Chapter 5 – Deep Space Spectres #3
I blinked after their dark form, feeling a bit shaken for a reason I was having a hard time pinning down.
I'd expected the children's caretaker to be, I don't know, more warm and fuzzy?
Maybe I'd assumed Vivith would be like a mother, and clearly they weren't. And, besides, I knew from my own experience that mothers came in all types; my own had been a constant source of terror, to say nothing of the Shepherds who were charged with stewarding our souls through the trials of childhood and adolescence.
I heard a scuff further down the hallway and turned to look at Araxis, who had stepped off of the bridge. The line of his shoulders was tight, his jaw tense, but his features softened just a little when he looked at me. "I am sorry you overheard that," he said quietly.
"It doesn't matter to me," I said. "Family is complicated. But – "
I wanted to ask why he'd said my name. I wanted to ask if it was my fault that Vivith was upset.
When he'd offered me a seat, had he set himself up for some inevitable conflict?
And if that was true, I really ought to make sure I was agreeable, like Vivith had said, and not prickly and difficult like I'd been the night before.
Besides, if I had, by my latest calculations, just a little under four weeks to live, I didn't want to be making trouble for the alien I hoped might want to spend a bit more time with me. I didn't want my final act to be stirring up family drama.
In the end, I decided an apology was the best way forward.
I exhaled, hard, and pushed a hand through my hair.
"I'm sorry if I'm making things difficult by being here," I said, still hovering by the door just off the metal walkway while my stomach squirmed with guilt.
Having me here was an issue; I knew enough to understand I'd been involved in that argument, even if I didn't know why.
"If it's easier, I can just stay in my room until we arrive? "
Araxis was stiff as he watched me, his features pinched.
"You are not making things difficult, Sashen," he said after a moment.
His hands twitched by his sides, as if he was torn between several options, before he tucked them behind his back.
"Please do not restrict yourself for fear of that.
You are our guest, and you are my guest. And…
" His stare slid past me, toward the end of the hallway.
"I should very much like those lessons, if you do not mind.
" His cheeks silvered, just barely visible in the dim light haloing him from the bridge.
I chewed on the inside of my cheek. "I don't mind."
"I…" His dark stare flicked back to me, before he looked away again. "I should apologize for what I said last night. It is clear that I upset you and –"
I didn't want to dwell on that. "Don't worry about it," I said, firm.
"I was just tired and it's been a weird few days.
Not because of you or being here. Just… you know, some life stuff.
I promise I'm usually easier to get along with, and I'm really back to normal now.
I'm better than normal, in fact. And I'd like to do those lessons with you. "
Araxis shifted, taking a half-step forward, his head tilting. "You are very easy to get along with," he said carefully.
He said it like there was a but coming, some observation that would probably cut to the heart of something I didn't want pointed out – I was aware, distantly, that being agreeable wasn't always a good thing; the way Vivith had said it made the quality sound suspicious or weak or off-putting – so I put on one of my sunniest smiles and rushed to say, "So tomorrow morning? We can start?"
Araxis inclined his head. "Hm, yes. I must meet again with Evreni to re-map the day's route.
We must make certain modifications based on the repair to the thermoregulator panel, but…
I will find you, when I am ready? You do not need to wait in your room.
The ship is yours; make yourself at home.
Please: it will bring me comfort to know you are at ease. "
The way he phrased it, as if I'd be indulging him by poking around and leaning into my nosy nature, made something ache in my chest for just a moment.
"Okay," I said, and the tiny smile that curled my mouth was the real deal.
Araxis turned and disappeared on to the bridge again, lit in a wash of yellow light, and I went to make myself my evening soup ration and find a way to try and smooth away some of the guilt I was still feeling, despite what Araxis said.
When I did eventually turn in for the night and curl up in bed, I found my mind kept returning to the way Vivith had looked at me, their black eyes shimmering with distaste.
In those eyes were the stares of a hundred others who had looked at me with the same revulsion.
As the ship hummed softly around me, I found myself sinking further and further away from reality until I realized, distantly, that some part of me wasn't on Creche Thiel's ship at all.
Some part of me was lost in a time more than a decade before, in a grimy facility on the colony.
The memory was alive, visceral: I could feel the clanky station air filtration system rumbling overhead; I could hear the deep breathing of the other children who'd needed special ministering; I could nearly make out the buzz of the loudspeaker outside as it droned the recitations, an endless litany; I could feel the scratchy blankets, the thin pillow, and of course I could feel the cold.
It had been so fucking cold; I remembered that my breath had fogged the space around me, and I had shivered until I thought I'd never stop shaking.
I was shivering now. I was trembling and the dark around me was thick and choking; the speakers fuzzed out beyond the windows; someone nearby coughed and wheezed, and I shook under the blankets.
But I wasn't there. I wasn't. I was here, on a ship going far away, headed in entirely the other direction and –
My mind wouldn't stop spiralling and I couldn't wrench myself back to the present; it felt like I was running as hard as I could, but my skin prickled with the awareness that a predator was watching, stalking, getting closer and closer.
I shivered beneath the covers and groped through the dark for Araxis's jacket, which I'd tucked under the pillow and out of sight.
I hauled it on beneath the covers, trembling, and while I knew it wasn't that cold, my body was shaking of its own accord.
Traitorous, afraid, full of sensation I wanted to forget.
I squeezed my eyes shut hard, and nuzzled my nose deep into the collar of the jacket, inhaling hard, drinking in the scent of warm spice and smoke with some underlying sweetness that made me feel almost drunk.
And while I could still, in my mind, hear the distant sound of other children breathing, the rasp deep in the lungs of the sickest among us, I knew I wasn't there.
No part of me was there. The more I slowed my breathing, the more deliberately I reminded myself I was here, on this ship, in this adult body, the easier it became to let the rest of it fall away, fading into the nothingness where I usually kept it.
Seraphim could chase me, but they'd never catch me; they hadn't when I was fifteen and running for my life, and they wouldn't now.
I was safe, and I would make sure I stayed that way, even if it meant choosing oblivion.
However safe I tried to convince myself I was, though, sleep evaded me, the spectre of everything I wanted to forget a little too close for me to drop from consciousness.
It was the cold that did it: although I knew it wasn't that cold in my little bunk, covered in blankets, I could still feel the frigid damp from more than a decade ago.
My fingers felt stiff with it, and I figured that, if I could get my hands warmed up, I might be able to chase away the rest of what was haunting me, at least for now.
So I got up, scrubbing my cold fingers through my hair and blinking blearily in the darkness, and I left my little room to go to the dining room for a cup of tea.
The ship was dark except for the faintest shimmer of track lighting near the edges of the walkways and on the treads of the stairs.
I tapped at my wristband, and winced at the time.
I'd been slipping from reality for hours, miserable and terrified, unable to fall asleep and unable to break free of my shitty memories.
It had been years since I'd had a night like this.
It used to happen a lot, back when I first left Seraphim, and when I first started dancing and entertaining.
It was like the worse I behaved, according to the strictures of Seraphim, the more easily I could feel the chill of their breath at the nape of my neck, keeping me from sleep.
I guess having to uproot my entire life to run from them had opened a few wounds. Reminded me of some of my own frailties.
I walked quietly down the stairs and toward the dining room.
The air was so preternaturally still, the dark so plush and velvety, that for a moment I had the disorienting feeling that I might actually be entirely alone on this ship, adrift deep in space with no one around and no one to find me.
But as I drew near to the dining room, I saw the doorway was lit by more than the floor lights: soft pink light slipped out around the edges of the partially shut door, just a sliver that cast an inviting glow.
I softened my steps as I drew near. If Vivith or Evreni were in the dining room, I'd go back upstairs; I'd rather be cold than deal with either of them at the moment, when I felt more than a little fragile, more than a little haunted.