"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
This place was too close to the Adoption Den and I didn't much want to go back there. So I take the long way around, moving around the barrier I can feel against my skin. It told me I would be safe there while I waited for a mommy to come get me, but I already had a mommy, so I stayed away from the barrier. I used it as a guide, knowing that eventually it would get me to the Playground where I could see others playing and bounding. This makes me smile and I bound into the Playground like I had been there a thousand million times.
The faeries had told me things, small pieces of information that I had filed away into my little brain but had only remembered what I thought was important...like any other kid. Like where the Playground was. What my name was. Where I could always find milk and safety till I got big. These things I did remember, the others not so much. Maybe they would come to me when I needed them?
Oh well, I was excited. I had a new mommy and a daddy and a brother and it was very exciting! I had asked to come here to make friends and they had let me and it was just exciting. Everything was so exciting. I kick up my heels as I passed this other barrier, different than the Den and it tingles against my skin so I giggle.
And then I am in the Playground and looking for someone to play with. I see him then, this older boy and my heart beats a little faster in my chest. I bound up to him. "Hi. I'm Graeme. Can we be friends?" Because I'm young and I'm cute I know he will say yes. Plus his face looks nice and he kind of looks kind of sad. "Why do you look sad?" I tilt my head to study him and touch my lips to his nose briefly. "Don't be sad. Do you need a home? I will take you home to my new mommy and daddy if you do." I haven't given him any time to answer any of my questions. "Here, let me give you a hug." And so I do, reaching my nose up along his shoulder so my chest is bumping lightly against his upper legs.
I know you're trying to fight when you feel like flying.
I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to be okay. I never really have, but it's been worse lately, since the near-disaster that left Mom and I bleeding, Argo weakened, and Lissie born early and far from the protection of the Tundra. Well. Far enough. But for Mom, I'm trying. For Dad, and for Argo, and for all my sisters, I'm trying. There is no unmaking myself, no unwriting my existence, and ending it would destroy them. I never want to hurt them.
So this is me. Doing the best I can to be okay. To be normal. To be a happy kid with nothing haunting me during the dark hours or blinding me during the daytime, sending me running for cover in the Tundra's caves, where there is a twisted kind of safety in the familiarity of darkness sinking through my skin. Normal kids make friends. Kids with hearts made of flesh instead of jagged shards of glass stand out in the open when they go to the playground, instead of finding a dark space to hide until it is time to go home. So I stand, not even sheltered by the weeping arms of a willow tree or the strong limbs of an oak, but out in the sunlight where anyone can see me.
And someone does. More than sees me, a little girl bounds over to me and introduces herself, inviting me to be her friend. I open my mouth to reply, but she gives me no chance to do so before seeing through the ragged remnants of a mask that once hid my pain from the world much better. Too well, until I was too raw, too broken to function even this much. Before I can get so much as a word in, she is inviting me home with her and wrapping herself around me in a hug.
I hug her back, my lips curving into a smile of their own accord. “Thank you, Graeme. You give good hugs.” And though I should be drowning from all the hugs and cuddles from all of the people who love me and want me with them, I still sink into the innocent embrace of a sweet little stranger who wants to be my friend.
It is a long moment before I can say anything more. I just breathe in, breathe out, and let a moment of peace wash over me. When I pull back, that smile is still on my face. “I'm Nevi. I would be happy to be your friend. And thank you very much for asking, but I already have a mom and a dad that took me home and made me theirs. I live in the Tundra now. Where do you live, sweetheart?”
I don't know the kind of darkness that he does. The abandonment of my mother hadn't really sunk it. Hadn't all children gone through that? Maybe not since my momma had had sadness in her eyes when she had looked at me. But since my real mom was nothing more than a faint white smudge with feathers in my mind, she wasn't really real. Momma Eira was my momma. She was mine and I was hers and all would be okay. Papa Weir was funny and a little weird but he made me laugh and it was fun. He was a good daddy.
I don't know how it feels to have your inside feel like glass, every movement cutting into your flesh until you feel like you will bleed to death, until you want to scream out. But you can't because you are stuck wearing this perfect mask for a family you are scared might still not want you because of it.
No, I didn't know any of that. My life was happy and bright and all I could think of was this poor boy's face and how utterly sad he looked. There was no hope on his face, until he pulls back a little from our hug and that small smile is curling his lips.
This practically makes me wiggle in glee.
"Nevi. I like it. It sounds like you." I tilt my head to look at him, my own smile practically peeling the flesh from my face. My head tilts to the side as he explains where he lives and how he does have a family. "I live in the Dale with Momma Eira and Papa Weir and my brother Newton. He says he is older but I think we are the same age, or I am older." I say in a whisper, turning to look over my shoulder to make sure the little brat wasn't about. "He's kind of a brat sometimes. Are all brothers like that?"
I turn my face back to his, my attention completely on this stranger who still had shadows in his eyes. "It's okay to be sad sometimes. Being happy is better, but sad is okay too." I say, touching my lips to his cheek. "You should smile more. You're cute when you do and your eyes twinkle a little." I say and while it is the truth, I say it more to be outrageous, to bring more of smile to his face, even as I am smiling my own wide smile. I say it to make him happy, to bring something other than darkness to his life.
I know you're trying to fight when you feel like flying.
Graeme's happy chatter about her family keeps me smiling; it's just a quiet little half smile, but it softens the sorrow in my eyes and makes breathing a little bit easier. “No, not all of them,” I answer when she asks about brothers. “I have one too, and he is one of my very best friends. And I have lots of sisters. Do you have any sisters? Mine are amazing, all three of them. So are my mom and dad. I'm really lucky.”
I am, luckier than I could ever deserve. I started life thrown away, tossed aside like I was nothing, branded with a name that declared to the whole world just how worthless I was. It was only angel eyes and a heart full of love that kept me from becoming nothing in truth. Or at least nothing more than a pile of tiny bones. My mother found me and swept me up and flew me home to paradise, and loves me even now. Even after everything I've done wrong, and everything I have not done right.
My whole family does. I don't deserve a moment of their undying love, but they pour it into me with every touch, every embrace, every look. Sometimes it's too much; they give and they give and they give to me, and what could I ever give them in return? Most days though, I am just grateful.
Ah. I'm still not pulling off the mask, I see. “Happy is better, you're right. I'm just not very good at it sometimes.” She kisses me on the cheek, and I can't help but smile at her outrageous words. She even manages to surprise a silent laugh out of me, the little minx. “I'll try, alright? You make it easier, I think your smile's contagious.” She's so bright and cheery and delightful, I just want to bask in her radiance like sunlight. “So probably you should smile more too, because the whole world could use more of that happy feeling.”
"Are you sure? Maybe you are just saying that and all three of your sisters think you are a brat?" I tilt my head at him, smiling to let him know I was just teasing. "Hm, no, I guess I believe you. You don't seem like Newton." Oh sisters, yes I had one of those. "Yes I do have one of those. She's bigger so not around so much, but her name is Neva." I smile at this. "But she is a good big sister. She tells me I'm a brat sometimes." I grin at this, obviously pleased that I can get under her skin.
Oh. So that's why Newton does it. The imp. I will have to make sure I get him later.
That moment of reflection makes me pause, turning inwards for just a moment before I stretch my wings out. Really they have a mind of their own sometimes. I couldn't wait to fly with them. Papa said I needed to wait a few years until I was older and all my muscles and stuff were ready. Momma seemed to agree so for now I would just pretend now and again that I was flying. I liked standing on the highest hill I could find in the Dale and opening my wings, closing my eyes. It was almost like I was really in the air.
That was happy.
You have to try to be happy? Well of course you do. Didn't Momma try to be happy even when she was tired for us kids? Others did it too. "How come you have to try to be so happy if your family is great?" I wonder aloud, tilting my head to look at him again curiously. I really didn't know, couldn't understand how he could have all that guilt in his insides cutting him to pieces.
And his words bring warmth to my cheeks and I duck my head briefly in embarrassment, although I'm still working out all these emotions and things. "Well." I had been working on bringing him happiness and he sets happiness a flutter in my chest. All I had to be was sunshine, happy and bright, and it would help him. Help others too maybe. This would take some serious contemplating. "Thanks Nevi." So, I think he might have made my words all tangly for right now. So I wait, patiently for his response to my question.
