43. ACHERON
The house that Cerri had brought Ash to was strangely cold and painfully plastered in white. Ash had never seen anything like it before – a home so void of colour and warmth. Cerri, with her long dark red hair sat with her face in her hands. She was distraught and hadn’t stopped crying since they arrived in this strange place. Ash, with his small hands, tried to comfort the crying female but as he neared her, the golden glow that encased her burned a touch brighter. She was angry. He could feel it in his bones.
“Ma’am, is there anything I can do to help you?” Ash asked timidly.
Cerri shrieked, flinging her chair across the marble mansion she called her home. “Get out of my sight,” she seethed.
Ash could see the venom in her eyes. Sharp. Accusing. Deadly. She meant every single word and he felt every single sting. He didn’t know where to go. He’d just arrived at this place and all his mother and father said, was to stay strong and to stay with Cerri. So that’s what he would do.
Ash shook his head slightly, feeling the hot prick of tears behind his eyes. This place was so big and so cold.
“I don’t care where you go, just get out!” Cerri shouted. She lunged for Ash, grabbing a hold of his ear and twisted it painfully. Ash tried his best to claw free of her grip, but he couldn’t. She was strong.
Ash tripped over his own fumbling feet as she threw him out of the front door. He turned quickly, trying to get back inside. He didn’t want to be outside. He didn’t even know where here was. His stomach toiled and tumbled, and his palms were sweaty. He didn’t really know what was happening but all he knew was that he didn’t like being here.
Cerri gripped his wrist to make him stand still and Ash tried his best not to cry as his lower lip wobbled.
“You are not allowed to cry. You hear me? While you are here, you are to do as I say and if anyone sees you, I will throw you out on the streets where you will receive no protection from me.” Cerri twisted his wrist harder, looking as if she was expecting him to say something.
“Yes, Ma’am,” Ash whispered, he lowered his gaze.
Cerri let go of his wrist to grip his chin, forcing him to look up at her. Her fingernails digging into his soft skin. “Is that all I get?” Her long hair fell off her shoulder creating a curtain.
Ash didn’t know what to say. His wrist ached and so did his ear. Mother and Father were going to come back for him, right?
Ash looked up at Cerri, into those dark, endless eyes and said nothing. He was trying his hardest to not cry, but the tears were on the cusp of falling.
Cerri slapped him across the cheek so fast and hard that he barely even blinked. “When a goddess gives up her world to house a lowly Fae boy like you, you grovel at her feet and thank the Fates that you’re still breathing.”
Ash’s cheek pulsed with pain and the tears spilled. He couldn’t stop them. A panic rose in his chest. He didn’t like this at all. “Thank you, Ma’am. I appreciate all that you’ve done for me.” He tried to calm his shaky voice as he sunk to his knees and bowed to the scary woman before him.
She let him stay there for a few moments, the cold marble biting into his knees.
Cerri scoffed. “Get up.”
He obeyed, wiping the tears from his eyes.
“Go to your room and do not leave it,” Cerri commanded as she disappeared on a puff of smoke.
Ash ran as fast as he could to the small room that Cerri had assigned him. The room could barely fit a single bed, but at least it had a window that Ash could smell the fresh air through. At least he’d have a place to stay dry and warm.
Ash shut the bedroom door behind him and curled up onto the bed. He let the tears fall freely from his face, soaking into the pillow underneath him. Soon. His mother and father would come for him soon.
When Ash ran out of tears to cry, sleep found him.
Though not for long.
Dark shadows edged into his vision. For a moment he felt a hand holding his as his mind suspended between consciousness. His body felt like his again, no longer five years old, but his mind was still stuck – lost in a dream state. But that hand, it gripped his tighter as if to say everything was going to be okay. He squeezed the hand back, hoping it would pull him from his dream state, but it didn’t. It couldn’t. Because the shadows of his past were back, and they brought him to a place he never wanted to visit again.
It had almost been two years since he’d seen his mother and father. He felt impossibly homesick. He’d started to forget what his parents looked like, what they sounded like and what they felt like. And he was scared to forget completely.
Life with Ma’am was difficult. There were days when she would explode in anger and other days where the soft, sad female moved around the house. A shell. A ghost. He never knew who he would be expecting for the day but had learnt quickly to tread lightly. It was tread lightly and keep quiet, or risk not having food to eat for the night. At the rate Ash was growing, he hungered too quickly, too often. So, he adapted.
Ash had barely left the room for his entire time here, only taking quick trips to the bathroom across the hall to wash or relieve himself. He spent his days looking out the window wondering what it was like to feel the grass between his toes or how dirt would feel beneath his fingernails. He could climb out the window if he truly wanted to, but he didn’t want to be whipped or have his food taken away from him.
While Ma’am was difficult most days, there were days where she was nice enough to fulfil his requests. He didn’t ask for much, he wanted drawing journals and books to read. It was entertainment enough and he enjoyed escaping to the world of the gods; reading about their wars and the heroes that came with. Heroes. He so badly wanted to be one of them. Clad in armour, strong and free. When he grew up, that’s exactly what he wanted to be – unstoppable.
On days like this, where daylight stretched and the weather reminded him of home in Faery, he took to drawing. Drawing his mother. Her soft and kind face. The necklace that he was supposed to protect with his life. He would draw his father, laughing as he wore a crown of gold and colourful gemstones. He would draw his best friend Sofreya and would wonder where she was now and if she was taking Astraea and Orion flying. The last time he saw her she was being rowed away, but Ash had no idea where to. He remembered crying and how Lou, his father’s friend, had told him that she was headed somewhere safe. Ash hoped that the safe place Sofreya went to wasn’t like the place that Ash was sent to. He was so alone here, but at least he had his drawings and books to escape to.
The door to his bedroom slammed open.
Ash quickly stashed his black drawing diary underneath his pillow and stood up beside his bed, tall and straight.
“What are you hiding from me?” Cerri sneered. Ma’am was angry today. Ash could feel it in his bones.
He knew better than to lie to her. He was never good at lying but Ash didn’t want her to rip up his drawings. That’s what she had done last time she found him drawing his family. She had said it was pointless. That if she wasn’t allowed to see her son, then Ash couldn’t see his family either, even through drawings.
Ash gulped and bit his lip in anger. He didn’t want to do it, but he couldn’t risk not eating. His stomach already gnawed at him. He only had two square meals a day.
Ash slowly turned back to his bed and pulled out his drawing diary from underneath his pillow and handed it to Cerri. She was dressed in a dark purple dress and her hair was pulled back tight. It made her look like an evil witch.
Cerri all but snatched the diary from his hands. She flicked it to the last few pages and Ash swore that fumes started to billow from her nose and ears. “What did I tell you about drawing this nonsense?”
Ash hung his head low. “You told me to stop drawing them, Ma’am.” He was never allowed to look at her directly in the eye when she spoke to him. Even if she stood right in front of his face, screaming, he would have to look through her. Never at her.
“Then how can you explain this?” Cerri turned the book around to show a picture of himself and Sofreya throwing rocks across a river.
“It’s nothing, I made that one up. She’s not real.” Ash knew he shouldn’t have lied but he did. He’d spent hours perfecting the way Sofreya’s hair bounced in the air, and he was proud of it. It brought him joy.
Before he could stop her, Cerri took the page and ripped it out. He flinched at the ripping sound that sounded awfully like his heart right now. She scrunched it without a care in the world and did the same for the drawings of his mother and father. They fell to the ground unceremoniously.
Ash’s throat ached and he tried his best to school his face into neutrality, but his lungs gave way. He was angry. Fuming. He’d worked so hard on those drawings and now they were all wrinkled and torn. Ash rushed for his drawings, but before he could reach them, Cerri set them alight with flames she had manifested.
Ash looked up at her incredulously. In the eyes. And the shocked face he received in return for his defiance was all he needed. He braced himself for what was to come.
Cerri struck him so hard across the face that he crumpled to the floor. But he did not get up. He never did. He’d learnt that if he got up, she would just do it again. Curling up into a ball and letting the world around him fade was the easiest way to cope.
The shadows filled Ash’s vision again. Tears wet the sides of his face but the hand holding onto his was still there, providing him warmth. Whoever it was would be there for him always. He knew it. He could feel it. Even through the shadows that fed on him.
It had been seven years. Seven years of staying in this one room, yearning to feel the grass between his toes. Of yearning for his parents, his friends, his true home. In the time he’d spent here, he’d grown tall and strong, adding exercise routines he’d seen his father doing in a training ring once. Sit ups, push-ups and pull ups. He’d read about the exercises that soldiers did to keep their fitness up. He’d also learnt how to use a bit of his mana. He didn’t know much about what he was doing, but he was able to do small things like conjure a glamour so that he could hide his drawing diaries in an instant. Ma’am had thought he had stopped drawing altogether, growing bored of it in favour of reading textbooks. It meant that he could draw whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. He drew his family often. His mother and father would be older now so he would draw them with a few finer lines with Ash in the middle and his stronger arms around them both. He drew him and Sofreya learning how to knock a bow and arrow. He had no idea what she looked like now, perhaps her cheeks would be similar, but her bright purple eyes would have remained the same, he knew that much. Drawing made him happy. He made memories he could never have through his drawings, and they were his most prized possessions – not that he had much.
The summer sun beat down on the grass of Cerri’s backyard and the birds chirped carelessly. Ash often wondered what it felt like to fly. To be free. Every now and then, when he opened his window to daze, he would spot an angel in the distance. He’d read that they were part of the Godlands Aerial Legion called the Tienthan. Guardian angels they were. They looked so strong and capable. And most of all, they were free. Oh how Ash wished he could be free. Just like the Tienthan.
He had dreamed of what freedom would taste like for years. It would start with him running toward wherever the angels were flying to. He would beg for them to let him join them. Ash didn’t have wings, but he was smart. He could draw and he kept as fit as possible. He knew how to listen to orders. He’d done it for almost a decade now. And if they denied him, he would beg even more.
But that was just a dream. Distant and unattainable.
Ash was here, in this one room, eyeing the green grass and how it bristled on the slightest of winds. He could just smell its freshness from his window. Ma’am would be leaving for the day any moment now. He could risk it. He’d just have to time it properly.
As if on cue, the front door slammed shut.
Ash waited a moment. Then another.
When silence echoed back, Ash pushed himself onto the windowsill. Was he really going to do this? It would only be for a second. He would just touch the grass with one foot and then he would climb back up. Today was his birthday after all. He would finally be turning twelve.
Ash began to lower himself from the window, bending his elbows and stretching out his leg. The breeze cooled his skin and the anticipation bubbled up in a smile across his face. He carefully dipped his toe into the grass. Its cooling blades bending and twisting against his foot. Ash let out a whimper. It had been so long since he felt this. So long since he smelled the freshness of it this close. He would run across the yard if he could, but this touch alone was just enough.
Ash lowered his other foot to the ground and before he knew it, he was standing firmly on the grass that served as his torture for seven years. What a day to be alive. What a wondrous feeling. Ash stood there; his hands still latched onto the windowsill as he revelled in the beauty of the green grass. This was the best day of his life. That was for sure.
SLAM.
Ash’s bedroom door slammed open with a crash. His heart had never lodged itself in his throat so fast before. In a panic, he scrambled up the side of the house and tumbled onto his bed. He stood straight and tall, like a soldier at attention.
“What did I just see?” Cerri growled.
Ash stayed quiet.
“You are a disgrace. You were given direct orders to never go outside. What, did you think because it was your birthday that I’d give you leeway? It has been YEARS. You should know by now that the day of your birth means nothing to me.” Cerri gritted her teeth and moved to Ash. She breathed furiously, inching closer and closer to his face. But Ash did not falter. He looked just off centre, avoiding her eyes.
“Turn around,” she demanded.
He obeyed, taking his shirt of as he did.
Ash didn’t have to turn around to know what she had just manifested. The leather of the nine-tailed whip creaked and bowed as she wielded it in her hands.
He’d grown numb to the feeling of the whip ripping his skin apart. In fact, he welcomed it because it was the only feeling he was allowed to fully feel. The rush of adrenalin after his beating had always made it easier to sleep.
His skin prickled in anticipation.
One lash.
Ash held his breath as the sharp edges split his skin open.
Two.
It wasn’t too bad today.
Three.
“On your knees,” Cerri commanded.
Four.
Five.
Six.
“You are to never go outside again.”
Seven.
“You are to never draw again.”
Eight.
“You think I don’t see the rubbings or pencil shavings that you try and fail to hide?”
Nine.
“Do you think I’m an imbecile?”
Ten.
“Do you think you can outwit a goddess?”
Eleven.
“You are wrong. You are ungrateful. And no one will ever love you.”
Twelve.
“I should have left you in that blasted Faery realm.”
An anger so wild swept through Ash’s chest. Maybe it was the feeling of the grass, the momentary slice of freedom he felt. A world outside waited for him and if this was to be his reality for the rest of his life then he didn’t want any of it. His mother and father were never coming back for him. Cerri would never protect him as she promised. All she was doing was hiding him from the world.
As the blood from his back dripped down to the floor, Ash found himself at a crossroad. Should he stay here, whipped and starved? Or should he run, toward the angels, toward the world that he’d almost forgotten existed? It was just outside his window, waiting for him. He just needed to reach out.
Cerri wound the whip back into the air, it’s leather creaking as she did. She posed to strike Ash’s raw back.
“Stop . . .” Ash’s voice was croaky, weak.
“Are you attempting to defy me?” Cerri scoffed.
Ash stood slowly from the ground. His bloodied back dripping and oozing with the movements. He turned around to Cerri, stared her right in her endless eyes. He promised to hate her eyes for all eternity as he bared his teeth. “Stop. STOP!” Ash screamed and spat.
Cerri took a step back, something like wariness or fear shone across her face.
But as Ash stepped closer, the raging goddess he knew too well bit back. She winded the whip and tried to lash him across the face. He ducked just in time and ran for the journals he’d kept glamoured underneath his bed. He snatched the bag they were in and dived out the window. The feeling of the grass was splendid but marred by the pain of his raw back.
Cerri shrieked after him. “You are EXILED. Never come back. If you do, I will smite you and so will the other gods. You have been warned!”
Ash ran across the backyard, tears streaming down his face. The heat of the summer sun seared onto his flesh, but he ran, following the path he’d seen the angels of the Tienthan take in the sky. He ran as fast as he could. Rocks and debris bit into his feet but he didn’t care. He was finally free.
He ducked and weaved through roads he’d never seen before, all the way to a waterfall where in the distance, he saw them. The angels. They were fighting. The sounds of steel, clanging against steel, and their hearty laughter echoed across the cavern.
He rushed as close to them as he could, staying as quiet as possible. He hid behind a large rock, with the satchel of journals in his hand. What was he doing? Did he just run away from home? His only source of food? It was the right thing to do, right? Ash doubted himself, feeling confused and lost.
But as the clangs of steel echoed and reverberated through him, he focused on the angels. They were everything he imagined them to be. Strong. Tall. Fearless. Confident. Ash sat by the rock, admiring them. Tears fell freely on his cheeks. Years of not being able to cry had them gushing out uncontrollably. This was the best birthday he’d ever had.
Ash closed his eyes again, the shadow of nightmares edged into his vision.
Ash groaned. Why did it feel like his head had been stomped on by several arions? He spread out his limbs, feeling like they too had been through the ringer.
“Good morning, you overgrown turtle-dove,” Sofreya said. Her voice was layered with the promise of death and as all the memories from last night came flooding through his mind, Ash suddenly remembered why.
Ash sprung awake, finding Sophie seated on his chair, a leg crossed over the other, her hands clasped calmly together. A pillow lay on her lap. She looked at him with a sinister smile.
I’m in trouble.
Ash grinned sheepishly. “I’m sorry?” Ash offered.
“You’ll be sorry alright.” Sofreya laughed, wielding the pillow like a giant shield. She leapt up from her seat and began her onslaught with maniacal laughter.
Ash grabbed her waist before she could smack him with the pillow and pinned her to the bed. He grabbed a pillow of his own, ready to attack. She slipped out from underneath him, smacking him square across the face as she did.
A growl left his throat as he grabbed one of her ankles to immobilise her, but she was slippery. She pulled her knee upward, making Ash lose his balance. He fell onto his chest. Sofreya quickly turned and pinned him in place, straddling his back. She sounded a triumphant caw as she rained down her pillow attacks.
Ash laughed, feigning he’d been truly hurt.
“Yield!” Sofreya cried with laughter.
“I yield! I yield!” Ash laughed with her.
She stopped her onslaught, pulling at his shoulder so he could lie on his back. He obeyed as she straddled his front.
They stared at each other for a moment.
She was wearing his t-shirt and Ash could feel her every curve as she pinned him down underneath him. What did he need to do to wake up like this for the rest of his life?
Sofreya leaned forward, her hands braced beside his head. She looked worried, like she didn’t know how to find the words to speak.
“I saw your dreams, Ash. Your memories. I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry. You were just so distraught, I didn’t know what else to do. I thought maybe if I dipped into your mind for a moment, I could help you. But the pain was too much. I think your little self latched onto my mind . . . I couldn’t get back out.” Sofreya whispered.
Ash instinctively looked away from her gaze for a second. Calming the beat of his thunderous heart.
She pulled at his chin with the softest touch, making him look at her. “I’m sorry you went through those things. No child should have gone through that. Is there anything I can do for you?”
Ash leaned into her touch, wishing he could stay like this forever. Wishing her touch could burn through the pain and the nightmares so that he could never see them again.
“Just stay,” Ash breathed.
Stay because I lost you once. Stay because I can never lose you again.
She lowered herself onto his chest, squeezing him tightly. Ash pulled her closer, savouring her smell and the way she fit into his arms. She was made for him.
“You’re still an asshole for shrinking me though,” she grumbled against his chest.
Ash let out a hearty laugh.
He loved this. He loved them. He loved her.
The words he spoke last night, knowing she’d been asleep, echoed through his mind. The words could not be truer. He loved her from the very start, and he always would.