31. Pippi
“Once, I dreamed ,” Alistair started slowly.
Hesitantly. As though forcibly having to drag each word from the bowels of his brain.
“Too much. I got l-lost in the dreams sometimes. Especially when they were big. And I had a big dream. I saw a…split…a divide in the world. And I wanted to…connect… bridge the divide. Everyone thought I’d fail.
That the dream was too much. I tried anyway.
And I made it real. But it took from me.
Stole. My t-t-time. Days. Life. Indigo . ”
Sadness knifed into my belly as that soft—so, so, so softly—spoken name tumbled through my ears.
Indigo.
“I met her before the dream con-consumed me. She wa-was….” he stuttered.
Sighed, billowing the air through his nostrils in a rushing roar.
“ Everything. I loved her. And I should’ve…
” He shuddered around a zap of despair. “I should have ended the dream. But I got lost in it. In the dream. The work. The vision . Lost. My head i-ignoring my heart. I was s-s-s-selfish. Stupid. My love started to slip, and I was too lost to see it.”
“Oh, Alistair.” I stroked his head, offering what comfort I could.
“This dream…it…worked. In ways I didn’t…But it—” Alistair choked, trying to chew too many words at once and getting them all stuck in his throat.
“Take a breath,” I said. “Give yourself a few seconds.”
His entire body shook around his inhale. And quivered on his exhale.
“I miss … speaking…talking…quickly,” he huffed.
“I would too.”
“I h-h-hate that I can’t—” he bit off, making a sound like he was hocking the stuck words from his throat.
Molten trickles of frustration seeped into my chest.
I flattened my palm against the top of his head, wishing I could pour peace into him, the way he always fed calmness into me.
I wanted to hold him. Wrap him in a big, squishy hug.
Press myself flush against him until he felt the pace of my breathing and could coerce his lungs to follow the same rhythm.
But I couldn’t do anything , except perch on top of his head and hope he got some comfort from my presence. And maybe he did. Because after several long heartbeats, Alistair soothed himself enough to speak again.
“The dream worked. But the more it worked, the more it d-d-demanded. I kept giving. The dream kept wanting. And Indigo…” A ruffly sigh escaped him.
“She kept f-f-forgiving. When she shouldn’t have.
She stayed. When she shouldn’t have. She deserved more.
Someone who wasn’t always lost. She died.
The dream…what I had made with this dream…
it…it took her. And I wasn’t there. I couldn’t stop it. She died. Alone.”
My blood turned to ice. “Oh, Alistair, I’m?—”
“Please don’t be sorry,” he said with uncharacteristic brusqueness. “Not for me. Be sorry for Indigo. For the innocents. I deserve my hurt.”
“No, you don’t?—"
“Indigo was innocent. And I should have…” His flesh undulated around a flinch. “May I offer advice, Pippi? For you?”
I blinked. “Uh, sure.”
“You spoke of being trapped. In that qua-quag- quagmire. I was a quagmire. Once. I trapped Indigo. And was the b-burden that made her sink faster. I didn’t mean to be, but every day I wish…
that I’d let her go. Or she’d b-broken away from me.
Every day. I loved her. Letting her go would’ve hurt me.
But I’d be h-h-happy for the hurt now. If it made her happy.
But I…” His voice broke. “I can’t help Indigo.
Not anymore. I can help you. And I wish this for you, Pippi.
Break free of your quagmire. Maybe you won’t lose…
your…b-boyfriend. Maybe he’s lost like I was.
And doesn’t know he has you trapped. But if you do lose…
it won’t be forever. You’ll be free. And will be happy again.
But to never be free…I don’t want that for you. ”
And yup, the waterworks had started again.
Alistair stiffened. “You’re crying. I didn’t mean?—”
“It’s okay, Alistair. It’s okay. You didn’t make me cry. I made me cry. With everything that’s…well, with everything that happened with Jackson. The timing of this is so terrible. With us being here.”
“If you wait for a good time, you’ll always wait,” Alistair said.
“Look at you coming in with the sage advice.”
“Well, I am the wise-est… wisest sea beast. And the coolest and cutest .”
“And the most egotistical. Can’t forget that.”
“I like a different word. C-c-confident.”
“Overly confident, maybe.” I rubbed at the tears tickling my cheeks and curled my knees into my chest, both to warm my body—although the sticky, humid air had already thawed me out—and because I suddenly felt off-kilter.
Placed back under a spotlight, when I wasn’t prepared to be there.
“How did we end up circling back to my trauma?” I asked.
“This was supposed to be your turn to offload some pain.”
“My hurts are old,” Alistair said. “Yours are fresh. And I’d like to help. If I can.”
I rested my chin against my knees. “You have. Everything about this night—you have helped, Alistair. I’ve never laughed like I have tonight. Never felt so…”
Content.
Safe.
Silly.
Happy.
“…free.”
Alistair warbled. “Good.”
I leaned back, watching as a pudgy puff of fog trickled off the nearly full moon. “Would you tell me about Indigo?”
Confusion surged through him.
“She was important to you. And anyone who’s important to you is important to me. I’d like to hear about her. Whatever you feel comfortable sharing.”
He quieted for a moment. Not in a tense way that suggested I’d trounced too far over the line. This was a reflective silence as he organized what he wanted to say.
“She grew… things ,” he began. “This word is missing. Colorful things. They grow in the ground.”
“Uh…”
“They smell nice.”
“Flowers?”
“Yes! Flowers. Flowers. What an easy word. And it kept slipping.” He harrumphed.
“Sometimes I lose track of stupid-simple words too,” I said. “I think they’re the easiest ones to lose. Big, complicated words tend to stick in your brain, but the simple ones blend too much and get lost in the crowd. So…flowers? She grew flowers?”
“Yes. Flowers. Indigo loved them. Loved making them grow. I used to pick them for her. From different places. Different flowers…ones that didn’t grow where we…
our home. I’d pick them. And she’d care for them.
And they’d grow.” A soft laugh burbled through him.
“I used to…j-j-joke that she got as lost in her flowers as I did in my dream. And she said the difference was…she was a woman. Women got themselves less… un lost better than men.”
“Oh, yeah, she’s not wrong. Women generally multitask better.”
“Multi. Task. Yes.” Alistair laughed. “I don’t do it well. Indigo did.” He stopped for a moment. And then in a sad, broken voice said, “I miss her.”
“I’m sure you do. She sounds wonderful.”
“She was.”
He didn’t say anything else.
Maybe rooting through the crevices of his brain, hunting for words, had left him weary. Or maybe he wanted to keep these scars to himself. We all had wounds other people would never truly understand, and trying to explain ripped those cuts back open. Left them bleeding. Raw.
So for several moments we silently watched the stars. Listened to the ocean grumble and splash. Absorbed each other’s company and comfort.
“I’d love to see a shooting star,” I said after a long stretch. “I’ve never seen one, except in movies. But people swear they’ve as much magic as the Sorcerers. That even a Standie can ask something of a shooting star and have it come true.”
“They are,” Alistair said, “ magical. But they don’t come here.” His head shifted slightly as he tilted his chin up, eyes drawn to the sky. “I’ve never seen one. And I come here often. I like looking at the stars. It’s…p-pe?—”
“Peaceful?” I finished.
“Yes.”
“I think so too.” I lay down between his horns, pillowing my hands under my head, so I could keep staring at the sky without getting a neck crick.
“Sometimes life gets turbulent. But even when everything’s flinging around and flipping upside down, the stars are always there.
Always steady and quiet. Always shining.
Clouds and fog might cover their light, but nothing snuffs them out.
They’re eternal. And steadfast. And assured. Everything we’re not.”
Alistair made another one of his purring sounds.
“I used to sneak out on the roof when I was a kid. When my parents argued into the dead of night. And I’d watch the stars until I fell asleep.
I even made up a story. When I was in, I dunno, middle school?
Maybe a little older. It was before my parents split—can’t remember if it was before we moved—their last-ditch effort to save their marriage.
Anyway, I wrote this terrible story. A romance.
About a human boy who was lonely and sad.
He saw a shooting star one night and wished it would bring him a friend.
And the star sympathized with him, so she came to him herself.
Offered him companionship and love and lost her heart to him in the process.
But in answering the boy’s wish, she trapped herself on Earth.
And she thought she’d be happy there, with this boy she loved.
But he didn’t love her back. He used her, taking more and more of her stardust until she had none left to give him. And?—”
Oh goodness.
Now I remembered why I’d blotted out this story from my memory.
The ending.
“What happened?” Alistair prodded.
“She…well, she lived a while on Earth, despairing more each year,” I said. “Eventually she took her own life, thinking death would bring her back home. But it didn’t. She just became dust.”
Alistair gasped and grouched, “That is awful.”
“Yeah, kid me was a little emo.” I smiled. “I was super unhappy at that point in my life, though. Which was why I started writing. To escape my own life. Occasionally I got vindictive and made my characters suffer. It’s therapeutic to do that. I should probably do it again.”
“You don’t write anymore?”
“No. Haven’t for a long time. I always want to, but there’s never really a good time to sit and work a story out.”
“If you always wait for a good time…” Alistair started.
“I’ll always be waiting. Yeah. You hit me with that sage advice already tonight. It’s goo-goo-goo—” A jaw-cracking yawn split the word. “Good.”
“You’re tired.”
“Yeah.” I dragged a hand over my raw, heavy-lidded eyes. “Lying down was probably a bad idea.” But I didn’t have the strength to get back up. Not when my muscles had turned into a big, goopy puddle.
“You can sleep,” Alistair said.
“I probably won’t.” I blinked blearily at the stars. “They are pretty. The stars. And you look pretty too, when the moon hits you.” My tongue struggled to carry those leaden words. “I should start writing again.”
“You should.”
“No more sad endings, though.”
“No. Ha-happy endings only.”
“I can manage that.” I closed my eyes, because it was too much effort to keep them open. “Hey, Alistair?”
He hummed softly.
“I really like you.”
“I like you as well.”
“I wish you were human, though…”
Sleep wrenched me beneath the surface. And I didn’t have the strength to swim, so I sank.
Alistair’s mournful response followed me down. Words I was convinced my snoozing brain had muddled and reshaped.
“I am human.”