Chapter 16
Chapter sixteen
James
Today is the worst day yet. I opened the curtains this morning to see the sunrise again.
I did, and despite how weak I felt, it was stunning, but the bright light danced in front of my eyes.
Long after I closed my eyes, the lights turned into a show, like the fireworks I used to watch back home with my parents.
I try to remember what my parents look like.
I am forgetting about them more and more.
I have been dreaming about them, but their faces are always blurred, like I am watching them through milky glass.
Memories of them are always in the back of my mind, behind a door I lost the key to.
Suddenly, footsteps draw closer, pulling my attention back to the present.
“James, wake up. I brought you some breakfast, and you’ll never guess it has fruit again.
And coffee. Cap said you might enjoy it since it’s a human beverage,” a familiar voice tells me.
The voice is comforting, but I am lost, floating again.
I want to answer. I smell the coffee. I have hardly drunk coffee since coming to Silvermist, and I long for it.
But my eyes feel sewn together, the voice too far away.
My skull is filled with clouds again, my body weightless, as I drift further and further away from reality. Never being able to answer, never being able to enjoy the offered coffee.
“I am back my sweet boy. Come here let me play the flute for you; it will make you feel better. It always does, doesn’t it?”
“Withdrawal hurts, doesn’t it?”
“Come on, tell me you feel it too,”
“I am not the one that made you addicted. I am not the reason you are going into withdrawal right now…”
“Stop. Leave me alone, both of you,” I beg as the two voices argue in my mind, but my jaws won’t move. They clench together till my teeth hurt.
“Wish I could, but you need to eat. This is only getting worse like this.” I don’t believe the voice talking to me now.
It is soothing, warm, deep, rich. But my instincts are screaming at me.
My skin prickles with goosebumps, the hairs at the end of my neck standing straight.
The muscles in my legs ache as they tense, coiled ready to push off and run away.
“Stubborn fool,” that same soothing, dangerous voice from my dreams, now close to me, tells me. My body jerks as something wet and thick drags over my face. Like a snail is making his way to the other side of the bunk, using my face as the path to get there.
My tongue comes free from the roof of my mouth with a loud smack, the liquid dripping into my dry mouth.
It is sweet and familiar. Not Peter, though—he is still too far away from me.
It doesn’t give me the strength to open my eyes.
I can feel the small muscle under my right eyes twitch, as my eyes flash from right to left beneath my eyelids.
Someone is pinching my eyelids together.
I give up fighting it. I will just sleep a little more.
It is fine. I am tired anyway, and the voice I still struggle to recognize feels unsafe, like it’s involved with the misery I am in now.
“I am coming for you my sweet boy. I always do. You just need to hold on a little longer, okay?” Peter appears in front of me again.
I try to reach for him, and I stumble forward.
The Peter in front of me is not the firm, solid body I am used to.
I fall to my knees in this dreamscape as I pass through this ghost form.
If I wouldn’t know better, I would say I passed through his shadow.
Wait, that is a weird thought to have. He doesn’t have a shadow, everyone knows that. He has done this before, sent me a message in my dreams.
“I need to get home Peter. Why is it taking so long?” I beg the dream-Peter. His eyes grow colder as he opens his mouth to speak.
“Because he doesn’t care for you. Not like he should anyway; he never does.” Peter tells me but his voice is different now.
“What are you talking about? Who doesn’t care about me?” I ask, my voice rising in panic. All I get for an answer is silence, from dream-Peter and the weird voice in the back of my mind. The voice coming from outside the dream.
The snail is back, the one who tastes like makana juice. The tip of my tongue feels weirdly cold as I dart it out of my mouth to taste the liquid on my lips now.
“Come on, wake up, sit up straight, and you will get an entire glass; it’s good, right?” the voice is back, coaxing me with the promise of cold juice. I will try again, just once. If it doesn’t work, I am just going to give up.
My eyes squeeze shut the second I open them. The light is far too bright. I only see a flash of long black hair. Metal scratches over metal.
“Open them again,” the voice tells me. The light is gone, the curtains drawn. Killian is looking at me with pity.
“Listen, I know you feel bad, but you need to drink and eat something. I did not drag your ass out of the water so you could wither away here.”
Of course this man blames me for being sick, but my weird fever dreams and all his little remarks have made me doubt Peter and our bond for the first time since I came to Silvermist months ago.
“You have been hinting at what’s happening to me a lot.
But you never outright told me what you think is happening,” I murmur as I sit up.
My hand trembles as I push back the hair stuck to my forehead.
Not in fear for the answers, but because my muscles seem to have stopped working, like someone fishing net tied to them, making them too heavy to function.
“Drink.”
I shiver at the cold from the metal cup being pressed into my hands. No answer, just an odd command to take care of myself. To make sure I survive, so he can keep telling himself he is a better man than Peter is.
My skin prickles. Gray eyes are locked in on me, just watching the bob of my throat with every careful sip I take.
He doesn’t speak, not about the question I asked, or insults about my weakness, or jabs at Peter’s character.
Just an all-consuming silence as he slips into the role I am so used to taking myself.
The role of the silent caregiver, making sure everyone eats and drinks enough.
Metal clatters to wood as my body painfully slams forward.
“Come on mom, you need to drink the milk. You know what the doctor said,” I urge my mom, bringing the mug of milk to her lips.
“I can’t, love, Matthew and Barry need milk too,” she mumbles. It’s been like this ever since she got sick.
Nausea claws at my throat, the glass with the precious milk almost slipping from my now clammy hand.
“Mom, they need a mother. Please just drink.” My voice comes out high, breathless, and choppy.
We are all growing desperate; mom has always given more to others than to herself.
Now that she is ill, though, she finally needs to take care of herself more, but she refuses it.
“I got a job, mom. Things will be better now. I am going to be a baker’s apprentice.
I will earn a silver coin a week. It’s not much, but it helps, and I can take the leftovers home.
Cakes, pies, rolls. We’ll save so much money on baked goods,” I say proud and happy.
A silver coin a week isn’t much to most people, but it would make such a difference to us.
And I love baking, so it’s a job I can actually be happy about.
My happiness fades as soon as a cold seeps into my cheeks when my mom cups them. Not with pride but with pity. Her eyes have dulled even more, and she bites her chapped bottom lip, whispering, “I wish you didn’t need to do this. You’re incredibly sweet, James.”
“Are you okay?” Killian’s voice pulls me from the memory. One that was so visceral that my body folded in half. Tremors are wrecking my body so violently now, that it blurs my vision, like I am caught in an earthquake.
“My mother has a birthmark on her left thumb. She loved my fish pie the most,” I tell myself more than I tell Killian. Two random memories of my mother I had forgotten after moving here that I somehow just got back, and a memory of one of the first days after she got sick.
“You forgot all about that, didn’t you?” Killian’s question is more of a statement,, gentle, waiting. Like this should be enough for me to understand what he has been hinting at all that time.
“Say what you want to say, this tiptoeing about whatever ugly truth you think you have for me isn’t cute.” I slump back, even just raising my voice took everything out of me. That and mentally trying to pierce the mist surrounding the memories of my life before Peter.
“You’re not ready,” he tells me, standing up.
At least he is leaving the room so I can sleep some more, free from his constant presence.
Like a shadow sucking the joy out of everything.
Back in Silvermist Castle, the colorless peaks kept the sunlight out.
Here Captain Killian Pestilence does; and it is more than I can handle on a good day.
But now, feeling like this, I just need him out.
To leave me alone until they either kill me… or Peter comes to collect me.
Either kill me or Peter comes to collect me.
The voice in my mind repeats, no wonder I am feeling so bad.
I am starting to doubt Peter and his willingness to come and get to me.
Collect me as if I am an object, not the love of his life.
I let the nonsense Killian was spouting get to me.
Peter has always warned me about not doubting our bond, even if he could not be with me.
Because it will only worsen the effects of missing him.
“Please, Peter. I miss you. Please speak to me in my dreams again, tell me what to do,” I plead out loud. Hoping somehow Peter hears it and will be there for me. It’s been longer than I have ever been without him. Without the necklace, I don’t know how to deal with this anymore.
“My sweet boy, I heard you missed me. You need to trust me a little longer, not letting your mind get poisoned by his words, his juice,” Peter tells me in my dream, and the relief I feel hearing his voice again stops my body from trembling.
His closeness, even when it’s simply his voice in a dream, is healing.
But his warning about the juice frightens me.
It is all Killian and his crew have been giving me since started feeling unwell.
Every time I drink it, it seems to make me feel a little better despite my initial skepticism.
“The Makana juice… What is wrong with that? I had it before at our home,” I ask dream-Peter.
“It’s sweeter here, right?” Peter purrs, the tone he usually reserved for our more intimate moments. It makes me think he is about to tell me a secret, one that would explain why the makana juice does taste better here.
“Yes, but things are different here, everything is,” I stammer ,apologizing for a mistake I didn’t know I made; a mistake I don’t understand, but the gentle, purr of Peter’s voice—so out of place for the context of our conversation—convinces me something is wrong.
The tone alone has my stomach clench, sweat prickling at my back. A mixture of panic and guilt.
“And you never wondered why? You never wondered why he took the necklace from you?” The change in his tone from the soft, soothing purr, to cold and hard has me trembling again.
“No, I am sorry, Peter. I had so much on my mind. I don’t know how to deal with this,” I murmur, hoping to find some softness, some tenderness in dream Peter again. He must know how unsettling this whole ordeal is for me.
“First, show me I have a mate worth rescuing, risking my life for. After you let yourself get caught. After you didn’t scream for help and kept drinking the makana juice they’re giving you.” His voice is so angry, so high-pitched, that it almost sounds like he is bleating.
It happened only once before and like that time my heart shatters.
How can he be so callous about me not being with him?
He doesn’t sound sick at all. I know he is stronger as a faun.
But just from loving me, shouldn’t he be sick with worry?
Should the bond not affect him even if it is just a little bit?
My legs are being bound together again, someone or something is pressing down on my chest. I can’t breathe. “Peter, please I can’t breathe, please help me,” I cry out.
My chest swells as my lungs expand, filling with air again.
I can move my legs again. My forehead is oddly cold, but it doesn’t matter.
Nothing does, no matter how angry Peter is at me, no matter how much I failed him.
He is here for me. He must be the one caring for me now.
He didn’t let me die; he helped me out when I needed him most.
My headache melts away as only five of his fingers drag through my damp hair, pulling it from my face again. My hair in my dreams is not damp, and in my dreams, I look like how I am supposed to look. Hair soft and clean, brushed out of my face, dressed in clean green clothes.
The sensations I dreamed of at first are different now, firmer, more solid as nails that now scrape my scalp, normally smooth fingers now calloused.
Still, just as real as the air I am breathing in again.
Suddenly, it dawns on me. Peter is here with me; his anger was not real.
He was just making me see how much he had been worrying about me.
And I deserved it—he was right about the fact that I let myself get caught.
I went out into the Silvermist forest when he told me not to.
Even Killian and his crew mocked me when they caught me.
But now everything will be alright; all I need to do is open my eyes.
I will be with Peter again. He is going to take me home and forgive me. All I need to do is open my eyes one last time when we’re back home. And I will get better soon.