

So as I was saying, it was a typical start to the day and as I sat there my brother tells me that he just saw a crow sized black bird with brown wings flying and settling behind the thick floiage of Ashoka tree, intrigued I joined him in the balcony and now we were trying to get a glimpse of it, hoping the breeze would shuffle the leaves a bit or the bird would make a movement to enable us to get a sight of it. And just moments later we see the leaves move at a place due to the birds movement and a closer look gives us the glimpse of the light brown back of the bird. Its like a trailer which keeps us interested and as we keep looking at the tree we are able to track its movement behind the leaves as it is a big bird. Finally it comes and settles at one of the branches towards the outer end giving us a full view and it was a triumphant moment as our patience bore fruit. As we admired it's beauty we realized it bigger then a crow, I asked my brother to take a pic so that we can flaunt it but just as he went to get his phone the bird took flight stretching it's brown wings and it was a beautiful sight. My brother came back with the phone and I told him it's gone. Nature had done a good balancing act. He saw it come and settle. I saw it settle and leave.

The next step was to google the description and find out who the unexpected visitor was. The result was immediate. The beauty is called 'Crow pheasant' or 'the Greater coucal'. I liked the name greater coucal. It suits the image of the bird. Crow pheasant makes it sound ordinary and it was not ordinary. The internet image helped us admire it's finer details like it's orange eyes and the blackish Purple body. Step 3 was to share our discovery of sorts with fellow beings with its name and internet image. Wow what a start it was to my day and I sat there with a sense of joyous fulfillment.

The events of the morning took me down memory lane and to the reason why this plain looking at trees, listening to bird sounds and occasional rare bird specie sighting is so pleasing to me. And this friends is the treasure I want to reveal. My family moved in to this Mumbai society in 1986 right after yours truly was born. Since my childhood I remember not waking up to the alarm but chirping of sparrows. We didn't have ACs in those days and both the bedroom windows would be kept open to let the air pass and keep the room temperature pleasant. One of the bedroom windows had similar view as from my living room balcony being adjacent to each other. And the next bedroom window had a green curtain of sorts. And no I am not talikng about the cloth ones. Once you open the cloth curtain you will find a Ashoka tree almost hugging the window grill and this was the abode of the sparrows. And our society has these Ashoka trees at a distance of every 6 feet along the motorable road inside the colony. So that window was flanked by this Ashoka tree and one to its either side. As if this wasn't enough, we have a mango tree just behind these Ashoka trees, so even between those Ashoka trees all you can see was green. And in this way the sparrows became our early morning alarm. I don't see them much now and the sound has also gone down several notches. Also the AC being used now has made us close the window :(. So as kids we woke up with a natural alarm and mom and dad used to carry us to the living room and setlle us on the sofa there. And though we didn't value the sight from our balcony much then, we now realize it was paradise. With the years gone by the present day view from the balcony desribed above has changed a bit. In our childhood days the green from the Ashoka trees was complimented by a bright red gulmohar tree in its full bloom. This and a full grown cocnut tree with its branches spread out was what we saw every morning. This coconut tree was right in front of the balcony and the badam and peepal tree were visible from between it's branches then. If only I could do anything to have that sight again.

The parrots were regular early morning visitors of the coconut tree and unlike other kids we never found parrots rare or exotic as we used to see them everyday. The gulmohar had a charm of it's own. The blazing red had a different beauty during sunset with the mix of orange skies. When the red petals fell to the ground it seemed as if the gulmohar has a laid out a red carpet for residents of the society. We lost the coconut tree to pests and the gulmohar to construction of a building. Had instagram and camera phones existed then, my balcony view would have been my best muse. 

One other thing which is worth mentioning is the sweet sounds of the cuckoo that summers brought with them. The cuckoo has always been a frequent visitor. As kids you just enjoyed the sound and didn't take the pains to find the bird. That and the cuckoo made it difficult too. Everyone will agree it's not easy to spot one. But that too was accomplished when I sat to study in my bedroom window during my CA days. As opposed to a crow it had a slender body, longish tail and a smaller beak. Spotting a cuckoo till date is exciting as it's not as common as the parrots were. Summers also meant school vacations and I am glad that  unlike kids of today, we spent our childhood vacations in outdoor activities. We used to play cricket in the morning till lunch time and after lunch we used to meet again as sleep was considered waste of good vacation time. Tired from the morning cricket and full with lunch we used to just sit and chill in the afternoon. And the place to chill was our colony garden. We had a tree we called our own. This was a small tree bearing small white flowers with a 4-5 feet trunk and branches going upwards in all directions from the center. Thus once you climbed the trunk you had 4-5 strong branches to sit and lean on. The tree easily managed the weight of 4 ten year olds. And our afternoons were spent mostly sitting on the tree and at other times playing marbles in the soft red soild in its shade. As we grew up while the sitting on the tree remained the same the tree changed. The small white flower bearing tree no longer could fit us and we had our sights on bigger things. Now we could climb the trunk of the mango tree. Not the one near my bedroom balcony but the one in our garden. Yes we had 6 mango trees in the colony and the seventh one had its trunk outside but the fruit bearing portion was inside our colony. So the teenage afternoons were spent on the mango tree in the garden. We used to pluck mangoes targetting the fruit with rubber balls or using a bamboo to pluck them. The mango fruit is also of different varieties as we all know. And the tree in our garden had a peculier variety. The fruit was round and slighly bigger in size. We used to call it 'Laddu keri' cause of the round shape. And we took pride in it as this was nothing of the ordinary. After plucking the raw mangoes we used to ask the society Gardner to slice them for us and give us a mixture of salt and red chilli powder to eat with it. Till date it's a pleasure to see the mango trees in full bloom with the fruits just before the arrival of the monsoon. 

With so much greenary around the beautifully coloured butterflies and hyper active squirells were a common sight. But we have also spotted snakes in our garden while playing cricket and an owl twice or thrice at night. One thing i find silly now is the fact that we never stopped playing in the garden despite the snake sightings. We might have stopped a game a couple of times but we used to be back the next day or the same evening if we had stopped a game in the morning. Over the years I have seen many rare birds be it from my balcony or while studying for my CA on my terrace (cost me an attempt) [list below]. Nature, thus, was always an integral part of my growing up. No doubt it has a calming and soothing effect on me till date. This greenery around me is like a treasure in the midst of this hustling and bustling city.

Other notable bird visitors - 

Magpie Robin it's a songster very melodious

Purple rumped sunbird - small and elegant

White spotted fantail - its got a name from its look, yes it has a fanned tail.

Eurasian golden oriole - this was a rare sighting. I have never seen a yellow bird before and it wasn't difficult to find a yellow bird native to Mumbai on Google.

#nature #birds #birdlover #Mumbaibirds #birdwatcher

-Bhavik

A To Z Immortal Love

Alluring; wholesomely luring even the most remotely alien; in its captivatingly spell binding swirl for centuries immemorial, Auguring; magnificently evolving the most supremely royal destiny; that you would ever encounter on the trajectory of this mesmerizing planet, Attractive; drifting even the most incorrigibly ruthless heads in its direction; as it magnetically trespassed across voluptuous soil, Acclimatizing; blossoming beyond the zenith of wonderfully bestowing eternity; even in the most tumultuously ferocious rain; and ungainly storm, Was the cradle of immortal love; not only bonding two bodies for countless births; but perpetually ensuring that their breaths diffused passionately together; for boundless decades yet to come. Beautiful; charming even the most languidly dreariest of leaf in the morbid atmosphere; with its stupendous vivacity, Blooming; sprouting and proliferating incomprehensible more of its kind; as every instant unveiled into a complete minute, Bountiful; bequeathing upon every impoverished entity; whether rich or indigent; the magic of symbiotic existence; alike, Blessed; engendering you to feel the richest organism on this Universe; once you made its compassionate beats an indispensable ingredient of your wandering soul, Was the sky of immortal love; not only showering the rain of passionate goodness upon treacherously trembling soil; but perpetually ensuring that it spawned into a civilization of exuberant enthrallment; as every morning freshly overtook the previous sinister night. Captivating; inevitably drawing even the most diabolical of demons to replenish their shattered lives; with its perennial juice, Camaraderie; affably bonding disgruntled souls in threads of friendship; enshrouding their bodies with divine benevolence, Compassionate; triggering fireballs of untamed desire even in the heart of the murderously frigid night, Calisthenics; astoundingly demonstrating that Herculean power can articulately evolve into a tornado of incredulous eloquence, Was the fortress of immortal love; not only invincibly defending the most sacred manifestations of eternal romance; but perpetually ensuring that they blissfully gallivanted in corridors of unfettered yearning. Delectable; as nimble as the fleet footed and innocuous rabbit; although it towered above everything else on this fathomless Universe, Dreamy; rhapsodically fantasizing in the island of gregarious fascination; even as the lecherous indiscriminately sucked blood outside, Doughty; marvelously facing every acrimonious obstacle that came its way; triumphantly marching past the limits of unparalleled success, Dimpled; charismatically blushing into a valley of profound ecstasy; as you relentlessly stared at its tantalizingly seductive contours, Was the ocean of immortal love; not only pacifying the overwhelmingly scorched ground of betrayal; but perpetually ensuring that it spawned into a paradise or irrefutable truth; and unfathomable belonging. Eloquent; disseminating its magnanimous melody to every barbarically estranged cranny of this unsurpassably gargantuan Universe, Everlasting; spiraling into a cloud of handsome fragrance beyond infinite infinity; leaving its essence of celestial peace and harmony wherever it went, Endowed; inundating each iota of lackluster countenances with unbelievable talent and Oligarchic charm, Emollient; disbursing its heavenly scent to all those arenas of the gargantuan continent; besieged with inexplicable despair and euphemistic pain, Was the ring of immortal love; not only binding all irrespective of caste; creed; color or race; but perpetually ensuring that they embraced each other in whirlpools of passionate desire; till the time they relinquished their final breath. Fabulous; stupendously casting its spell of unconquerable enigma; upon every lecherously monotonous soul staggering towards hopeless extinction, Flowering; redolently springing into petals of optimistic light; to enlighten the lives of those deprived; and defunct of vibrantly melodious life, Fragrant; ubiquitously disseminating the divinely aroma of brotherhood; in every speck of soil coalesced with; horrendously stinking manipulation and malice, Fructifying; yielding the most priceless gifts of egalitarian humanity; without the most tiniest of investment or prejudice, Was the rainbow of immortal love; not only perpetuating dungeons of obnoxious gloom with thunderbolts of perennial hope; but ensuring that every organism black or white; knocked the doors of glittering success; alike. Grandiloquent; basking in the glorious splendor of resplendent beauty and exotically unfurling newness, Gyrating; pulsating to the most stupefying tunes of ecstatic excitement; as the crimson fireball of Sun transcended beyond the golden horizons, Giving; philanthropically donating all elements and celestial virtues; that surged forward to construct the most formidably resilient human kind, Glittering; shimmering in the aisles of unmatched splendor and grace; to metamorphose all devastating disease; into a profusely Omnipotent garland of happiness, Was the island of immortal love; not only instilling back euphoric cheer in the eyes of all those miserably shivering and divested; but perpetually ensuring that they intrepidly arose to the occasion called life; granting them a countless bountiful breaths; more to survive. Highest; superceding everything else that was tangible and intangible; on the bedspread of this overwhelmingly mystifying Universe, Handsome; majestically portraying each element of gorgeously endowing life; in the most dynamically supreme of its forms, Heavenly; making every benign entity philandering passionately on this planet; manifest in entirety towards the pinnacle of its ultimate dreams, Hallmark; the epitome of all achievements and fulfillment in destined life; distributing its sacrosanct virtue to every despicably devastated entity exhausted of life, Was the immortal blanket of love; not only sequestering all those maimed and deplorably shivering in the winds of its congenial warmth; but ensuring that they resided as the ultimate kings of prosperity; for infinite more births; yet to come. Ingratiating; spectacularly unveiling into a myriad of insurmountable brilliance; for all those deluged with disgusting solitude, Incarcerating; imprisoning everyone all mortal and immortals; in its immaculately divine carpet of rhapsodic joy, Innocuous; metamorphosing every commercially rotting entity; into realms of holistically sacrosanct childhood; once again, Invincible; unflinchingly withstanding the most acridly mighty onslaught of the treacherous devil, Was the fruit of immortal love; not only placating the hunger of all those despairingly decimated; but perpetually ensuring that nobody with a benign heart; never ever slept a famished night. Jaunty; forever smiling in a world of magical contentment; away and completely oblivious to the pathetically ludicrous vagaries; of this cold-blooded world, Jingling; merrily cajoling even the most invidiously frazzled senses; with the profoundly oriental enchantment; in its glorious voice, Juvenile; exploring and discovering a whole new world of fabulous excitement as each instant unleashed; romancing in the tantalizing clouds of unsurpassable eternity, Jolly; forever blooming in the unprecedented ardor of existence; dissipating the true exhilaration of priceless life, Was the pearl of immortal love; not only filtering divinely bliss through a hideously distorted web of mangled lies; but perpetually ensuring that the rudiments of survival; always stayed united above the rest. Kingly; overshadowing all debris and abhorrent violence on the periphery of this boundless earth; to emerge irrevocably triumphant in every sphere of inscrutably seductive life, Kind; hugging all those baselessly orphaned trembling on the dusty streets; granting them holistic shelter in its majestic arms, Karmic; philanthropically spreading the message of brotherhood and sharing; without expecting the slightest of emolument or salute, Kaleidoscopic; encompassing multitudinal colors of a purifying existence; swaying nostalgically in waves of titillating longing; incessantly adding new dimensions to fatigued life, Was the immortal Sun of love; not only fumigating the earth to be bereft of treachery and crime; but perpetually ensuring that the clouds showered globules of peace; upon every molecule created by the Almighty Lord; alike. Lascivious; igniting thunderbolts of intimidating desire; even in the heart of the savagely frozen and sulking pond, Luminating; radiating the sacred effulgence of humanity to far and wide; caressing all those severely afflicted with its mesmerizing humanitarian touch, Loquacious; indefatigably bubbling in the fullest spirit of life; impregnating countless in the whirlpool of its never-ending enthusiasm, Lovely; enveloping each grotesquely stumbling organism in the realms of gregariously convivial fantasy, Was the immortal mountain of love; not only defending the unequivocally righteous cause of humanity from even the most infinitesimal trace of evil; but perpetually ensuring that each contaminated bit of lies; transformed into a cloud above paradise. Marvelous; ruling the earth with the reigns of equality; ever since the time it was created, Majestic; governing the entire impoverished planet with supreme tranquility and charm; representing a civilization uninhibitedly encapsulated with gloriously pulsating life, Mollifying; mellowing cataclysmically unruly storms; with the enamoring sweetness in its sound, Mystical; weaving a trail of compassionate fascination; for every living being to wholeheartedly trespass upon, Was the immortal ship of love; not only wading like a resplendent fairy through the most bizarre of maelstroms; but perpetually ensuring that life on the planet; never came to a ghastly standstill. Nutritious; instilling scintillatingly sparkling radiance; in every being tottering uncouthly in the dormitories of saddened darkness, Nostalgic; transiting even the most monotonously ungainly; into realms of playfully Godly childhood, Nomadic; tirelessly surging from place to place; to shower upon one and all; the blessings of divinely sharing; alike, Noble; congenially bonding with even the most penurious of organisms slithering on cold soil; quenching the thirst of every bleary eyed traveler; with the nectar in its alluring senses, Was the immortal tree of love; not only rejuvenating the spirit of despondently dying mankind; but perpetually ensuring that diligent lovers; always remained bonded in bows of solidarity; for immemorial times. Oligarchic; seated on the most profusely embellished throne of unfathomable prosperity, Omnipotent; the most powerful spirit domineering one and all; on the crust of this handsomely blessed planet, Omnipresent; a cloud of unflinching brotherhood that embraced the entire globe in waves of ecstatic rhapsody; to reign supreme even after the sky had blended with threadbare soil, Omniscient; a poignantly clairvoyant breeze; which mapped your emollient destiny to unfurl; even centuries before you were born, Was the seed of immortal love; not only sprouting into countless new as each day transcended the sinister night; but perpetually ensuring that the branches of peace; brotherhood; always bloomed till the highest point of the sky. Princely; casting its royal spell upon diminishing souls; to grant them the most incredulous expedition of their starved lives, Poignant; passionately philandering through the lanes of sizzling desire; tingling every bit of soil that it tread on; with its spell binding stride, Piquant; astoundingly bewildering the irascibly pertinent tycoon with the versatility in its footsteps; stinging the devilish with an arrow of candid righteousness, Pristine; immaculately shimmering in its amazingly virgin glory; not being adulterated even the slightest by the most lethal venom swinging freely around, Was the fireball of immortal love; not only blazing streaks of flamboyant brilliance in every continent it chose to gallivant in; but perpetually ensured that the beams of an enlightening tomorrow; swept past the haplessly staggering; for centuries unprecedented. Queenly; ubiquitously propagating the essence of harmony and humanity; to every organism strangulated with hideous malice, Quintessential; inhabiting the most cardinal positions in an individuals existence; instilling in him the unsurpassably miraculous wonders of this dexterous world, Qualitative; bestowing upon every disparagingly struggling entity; the most royal dream of his choice, Quantitative; indefatigably multiplying its wonderfully cascading essence; to envelop ruthlessly disgruntled souls in the waves of; vibrantly everlasting imagery, Was the disc of immortal love; not only drifting even the most devastated towards the fortress of utmost solidarity; but perpetually ensuring that the walls of unfettered freedom; grew more formidable in strength as each day; unfurled into the perilous night. Ravishing; perennially alluring even the morbid of corpses; with its marvelously silken grace and fascinating form, Realistic; incorrigibly propelling every organism to adhere to its roots; irrespective of all notorious poisoning of the manipulative society, Resplendent; glistening in a festoon of surreally titillating fantasy; benevolently cajoling and harboring all those without a roof, Rejuvenating; rekindling and superbly replenishing each derogatorily exhausted iota of the fragile visage, Was the fountain of immortal love; which not only triggered you to gush forward in every aspect of impoverished life; but perpetually ensured that you never abnegated your innocuously integral smile. Soothing; pacifying the traumatic agony in your breath; with its seductively gregarious whispers, Satisfying; placating your every brutally tyrannized nerve; with the magic of its; overwhelmingly heavenly touch, Stimulating; arousing even the most murkiest of corpses in the graveyard; with the lusciousness in its eternal demeanor, Sacrosanct; a holy spirit to which even the greatest of God's in the cosmos; bent down in appreciative obeisance, Was the immortal dwelling of love; not only impregnating in you the fortitude to bond in the religion of humanity; but perpetually ensuring that even the most diminutive of disaster stayed fathomless miles away from your; blooming countenance. Truthful; intransigently marching upon the path of benign goodness; massacring every trace of salacious evil that confronted it; in its impeccable way, Tantalizing; evoking you to inevitably continue God's sacred chapter of existence; with infernos of longing dancing ebulliently through your bloodstream, Tangy; embodying each moment of your morbidly clockwork existence; with the vivaciously euphoric spice of life, Tinkling; relentlessly fulminating with inexorable energy to relish life; entrenching all those aimlessly loitering in its; magnanimous swirl of compassionate brotherhood, Was the immortal fabric of love; not only safeguarding you against the freezing winds of winter as well as the acrimonious midday Sun; but perpetually ensuring that man shrug all cannibalism; to exist as a blessed human; once again. Ubiquitous; perennially showering its elements of peace and unflinching brethren; to mockingly belligerent parts of this colossal planet, Utopia; the ultimate paradise; pride and prosperity of all those alive; and the irrefutable crown of glory; of those about to yet inhale their very first breath, Uninhibited; possessing the astronomical freedom to follow the most innermost realms of the pulsating heart; even though the barbarically ruthless society tried to poke it; left; right and center, Unlimited; endlessly spreading its unconquerable reach to all those; deliberately tottering towards their ominous graves, Was the flower of immortal love; not only diffusing its stupendously charming fragrance to the farthest point of the globe; but perpetually ensuring that the wings of freedom always soared the highest in the clouds; in tandem and alike. Voluptuous; a garden of enamoringly seductive rose; that superbly blended with the color of the splendidly rubicund cheeks, Vast; encompassing every religion; caste and creed; in the titillating wisps of its blazingly everlasting romance, Vivacious; bubbling with untamed enthusiasm and a spirit that never died; even as death inevitably overtook all shades of life, Vibrant; astonishingly bedazzling even the most murderous plexus of the sordid night; with the aura of its unbelievably Omnipotent light, Was the chapter of immortal love; not only flooding the scorched banks of nothingness with pearls of reinvigorating wisdom; but perpetually ensuring that love stayed as the ultimate master; forever and ever and ever. Wacky; not following any dictatorially rigid direction or form; as it erupted in rampant spurts from the inner most recesses of the violently palpitating heart, Wealthy; the most opulent treasurehouse on this fantastically fecund Universe; pricelessly filtering the light of unity in every miserably cloistered house, Withstanding; undeterred by even the most turbulently ferocious onslaught upon its spotless grace; even as astronomically formidable civilizations crumbled like a pack of soggy cards, Witty; harboring the most uncanny sense of humor on this sprawling earth; tickling the coward hidden deep within you; with the gutsy elixir of animated life, Was the idol of immortal love; not only granting all philanthropically benign wishes of its followers; but perpetually ensuring that they evolved into a supremely compassionate; humankind. . X-mas; incessantly celebrating the festival of the happiness; exultating in a world of happiness; far away from the preposterously diabolical world, X-rayed; candidly expelling all the share of celestial good and horrific bad; even in the most remotely minuscule organism, Xanthic; dynamically dazzling in the most altruistically vibrant colors of life; alleviating suffering to reach the summit of unfathomable bliss, Xeroxed; replicating a carbon copy of its immutably sacrosanct ideals in every birth; which it had romantically coined at the commencement of the very first life, Was the sword of immortal love; not only granting wholesome reprieve from the diabolically slashing demon; but perpetually ensuring that every religion melanged into the stream of mesmerizing humanity. Yearning; gyrating in a whirlwind of exotic desire; being the ultimate cry of the ecstatically crying heart, Yielding; bequeathing the blissful wave of harmony upon man and animal alike; to give birth to a vibrantly blessed living kind, Yardstick; an ultimate milestone of astronomical success for every aspiring entrepreneur out there; making sure that those who tried their best; did ardently metamorphose the definitions of stale success, Youthful; perennially shrugging the leaves of withering and ailing disease; to escalate into a heaven of glittering newness, Was the summit of immortal love; not only breaking barriers of spurious caste; creed and color; but perpetually ensuring that the color of unequivocal sharing profusely deepened its shades; as each instant galloped into a monumental minute. Zealous; fervently pursuing the most sacred things in life; to unfurl into a whole new world of bountifully unending aspiration, Zapping; tumultuously stunning the entire world alike; with its unparalleled honesty and iridescent charm, Zooming; reaching all those who passionately wanted it; with a velocity more than what; white lightening could ever perceive, Zillion; lingering countless millions in eternal space; as it preached the religion of oneness; for decades unsurpassable, Was the candle of immortal love; not only flaming a path of everlasting brightness in drudgedly devastated lives; but perpetually ensuring that man and earth existed in harmonious unison; everytime God gave them an opportunity to do so; for fathomless times.

Knock, Knock Ch. 25: New Beginnings

Full disclosure: I literally just got off an actual real life pirate ship excursion and I might be a little drunk. But I wrote this sober, promise! I hope you enjoy this chapter - things are definitely wrapping up for our pirating lovebirds.

Read on AO3.

Read from the beginning on Tumblr.

Recovery wasn’t like it was in the movies and TV shows. Well, not in the happy ones at least.

Emma was miserable a lot of the time. Her voice was mostly back to normal, but the aching in her chest was still pretty severe. The burns she and Belle had suffered were admittedly minor by comparison to what they could have been, but they still hurt like a bitch (and didn’t look very aesthetically pleasing either).

And the pain. Ugh. The pain was nearly constant. She’d stopped taking the pills the doctor had given her – the addiction videos did their proper job of scaring the living daylights out of her – but now she was left at a constant 6-7/10 pain scale (definitely the level of one of the miserable looking emojis) and it was negatively impacting just about every part of her life.

“For God’s sake, Emma, is there any meal you will eat?!” David snapped at her, deeply frustrated by her current distaste for all food that wasn’t ice cream, frozen yogurt, or milkshakes.

“Sorry, dad, I’m just not feeling lasagna today. Especially not since you most definitely just bought this from Granny.”

“Well my pregnant wife and I got sick of putting in so much effort to try to cook you delicious, homemade meals just to have you turn your nose up at them! I know you’re going through a lot, Emma, but, quite honestly, you’re acting like a toddler. Mary Margaret and I are happy to have you here and we love you but I swear to God if you don’t eat this lasagna I’m going to throw it at you.”

Yeah, most people were at their breaking point with her.

Killian was the most patient, of course, but he’d finally broken just the day before. And what a delightful break that was (sarcasm).

You see, if this had been some movie, then Emma would have done some rehab to the tune of a quirky alternative rock song, would have had some montage where she slowly healed and Killian helped her do things while she beamed with her incandescent love, and most importantly she would have been on his fucking boat when he finally needed to get down to business (and not to defeat the Huns).

Ever since she woke up in the hospital she’d been dreaming of that first piratey excursion they’d have after her recovery. She’d probably have some bandages but play it off like it was all part of the costume. It would be fulfilling. Triumphant. It would make her forget how fucking stupid she could be sometimes and how that affected the people around her.

But no. The meds had made her loopy and the lack of meds had made her cranky. Saltwater hitting her wounds was a super ouchy – she discovered that just sitting at the goddamn docks, no less – and it turned out the rocking of the boat was something that really angered her severely battered insides.

So, yeah. Killian had to get back to work, had to execute some of her meticulously crafted plans – without her.

Today was the first one. It was the start of a weeklong camp, and Emma had been so excited for it. They were going to cover the history of the town, the types of creatures in the waters below them. And most importantly, they were going to tell stories. In trying to figure out how exactly to make these summer kid-adventures more interesting (and different from things they already offered), Emma wracked her brain about what really appeals to kids – what they want and what they need.

She’d had a shit life. Obviously. Well, most of it, anyway. But as is true with anyone, she still had those bright spots in her life that shone through all the darkness. Oddly enough, most of them involved fiction.

That’s what hit her. The reason that Killian’s pirate ship tours were so interesting wasn’t because people were interested in actual pirates – no, historically they were rapists, murderers, and thieves with halitosis and scurvy. What people were interested in were the stories. The folk legends. The fairy tales. So on the last two days of this camp, Killian would tell stories of his own – fake ones, of course, as Belle had already done a lesson on the “real” pirates of the region – and then the kids would create their own.

It’s something Emma had done a lot. Not in a controlled, educational setting, of course. More like while hiding in the woods from her abusive, mentally unstable foster father who was threatening to kill her and all the kids with a sawed off shotgun. But it was the same concept. We’re fascinated by fantastical things, fictional adventures, but when it comes down to it, we have all the ability inside us to create our own worlds and stories. And that’s something really powerful for kids – even the ones who aren’t damaged beyond all belief.

You could say Emma was bitter the night before Killian’s camp began, seeing as she wouldn’t be participating. In fact, the pregnant lady was going in her place, because apparently growing a child allowed you more capabilities than her own predicament did.

So she may have started a fight with Killian just before bed.

Despite it being less than 24 hours prior to her lasagna refusal, the details of the encounter were escaping her. What she didn’t forget, however, was Killian’s meltdown. It went something to the tune of you’re the one who put yourself in danger and tried to fucking leave me and you think you get to hold the burning building card forever, well I’ve got the same card in my pocket and I love you so much I can’t even put it into words but funny enough I have a lot of words for you right now that have nothing to do with love.

Emma reacted like a brat, which wasn’t fair. And Killian didn’t call her a brat – or any other b word for that matter – but she could see it in his eyes.

It was so damn frustrating not recovering quickly. Why couldn’t she just be Buffy Summers? Ugh. That’s right. Thinking she was Buffy Summers is exactly what got her into this mess in the first place.

(Non-slayers should probably await the firefighters’ assistance when exiting a burning building. She’s learned her lesson. Please, no more lectures.)

“Emma!” David’s voice boomed, bringing her out of her bitter reverie.

“What?” (She sounded like a sullen teenager, even to herself.)

“I’m giving you ten seconds to start eating that lasagna. One.”

“Or what, you’ll burn all my stuff? Too late. ”

“Two.”

“David, I’m not a child!”

“Three.”

“Seriously, you need to stop this.”

“Four.”

“You realize your kid isn’t even born yet, and you’ll already an annoying father.”

“Five.”

“You’re really not going to give this up, are you?”

“Six.”

“I’m going to text your wife and tell her you’re having some kind of pre-baby meltdown.”

“Seven.”

“Remember how I have serious injuries?!”

“Eight.”

“Burns and scrapes and sprains!”

“Nine.”

Emma crossed her arms and stared, I dare you written across her eyes.

“Ten.”

Before Emma could open her mouth to triumphantly declare having called David’s bluff, he reached over the table, picked her slice of lasagna up off her plate –

–  and (gently) smashed it onto her skull.

“What the hell?!”

“I warned you. Now go clean up while I cut you another piece. That you’ll fucking eat this time.”

David wasn’t one to swear very often. He was very Steve Rodgers about it all.

But Emma had broken him. Just like she’d broken everyone else.

-

The kids couldn’t have been happier. It was a lovely summer day – the storms of the weekend had given the coast the drink it desperately needed, so the flowers were blooming bright and the trees and grasses were greener than ever. The fish were jumping and the birds were cawing and there couldn’t possibly be a single thing missing in that perfect day.

You know, except his pirate princess of a partner.

She was feeling like shit. And he was trying so hard to just let her work through it all herself. Her guilt about everything was tangible, her mild regret about her heroics constantly on her mind – especially when it came to the limitations it was currently imposing on her. He knew that she was being a bitch because she was in pain and missing out on things and sorely unable to take the next step they’d promised each other because of her slow progress.

But there was only so much a man could take.

He regretting yelling at her. Why it had turned to a fight the previous night, he really couldn’t be sure. But he’d been bottling some bitter of his own and the thing about pushing down your feelings is that they inevitably come bursting out. Generally at a most inopportune moment.

So Emma had slept on the pull-out couch rather than in the guest room (their room), and he’d left in the morning before she’d awoken, and now he was on his ship carrying out her wonderful plans, all without her.

Mary Margaret could tell he was only half there. She was picking up a lot of his slack like a damn champ. She was answering all the kids’ questions and keeping them excited, even when Killian had clearly been somewhere else in his head. He was endlessly grateful for the fairer Nolan for putting her child-corralling expertise into practice while he… gathered his bearings.

He’d get through today. He’d put on a great show for the kids, make sure they learned something and were excited for tomorrow, and then he’d get home and fix things with his admittedly still ailing princess.

Deep breaths.

-

After washing her hair (and changing her shirt), Emma quietly walked back to the kitchen, sat down at her place at the table, and ate two full pieces of lasagna without a word. David just stood there, arms crossed, looking at everything but Emma (while clearly also keeping an eye on her in his periphery to make sure she wasn’t tossing scraps in the trash).

With the newspaper already opened in front of her, Emma started browsing. The police reports were always fun – small seaside towns had some quirky little problems, to be sure – but it was the Classifieds that caught her attention most.

Especially the 2-bedroom house for rent just a couple of blocks from where Killian kept his ship. It was so close to the water that they could probably see the shore from the upstairs. Was that where the bedrooms were? Could Emma get so lucky as to live in a house overlooking the sea with her perfect pirate prince?

(Her life was never this easy.)

It was around one in the afternoon, so Mary Margaret and Killian wouldn’t be home for at least another three hours – more if the kids really wreaked havoc on the ship (hopefully not). And David didn’t have to go into work until 7 (he was doing overnights since Emma needed someone with her in the daytime, yes, like a fucking child).

She shouldn’t be asking David for any favors, but this one was probably acceptable. Because it was a big step and hopefully at least somewhat proof that Emma could do more than brood (and yell at the people who love her).

“Hey, do you think we could swing by this house? Pretty please?”

“Not until you shower. You still smell like marinara.” When Emma finally met David’s eyes, they softened and his scowl gave way to a smirk. (Guess she only broke him momentarily).

 The house wasn’t that far from the Nolans’ so they were there by two that afternoon. And as luck would have it, the agent was having an open house until three. So after staring at it from the outside for far too long (she still had some fear, OK?), David and Emma walked up to the door and knocked.

“Hello! Are you folks interested in the house?” A bright-eyed redhead (who wore far too much green) greeted them, ushering them into the foyer.

She was struck by the… cuteness of the place. It wasn’t the vast, column-adorned mansion type. And it wasn’t a cottage in the woods. But it was homey. It was sweet.

And why the fuck was it just for rent?

“Uh, well, yeah. I mean I’m interested in the house. This is my… brother. He’s just, um, helping me.” Emma unconsciously tugged at one of her bandages, suddenly feeling awkward about needing a chaperone. But the woman seemed to realize immediately who she was.

“Oh my goodness! You’re Emma Swan, aren’t you? The girl who tried to save the meth head?”

“Uh, I think it was PCP, but yeah. That’s me. Hence the bodyguard. Sorry.”

“Goodness, no, don’t be sorry. I suppose I should be sorry for being so forward. I do hope you’re recovering well.” She extended her hand and offered another, more sincere smile. “I’m Zelena.”

What a name. “Nice to meet you. This is David. He’s here to stop me from running toward fire. At least until these heal.”

“It really was a wonderful thing you did. It seems Jefferson is finally going to get the help he needs.”

“What he needs is a punch to the face,” David muttered, but Zelena either didn’t hear him or chose to ignore it.

“Can I show you around?” she asked, Emma already wandering about to see the details of each room.

“Yeah, but I mean, I’m already thinking this is too good to be true. Why would someone put this up for rent? It’s so… nice.”

“Well, renting doesn’t mean slumming it, my dear. I’m truly sorry for the loss of your last home, but renting doesn’t always mean it’s small apartments with crappy heat and thin walls. The gentleman who owns this property and many others simply enjoys renovating houses. And he’s found that he generates a nice, steady income from renting them out. And he likes to give people a starter home they can be proud of. Is that something you’re looking for?”

God, if she only knew. “Yes, yeah, that’s… that’s what I need.”

“Then allow me to show you around.”

The tour really only solidified her too good to be true feelings (worries). The carpets were new and the walls were freshly painted. The bay window in their (hypothetical) bedroom would be perfect for curling up and reading. The closets were small, but the basement wasn’t awful, so they’d certainly have room for storage.

And best of all, their view of the bay was perfect. So perfect, in fact, that she could literally see Killian’s ship, out there on the water, molding young minds to be adventurers, explorers and dreamers.

(And yeah, that second bedroom might someday be able to hold a young adventurer, explorer, and dreamer who just so happened to share DNA with her and Killian.)

In short, it was pretty damn perfect.

“Now, I do have several people interested already, but I know that glint in your eye, Ms. Swan. You’ve found your home, haven’t you?”

It was a tactic. Emma knew this. She could spot a slimy salesperson from, well, all the way out to the ocean, probably.

But it’s not as if Zelena was wrong.

-

The kids had been incredible. It kind of made him feel guilty for being the little shit he was as a child, but it’s all about circumstance. He didn’t have nearly the support these kids did.

Then again, if he had, he may never have crossed the pond, may never have met Milah, may never have loved her and lost her and then found himself on a ‘pirate’ ship and living in a tiny apartment, just one thin wall away from what would become a most magical journey.

It’s funny to think about cause and effect. Because sometimes it could set your insides on fire with anger, with guilt, with regret. But there were those other moments that the cause was something unexpected, terrible, that you’d never wish on your worst enemy – and somehow the effect was, what – happily ever after?

(The lesson plans and build the kids’ imaginations was clearly affecting him.)

Once he’d put the Emma situation (mostly) out of his head, it was a really great day. They talked about colonization and the ships that came to America from the far-off lands. They talked about the wars that had been fought here, the things that had been discovered. And they talked about the heroes of Storybrooke and other surrounding areas – the corrupt mayor who’d been defeated by a brave young woman, the young boy who’d stopped the curse of scarlet fever, the brave huntsman who’d given his life to save a young princess from a faraway land. There were historical accounts of each of those tales, of course, but they weren’t quite as fun as the folksy versions. Killian was careful to tell both, though, and the kids were captivated.

When he bid them all farewell and he and Mary Margaret packed up their things, they both had a glow about them (and his clearly had nothing to do with pregnancy). It was more fulfilling than he’d ever imagined to be using his powers for good, so to speak.

Frat boys guzzling rum made him money, but damn did this new arrangement just give him so much more.

“What do you think the whiner and her warden have prepared for us for dinner?” Mary Margaret asked, her being the only one really taking Emma’s constant crankiness in stride.

“Oh, who knows. Emma probably won’t even be there. I sense she’ll be avoiding me. Again.”

“Oh, she will not. I heard your fight – well, part of it. Our walls aren’t that thin. But you needed to let it out! And I know her. She’ll understand. And maybe you showing how her sullenness is affecting you will finally make her clean up her act a little bit. I love her, but damn. She’s a level of bitter I haven’t experienced before. And I was there when she was attempting to live in her car.”

“I know all the stories, Mary Margaret. I think she’s angrier because she was happier? I think the fight last night started all because she’s just mad that she couldn’t go on the ship today. After all her planning and being so dedicated to trying to really cultivate the whole ‘educational’ and ‘family’ aspect of the business, she’s stuck at home. She’s taking it out on us which is super not OK, obviously. But I know from experience that your emotions hit you harder when there’s actually something you feel you lost.”

“Well I’m sure she’d recover faster if she’d just try a little harder. But don’t tell her I said that.” Mary Margaret looked over at Killian and smiled for a moment before focusing back on the task of backing into their driveway. It was nice, the camaraderie he had with Mary Margaret and David, Emma’s only “family” – despite their not being blood-related.

They were all this little unit. Along with Belle and Will and Regina and Ruby and Robin – somehow Killian had found his people.

All because of Emma.

When Mary Margaret and Killian entered the home, they found a surprising sight: Emma and David were making dinner. Together.

Emma was actually contributing to the meal’s preparation. She was even – gasp – smiling?

Until she saw him. At that point her expression morphed to something between fear and panic. Was he accidentally dressed like Freddy Kruger?

“You’re home!” Emma stuttered, visibly nervous.

“I can finish this. Why don’t you go… chat?” David suggested, bumping Emma out of the way with his hip while he stirred what looked like sauce.

“Uh, ok. Just… keep stirring.”

“Just keep stirring, just keep stirring, just keep stirring, stirring, stirring,” David started singing, continually moving the wooden spoon through the substance in the skillet.

“David. You’re not Dory,” Emma chided, a hint of a smile on the corners of her lips.

(David was breaking tension. Which meant there was something up. Fuck, he couldn’t deal with any more drama.)

Emma approached him overly cautiously – the kiss she laid on his cheek so quick he barely felt it. “We’re having this tortellini veggie bake that I found on Pinterest and I don’t want him to fuck it up. I’ve read it’s delicious.” Emma seemed to be trying to explain her nervousness away, to blame it on cooking. But there was definitely something more going on.

She took his hand and led them to their room, Emma awkwardly standing in the doorway even as Killian sat down on the bed. She was quiet for far too long, staring all over the room instead of looking at him.

Until she finally blurted out, “please don’t be mad at me!”

Which took him by surprise. “Uhhh, are you talking about last night? Because I was just frustrated and I shouldn’t have said what I did – I’m annoyed at you, admittedly, but I’m not mad, per se, and I don’t want you to think I hate you because I don’t, I’m just – ”

“No, Killian, I get it. I’ve been a bitter, frustrated bitch and it’s not fair and you needed to get it out. No harm done except me feeling guilty for being awful. That’s – that’s not what I’m talking about.”

“Then why would I be mad?”

“Well, you know how you worried that I’d be mad when you made a big decision without asking me?”

“… yes?”

“You really don’t see where I’m going with this?”

“Yes, Emma, I obviously see that you made a decision without me, but I’m not sure what that decision might have been so I’m waiting for you to explain it before I assure you I’m not mad!”

“Well, I may have, um… put down security deposit and first and last month’s rent on a house. It’s adorable! I promise! And it overlooks the water and has a bay window and it’s mostly new and we don’t have to share any walls with psychopaths and it has a brand new fire alarm and sprinkler systems and a fireplace and I just want us to move forward and I’m sorry that I’m terrible at recovering and I know I should have asked you first but you were with the kids and I knew you couldn’t text or call and the slimy sales lady was all I have other people interested and making me feel like I had no choice but to take it right that second and I shouldn’t have fallen for it, but Killian, it’s our house. I could feel it. So. I took the leap.”

Emma was out of breath from her babbling, so Killian gave her a moment just to breathe, to attempt relaxation – however impossible that might be. And then he stood, grabbed her hand, and pulled her to sit next to him. He put his hand on her leg and gripped it tightly, willing her to listen to his words and stop her damn panicking.

“Emma. We have got to stop worrying that each other is going to leave just because we took a positive step forward. Or, perhaps we need to communicate with each other before taking steps. I don’t know, it’s one of the two. But the point is: I’m very happy that you found us a house. It sounds perfect. And I’m so happy to be starting a life with you. Not that it hasn’t already started. I mean, we’ve kind of been living a joint life for a while now. But you know what I’m saying. We’ll start our fully independent life together.”

“I know I should have resolved last night especially first. I’ve been terrible. I’m still going to be terrible – I swear I can only control my snark about 45% of the time. I resolved long ago, just after everything with Graham, that I wouldn’t ever use you as a punching bag. Even when you’re offering yourself up for it. And I failed. I know that. I know I let myself just let go and take everything out on you and Mary Margaret and David. I know that’s why Robin won’t even come visit and why Belle gets short with me. I mean we dealt with the same trauma and yet I’m the only one going all Cruella de Vil because of it. I’m working on it. I promise to always work on it. Because, you know, I love you.”

“As I love you. Now how about you show me this home I apparently have because somebody just couldn’t wait…” Killian put his forehead against hers, brushing her cheek with his thumb.

“After dinner. I’m serious about the tortellini. It’s supposed to be near Godly and it took us a Godly amount of time to cook it, so we’re damn well eating it. But then I’ll take you to see the house! It’s perfect. I promise I made a good decision, even if I shouldn’t have done so alone.”

“Oh, love, any house would be perfect with you in it.” Killian kissed her cheek, her nose, her forehead, and then captured her lips in a deep, loving kiss.

“Only my dinner should be that cheesy, Jones.”

Go to Next Chapter

I have finally experienced the type of excursion that I’ve been writing about for over a year, and I’m happy to report I was correct about what it was like. So yay! Cheers, friends & thank you for reading : )

}  {  } - life, still

Even though he’d been skeptical of my monster-hunting plans, Joyce still brought them to life with inexhaustible enthusiasm. I could have traced it back to his father’s conditioning, if I’d looked hard enough, but I wasn’t looking. I was busy gaping at the walls of our tree-house, which he’d managed to cover with dancing paleolithic horrors within days of me first suggesting we play the game.

He still liked painting with white-out, and he went through bottle after bottle of it while inventing beast after beast to slay. No one monster on its own was very complex, each just a handful of gooey dots and smears on the rough wood boards. But their individual simplicity belied their combined menace: in the amber lantern light, they were a constellation of cryptid limbs and eyes, both lovely and terrifying.

At least I found them terrifying, because it was up to me to slay them all.

My own supply of dime-store dragons and demons had dried up fifteen minutes into our first practice, and he deconstructed my inventions so swiftly and so utterly, I realized it would never prepare us to face a real threat.

So I’d embraced my role as hunter, content to watch him squint at the walls of our fortress, like a small Michelangelo scrutinizing the Sistine, porcelain fingers caked with white dust that left ghostly streaks across his peacoat. His hands trembled when he lost himself in his dreams, and whenever I got close to killing one of his creations, he’d reach into his pocket for that little bottle of white, fussing with it as though he could barely wait to present me with his next invention. I don’t think he realized he was doing it.

Then one afternoon, his ideas took a sharp turn toward something…different. I recall watching as his meddling neared madness; his nails dug into the tiny ridges in the bottle’s plastic cap, twisting right for five or six turns, then twisting left for just as many, then right again.

Closed. Open. Closed.

I was so caught up the waltz that I lost my train of thought until he cleared his throat.

I glanced up to find him waiting, an anxious gleam in his eyes. The hieroglyphic outline of a perfectly average human haunted his left shoulder.

“Well, this… uh…” I fumbled back into my thoughts: “This ‘hobbit dance’… it’s a demon, right?”

“Hobbididance,” he corrected, gently. His lips twitched into the phantom of a smile. “…and yes.”

“Okay, so I would just exorcise it, right?”

“Exorcise it how, exactly?”

“I guess by reciting the right Bible verses? I mean, I’m not sure which ones. I’d probably have to try out a couple, but—”

“It wouldn’t work.”  

I scowled.

“Why not?”  

“Because, the Hobbididance is The Prince of Dumbness,” he said, with a gravity that didn’t at all match the ridiculous thing he’d just said.  

“The Prince of Dumbness?” I snorted. “What kind of lame title is that? Are you telling me he won’t understand the verses I’m reciting because he’s too stupid?”

“Not that kind of dumbness,” said Joyce. His answer was a very particular combination of warm and weary: a voice he used only when he knew damn well that he was withholding the lantern but was nonetheless teasing me for being in the dark.

“Well what kind of dumbness, then?” I played along.

“The Hobbididance prevents people from being able to speak.”

I considered this carefully. He returned to twisting the bottle cap.

“But, shouldn’t it only affect the person it’s possessing?” I asked. “So why wouldn’t I be able to speak?”

“That might be true of an average demon in his order. But he is The Prince. So his silence is a blanket effect.”

“That’s cheating,” I complained.

“How is that cheating?!”

It wasn’t cheating. I just really didn’t like it. So I huffed and went rummaging for my lunchbox in the corner, thinking maybe I at least had some celery sticks left.

“Fine,” he sighed dramatically, and collapsed down beside me, tossing up his hands. “Let’s just say, for the moment, that the Hobbididance only affects the person it possesses. How would you have known to exorcise it?”

“What do you mean? It’s a demon. That’s what you do to demons…”

“But how did you know it was a demon?” he demanded.

“Because you told me—”

“But I’m not part of this! If you’re out monster-hunting and you come face-to-face with a possessed person who can’t tell you they’re possessed, or by what, how would you know?”

He was close enough that I could nearly feel the way his throat clawed at the words of his question, trapping the last of his breath in his lungs. I stared at him, transfixed, and he stared back. It could have been seconds, or minutes, or seasons of silence—

—until he finally, finally blinked—

—his pale lashes looked like the afternoon light filtered through the slats in the wall behind him—

—and it seemed to restart time.

“There are lots of ways to detect demons…” I whispered, hoarse and barely believing myself: “Holy water. Holy artifacts. If the person cooperated I could have them write down what happened—”

“—If the possessed person cooperated?” Joyce’s eyebrows soared to the roof. “Gods, Danny, are you serious?!”

But he was laughing, and I allowed myself to feel triumphant for a spell. Not because I’d solved his riddle—I still hadn’t tackled the original version—but because I thought I’d succeeded in distracting him from reality. I believed I was fulfilling my duties as best friend, and admirably at that. I was too busy trying my damnedest to impress him with my hunting tactics to consider that maybe creating the monsters was his true catharsis. I was too busy battling a tiny, persistent creature in my stomach that watched the brilliant shiver of his hands and asked my brain what it might be like to reach out and hold them—just to stop them from trembling, just to keep them still.

My triumph upon closer examination looked an awful lot like greed.

- ❀ -

All the while, November’s chill took hold of the earth, and my desperate greed began to permeate my methods for finding Mrs. Jacoby’s flowers. The autumn crocuses were quickly passing their prime, as were the mums, and my  neighbors threw their browning pots into the compost heap.

I turned to exotic imports, stealing blooms out of the living-room vase my mother kept bursting with color year-round. At first I tried to be subtle about my selections, only taking smaller specimens, or the ones that were hidden in the middle of the vase, but after a week or so I began to grab the first thing that caught my eye.

Exotic flowers yielded equally foreign results, I learned. Brighter hues produced wilder stories, high on emotion but lower on coherence. Redder flowers seemed to agitate her, while those on the bluer side of the spectrum made her melancholy. I wondered briefly if maybe I was being cruel, but the experimentation seemed worth it, somehow, just to get her to speak at all. She seemed to relish the chance.

Then there was the zinnia.

The surprise on Mrs. Jacoby’s face was apparent when I pressed it into her fingers—as was the confusion. I took a few stumbling steps backward, in case she decided that my gift was unsuitable, or worse: an insult.

She scrutinized it for a long, silent moment, brows furled as she twirled it this way and that between her thumb and forefinger. Her two front teeth, almost fey in their smallness, peeked out to gnaw on her lower lip, and for a second her son was blindingly present in her features. I shivered and tried not to be obvious about pulling my coat tighter.

“I can take it back,” I began, “If you don’t—”

“What color is this?”

“What?” I said, one step behind as usual.

“What color is this flower, Danny?” she asked, more urgently.

“It’s uh… it’s pink?” I wasn’t very good at the shades of pink. I hoped she wasn’t expecting something more specific.

“No… no…” she shook her head vehemently, pressing her eyes shut like an insolent child. “No. No, that can’t be right.”

“Okay,” I said, softly. After months of playing games with Joyce I was always open to the possibility of my assumptions being wrong. “What color do you think it is?”

“When I came to him, the rot had already taken root in the earth,” she replied.

I sank slowly to the floor at her feet, because that had to have been the craziest thing she’d ever said, and she didn’t seem to be finished. She tugged the tiny petals off of the zinnia one by one, stripping it bare as I listened:  

“It had been summer for ages, and the hearts and souls of man had grown drowsy in the humid warmth, not recognizing the sweetness of the air for decay. He bought me spun-sugar at the county fair, and his sweetness wasn’t rot. It was dusty pink clouds and tacky pink fingertips and pink cheeks and pink-maned horses on a carousel meant for children. He brought me to his home, and his sweetness was bubbly rose wine and opal pendants and the ears of our newborn son. He was one of the last, the very last, and I came to him and kept the rot from finding him. But something else found him instead, and the pink in his cheeks became a fever, not a balm. And I could no longer protect him. I can no longer protect either of them, but—”

She stopped.

“But?” I whispered.

But she did not continue. Her fingers had frozen, centimeters from the head of the zinnia, but there were no more petals left to pluck. They were scattered like rain across her lap and around her feet.

That settled it, then—at least that’s what I remember thinking. Something sinister had gotten ahold of Mr. Jacoby, and possibly Mrs. Jacoby too, though she couldn’t say what. And even though she hadn’t finished her thought, I was positive that I knew its conclusion anyway:

“I cannot protect Joyce, but you must.”

I stood, shakily, and went to her, lowering her pinched fingers and extricating the barren stalk from her fist, settling both of her hands in her lap. “I-I’ll… I will,” I grit out. I had to say it twice to make the words intelligible; I was surprised to find myself in tears. “I… um… I’m going to go get the dust pan, okay?”

“Thank you, Danny,” she said. I was quick enough to realize that it wasn’t for the dust-pan.

I fled the room, scrubbing my shirt-sleeves hastily over my eyes and snuffling snot.  

Joyce was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. It was unclear whether he’d been on his way up to find me, or if maybe he’d just been standing there the entire time, waiting for me. I braced against another shiver. But he was smiling, and enthusiastically thrust a tiny object into my fingers.

“I’ve been monitoring the flowers for days now,” he said. “And I think you might be right…”

The object was a ring, made of polished aluminum, and lined with tiny blueish lights that flickered on and off in an inscrutable pattern.

“You know I don’t know how to work this thing,” I said, tossing it back.

Joyce rolled his eyes and sighed a why-do-I-even-bother sigh. He slipped the ring onto his own thumb, and grabbed my coat sleeve, dragging me into his living room.

The last light from the front windows was barely enough to resolve the outlines of a camelback sofa and a few wing chairs—and the silhouette of Joyce lifting his hands toward the ceiling beside me: a shadowy maestro about to conduct a symphony.

The ring on his finger uttered a tiny, agreeable chirp, and the coffee table before us glowed brightly—lit by multitude of tiny projectors embedded in the geometry of the room. Arthur Jacoby had always been into the latest gizmos and gadgets, and their house, despite its Victorian charm, boasted a hidden myriad of high-end tech.

I fell back into one of the wing chairs, sitting on the edge of the seat so as not to drown in the size of it, and waited as Joyce commanded the “Ring of Power,” as he called it, with a series of delicate hand gestures.

“Shoulda just let the scrying stone watch them,” I joked.

Joyce said nothing, but spared me an approving glance in between hunting through the videos he seemed to have been collecting.

One by one, I watched the bouquets I’d given to Mrs. Jacoby take shape, suspended above the coffee table in a neat matrix as he stacked feed upon feed. The resolution was almost too good. It made the flowers look like the ever-perfect plastic replicas that my Mom bought in craft stores. She always claimed she would make a wreath for the front door, but they usually ended up on the opposite side of a closet door, never touched again…

“I kept a camera on each one for three days. It’s mostly the most boring thing ever,” admitted Joyce, and the flowers all flickered in unison as he skipped forward in time, “but I watched almost all of it—

“—What?!—”

“—I kinda thought it would help me get better at drawing if I tried to sketch them all,” he explained, hastily, “But just like you thought, every so often one of them changes color. Like—there, see?!”

The flowers flickered again as he rewound and replayed the last ten seconds. My gaze darted from bud to bloom, eagerly awaiting something fantastic—but I saw nothing.

“I feel like I’m trying to set a bunch of my mom’s ugly old paintings on fire with my mind,” I complained. “What am I looking for?”

“There,” said Joyce again, pointing at a cluster of red and orange mums. “That one got a little more purple.”  

His fingers continued to play and replay the same few seconds of footage, twitching an obsessive pattern at his side. It did look like one of the mums was changing. But even though I’d been quick to suggest that monsters were mixing colors, I now found myself desperate to disprove my own hypothesis.

“It was probably just a change in the light. Like, a cloud passing over the sun or something—”

“But that would make it darker,” he protested. “It’s not darker. It just goes magenta and then back to red again.”

“Well maybe the camera is broken,” I said, suddenly irritated. “Give me the ring.”

“You said you didn’t want it.”

“Well, I changed my mind,” I said. “Give it to me.”

“Make me,” he taunted, idly. He was still watching the flowers, lost in his thoughts. He clearly didn’t expect me to take him up on the provocation.

…which made his undignified yelp twice as satisfying when I lunged for his hand and checked him bodily onto the carpet.

“What the hell, Danny!” he coughed, breathless and struggling as I tried my damnedest to uncurl his knuckles and claim the ring.

Above us, the video feeds began to dance, swapping places with each other and exchanging themselves for other videos in the family collection—birthday parties and science documentaries and a tutorial on how to bake christmas cookies. They cast a discotek rainbow around the dark walls of the room, and through the quartz of his wide eyes beneath me.

“C’mon! I wanna see something,” I said, pinning his arm to the floor.

“You said you didn’t even—Ow!—know how to use it!”

“I just didn’t feel like it right then.” It was only half a lie. “I needed to get the dust pan for your mother, and I—”

“Wait. What’s that?” Joyce cut in.

His eyes were glued to something beyond my shoulder.

“Yeah no, sorry. Not falling for that,” I said.

But to my surprise, he twisted and slipped from my grasp so quickly that it left me staring gobsmacked at the rug where he’d just been.

“Danny,” he hissed. He was standing behind me at the table, as if our tiny sparring match had never happened. “Look at this.”

“The flowers didn’t change color,” I pled with him in a whisper, suddenly incredibly tired. “They couldn’t have.”

“It’s not the flowers, Danny. Someone’s been in here. Look.”

At that, I whipped my head around, following Joyce’s gaze to a dimly lit feed on the far right. A few flicks of his wrist got rid of the rest of the miscellany and centered the footage in the room. He zoomed in until the shadowy protagonists were nearly life size.

“That’s your basement…” I said, because I always provide helpful commentary. Joyce, understandably, did not reply. His earlier delight had been replaced by quiet terror. “What are they doing?”

“I don’t know…”

There were two figures moving about the lab bench Arthur Jacoby kept downstairs—one altogether average, with short, dark hair, and the other thin to the point of frailness, with long, lighter hair drawn back into a ponytail. They dressed in black, the way spies from old war movies did, and the amber Edison bulbs that Arthur fancied didn’t shed much light on what either of them were doing.

And neither of them had a face.

The videos were three dimensional. I could walk around the coffee table and see the scene from whatever angle I wanted, thanks to the absurd number of cameras Arthur had installed. But there wasn’t a single angle that revealed so much as a nose. Anywhere there should have been a face just seemed to fade, like when you try to take a picture indoors, but you’re too close to a window, and all you get is glare.  

Another twirl of Joyce’s fingers conjured the video’s metadata out of thin air. The timestamp read October 12, 8:47PM.

The night his father died.

Joyce was frantic, whirling through all the video feeds of his house, hunting for any other glimpses of the mysterious intruders. But my eyes were stuck to the original footage, desperate to make sense of it.

All at once everything went black, and it took me a moment to understand that Joyce had shut down the media system, and not my mind. We stood there, side-by-side in the dusk, listening to each other’s hearts pound for what felt like an hour, until I managed to find the courage to speak:

“We need to tell somebody.”

“No!”

His reply was barely more than a whisper, but it stung like a smack to the face.

“But—”

“Danny, we can’t. You can’t tell anyone,” Joyce insisted, voice trembling. “If they think I’m not safe here—”

“—But what if you’re not safe here—”

“—they’ll take me away. They’ll take her away. I won’t let them take her away from me.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but my jaw dangled uselessly on its hinges.

“Please…” he whispered.

I sat with a thump on the floor for the second time that afternoon. Mrs. Jacoby’s lament echoed in my skull: I could no longer protect him. I can no longer protect either of them, but—

“They won’t take her from you, and they won’t take her from me, and they won’t take you from me, okay?” I said. I didn’t even know who ‘they’ were. Why had they come? Were they Mr. Jacoby’s colleagues? Burglars? Wraiths? By that point in my life, almost anything was starting to seem possible. “Nobody will.”

He sank down beside me, hugging his knees to his chest.

“… Danny?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I sleep over at your house tonight?”

“Sure,” I said instantly, but then paused. “I mean, I think so—but only if my mom says yeah.”

My words were only a formality, and he knew it. He smiled, gently.  

- ❀ -

Every time Joyce spent the night at my house, my mother would try to offer him the guest room, and every time, Joyce would politely turn it down in favor of sleeping on my floor, causing her to turn the house inside-out to give him every spare pillow and blanket we owned, while Joyce tried and failed to stop her. This time was no different. It took her an hour to finish doting and leave us alone, and when she did it was with a reminder not to stay up talking on a school night.

Joyce didn’t need the warning; he shook hands with the sandman the second he crawled into his enormous blanket fortress. But I couldn’t for the life of me get the crusty bastard to pay me a visit less than five feet away, so I just lay there in a ball at the very edge of my mattress, and watched Joyce sleep.

We’d made sure Mrs. Jacoby was settled for the evening before we’d taken off for my house, but it didn’t feel right, leaving her there alone. My legs twitched with a ceaseless desire to get up—to don my shoes and coat and venture back into the night to check on her—or, at very least, to walk down the hall and wake up my parents, and tell them about the trespassers in Joyce’s basement.

You can’t tell them. They’ll take her away…

Joyce’s hands were curled into fists in one of my mother’s quilts as he slept. I stared at them, thinking suddenly about the way they’d felt in my grip when I’d tried to take the ring from him. I’d been afraid to pry too hard for fear I’d snap his fingers. His wrists had been warm and beating with life, their blue and red blood barely concealed beneath milk-white skin. I’d thought I’d had him pinned, yet he’d vanished the moment his will had shifted…

They’ll take me away…

I’d kept secrets from my parents before, but this one felt awful.

You have to protect him…

I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling.

At some point, finally, I slept, and dreamt that the wraiths in Joyce’s basement were there because they were waiting for light to seep through the cracks in the concrete and give them their eyes back.  

- ❀ -

He was gone by the time I woke up at eight— he always was, when he stayed with us on weeknights. His school started an hour before mine, and even before his father died, Joyce was the one who made his mother breakfast.

I, meanwhile, slouched sleepily at the kitchen table like a typical ten-year-old as my mother plopped a waffle and a bottle of maple syrup in front of my face. She hovered as I began to eat, and I waited for a question. For an announcement. For her to realize I wasn’t Joyce. For something.

“Danny, why do you keep taking flowers out of the living room vase?” she asked, finally, and I nearly choked.

“I didn’t—”

She sank down into the chair across from me and tilted her head toward the refrigerator door, which was displaying the last few days' worth of home-security footage at 40x speed. Apparently Joyce hadn’t been the only one pointing cameras at flowers that week. 

I watched myself repeatedly plucking blossoms from a bouquet: a thief caught red-handed, and yellow-handed, and pink-handed. A thief like the wraiths in Joyce’s basement.

I pushed my plate away across the table, suddenly too nauseous to eat.

“It’s not okay to just take things that don’t belong to you, Danny.”

“I know,” I mumbled.

“You could have just asked me. I would have let you have them.” My mother’s voice was gentle, but unyielding, and it only made me feel sicker. But to my surprise, when I didn’t say anything, her mouth slid into a mischievous smirk. “If there’s a girl at school, you can ask her over, you know. I’d love to meet her.”

“No! Mom. Ew. No. It’s not… it’s… it’s nothing like that.”

“Then what is it like, Danny?” she pressed.

There are monsters in Joyce’s house, and I think they killed his dad, and I’ve been using your flowers to try to track them down.

“They’re for Mrs. Jacoby,” I sighed. “There’s nothing in her garden anymore and… I dunno… I thought they’d make her feel better?”

My mother’s face was a difficult thing to read, at that moment. It somehow simultaneously softened and tensed.

“I’m sorry,” I added, when I didn’t get any other response.

“I wish you wouldn’t go over there so much.”

She said it all at once, like she’d been trying really hard not to say it.

“Why?” I asked, startled.

“I just don’t understand why you’d want to. There’s nothing for two boys to do in that house. Over here you have your tree-house, and all sorts of games, and I keep the pantry stocked with all your favorite snacks—”

“All of Joyce’s favorite snacks!” I snapped, before I could stop my half-awake brain from sending the words to my tongue.

My mother blinked at me like I’d smacked her. I half expected her to yell, or ground me on the spot, but nothing came. I pulled my plate back toward me, mostly so the squeal of the china across the table would fill the silence.

“Danny—”

“Why don’t you like Mrs. Jacoby?” I asked, impaling the undeserving waffle repeatedly with my fork.

“Honey, it’s not that I don’t like her. She’s… I mean… your father and I don’t know her that well—”

“Because you’ve never even tried!”

“Because we’re scared, Daniel!” cried my mother, then, and it was my turn to blink like I’d been struck. “It’s not just Joyce’s mother, Danny. You know that! You know there are other people at your school who just—” she made some opaque gesture with her hands, “And if you follow the news, it’s the entire East Coast! Maybe the whole country. And nobody knows how it happens or why it’s happening, Danny. And your father and I, we love you, and we care about Joyce, and we don’t want either of you to—”

“Hey-ho, my Comet and Cupid!” my father’s voice echoed through the landing. He walked in still buttoning the last few buttons of his dress-shirt. The collar was still all askew. “Who here is ready to rot behind a desk for the next eight hours, huh?” he asked, jovial until his gaze fell upon our faces. Then he frowned. “Christ, who died while I was in the shower?”

“Hank—”

“Mom thinks Mrs. Jacoby is going to make me sick,” I said.

“I didn’t say—” started my mother, but she trailed off with a sigh.

She and my father shared a long look, while I shared a long look with my abused breakfast and pretended not to notice.  

“I, for one, think that it’s very noble of you to be so kind to her,” my dad announced, then, putting his hand on the back of my chair. His voice had the same soft tension as my mother’s face. “I’m proud of you for having such a big heart. We could all stand to learn a little from you, son.”

“We just want you to be careful, okay?” whispered my mother.

“Right. Just be careful. That’s all.”

You know nothing. You’re worried about Mrs. Jacoby making me sick, while there are monsters in Joyce’s basement. I watched the damning security footage of my flower-snatching continue to play out across the fridge, and said nothing.