Chapter Eighteen
Cave
I was built from necessity.
I wore a face that was not mine so the real one could survive,
I burned what I loved because it was already gone,
I learned some things do not burn,
I learned some things wait.
I put my hands in the earth, and I began again.
Seth Fairchild does not look like he belongs on the island; he is far too clean-cut. He belongs on the mainland. How he has a past with Nixie is beyond me, but stranger things have happened. I ended up with Valli, and god knows I don’t deserve her.
Seth sat in the lounge across from me for twenty minutes before he relaxed.
He holds his notepad and smiles at me, while I wait for the questions I know will come.
That is the reason he is here, after all.
I have allowed him into my home because I like how I’m feeling now.
I don’t miss the anger bubbling beneath the surface every second of every day.
It’s still there at times, but nowhere near as often as before.
“You look different,” he says.
I nod. I find answering him in some way makes him move on, and the quicker he goes through the motions, the quicker he leaves.
“The Scarecrow . . . is he still there?” he asks, something he has never done before.
It’s a question I have been asked since being home, mostly by Noa. Valli mentioned it once but quickly dropped it.
“Still here,” I sign, because Cipher opened his big mouth when Seth arrived, telling him I could communicate through sign language. If I knew it would be this big of a deal, I never would have revealed that secret. I quite like nodding and one-word answers; it feels safer.
“But under control?” he asks.
“He is mine, not the other way around.”
Seth is quiet for a moment while he writes something in his notepad, then he smiles. He writes something else, then rips the page from his book and hands it to me.
You don’t need to see me again unless you want to.
I look at the words, and then at Seth, who holds my gaze. The rest of the session goes much the same way; he is happy with my nods and one-word answers, though occasionally he asks me to sign my answers.
He stands when the session is over, and we shake hands. It’s a weird feeling being so, might I say, civilized. This is new to me, but I am doing this for Valli, Cipher, and Noa. They deserve someone they can be proud of.
Seth picks up his briefcase, slips his notepad inside, and clips it back up.
We walk outside together, where the island is fairly quiet at this time of day.
As we get closer to Nixie’s office, voices filter toward us.
I recognize Nixie’s firm tone straight away, and the other one is Evan, who came to the island with Seth under the pretense of handing over my final discharge letters.
They are both standing in front of her office, Nixie with her arms crossed and her chin tilted up, a sure sign she is not budging on whatever they are talking about.
Evan has his hands at his sides, but then he reaches out and puts his hand on her.
She rips her arm back, and something inside me clicks.
I cross the path, and when I reach him, my hand closes around his throat.
Evan goes completely still—he is no idiot, but he must be stupid if he thinks he can put his hands on her. Nixie is my family; no one touches her.
His hand comes up and grabs at my wrist, but this isn’t my first rodeo. He won’t be able to remove my hand unless I release it. He can’t touch her, not if she doesn’t want him to.
I lean in. “What happens to the hand that touches what the Scarecrow protects?”
“Cave.” I go still at the sound of her voice. “Cave, look at me.”
I stare at Evan for a moment, but I can see her in my periphery. She has her hands on her hips, and she looks mad.
“Drop the doctor, Cave.”
I release my fingers, and Evan gasps for air as he steps backward, lifting both hands to his throat. I smirk at him, and he turns to Nixie, waiting to see what she does next.
“I think you should deliver the paperwork to Vincent and let him handle the rest.”
He picks up the folder he dropped, looking back at Nixie. “The paperwork is in order.”
I walk to Valli’s side; she looks up at me, moving her hand from her hip and putting it on my chest to stop me from pulling her into my arms. “Are you okay?”
I nod, but she holds my gaze for a moment longer. When she moves her hand, I turn my back and walk to the cornfield.
I stay in my empty field all night.
Noa came past at dinner time, and when I refused to leave, he went back to the house but told me to come home when I was ready.
I nodded, and that seemed like enough. He didn’t come back, and neither did the others.
I don’t want to slip back into the old me.
I know what I did was wrong, but he protects us.
Maybe I have to be okay with that part of myself.
The night passes, and I sit with my back against the post, bare earth around me, almost missing the Christmas trees. Someone has already done a lot of the hard work, as the soil has been turned, ready for the new corn to be sown.
The soil is cold under my hands, and I dig my nails in, feeling the earth grounding me.
The Scarecrow is quiet and has been since the facility.
It could be the medication they have me on, the sessions with Seth, or it could just be that I finally feel like I deserve the people in my life, that I am safe with them.
But yesterday proved he is still there to protect them when I need him.
I reach into the bag of kernels and take out a handful.
Standing, I move to the closest section of tilled earth and press one into the soil, covering it, then move on to the next.
The sun rises, and I keep planting. While I know I can’t do it all by hand, I can do the first perimeter around the post.
I burned this field to the ground, stood there and watched it all go up in flames.
I didn’t want anything if I couldn’t have her, and I thought I had crossed a line I could never come back from.
The fire may have taken the crop, but it didn’t take the soil.
It has changed and become somewhere things can regrow.
And while it may not be the same, it has a chance to be better.
Footsteps approach, but I don’t turn around; I would know the sound of Cipher’s movements even with my eyes closed and underwater.
He kneels beside me and looks at the seeds I have just planted.
Then he reaches into the bag, takes a seed, and presses it into the earth.
We plant together in silence, just the two of us, side by side.
Valli and Noa also come down, and neither of them says anything. Instead, they take in what we are doing, and they each grab a handful of seeds and help.
We plant in near silence, all four of us, which is not something that happens often when Noa is around.
The perimeter around the post takes the better part of the morning.
Valli is determined, pressing each seed into the ground with a focused glare.
It’s the same look she had on her face when Cipher’s mom was trying to teach her ASL: the small lines between her brows creased, but she kept going.
Cipher stays beside me, working at the same speed I do. Noa hums as he plants, which I still class as silence, as it’s his version of quiet.
By the time we meet again, I’m planting the last seed, and I place my hand flat on the soil covering it. It’s done. Noa stands and stretches, making a sound of satisfaction as he looks at our handiwork, which really doesn’t look like we have done anything, but I know we have.
“One second,” Noa says, disappearing toward the groundskeeper’s shed.
As the first sprinkler head comes up—they were installed last year—I look at Cipher, and we both turn to Valli.
“We need to run,” Cipher says.
The water hits us before we’ve even made it three steps. I grab Valli and throw her over my shoulder, since her legs are barely half the size of mine. Valli laughs as we run, and I see Noa standing on the other edge, looking pleased with himself. We are now soaking wet and covered in mud.
Noa realizes what he has done, joining Valli in laughter until I place her down on her feet and make eye contact with him. Noa holds his hands up when he notices what is about to happen. He tries to turn and run, but Cipher is already standing behind him.
“Guys, this isn’t fair. I thought they were on a timer. I swear I set it for half an hour. Back up, big man, I don’t want to have to use my Kung Fu Panda moves on you.”
Valli cackles. “You really think standing with one leg in the air like that will stop them?”
Noa screams as I charge at him, grab hold of him, and race back into the field. His screams turn to laughter as the water sprays us. I don’t stay too long because it’s freezing, but long enough that he is wet.
Valli tells us to hurry because she is cold, and we all rush back to the house.
Thankfully Noa forgot to turn the heating down and inside it’s nice and warm.
We strip off our wet clothes, and Valli hands us all towels, telling us not to drip water on the floors as we head off to shower.
We all do, one by one, after letting Valli shower first.
“Best morning ever,” Noa says with a grin.
“You say that a lot,” Valli sasses back.
“Because I don’t ever think I can top a day, but then we do.”
We sit around the table in our house, in a place I can finally call home, that I want to call home. For the better part of a decade, that was my cornfield, and while it still calls to me, it’s no longer the place I feel is my home.
I look at Cipher, and he gazes over at me when he feels me staring.
“Can I ask you something?” I sign.
He nods and the others catch on that something is happening.
“Are you happy?”
He smirks and signs back. “More than you could ever imagine. All I have ever wanted is to connect with you.”
“I always felt connected to you.”
I turn to Noa, and he sits up straighter, his smile contagious.
“What are you most afraid of?” Cipher verbalizes as I sign.
Noa blinks; he wasn’t expecting that question, and I watch him process.
“Losing this. Losing any of you. I spent a long time not having people who were mine, and now that I have you, the thought of you not being here is my worst fear.” Tears well in his eyes.
“I’m sorry . . . No, actually, I’m not. This is your first real conversation, and you want to know about me. It’s just a lot.”
I sign back, and Cipher speaks for me. “You won’t.”
He presses his lips together and simply nods.
I turn to Valli. “What did the island give you that you didn’t know you needed?”
Cipher gives her a moment, but the ASL is too advanced for her to translate, so he whispers my words to her, and she thinks about my question for a bit before answering.
“Myself,” she says. “I didn’t know who I was before I came here. I thought I did, but I was wrong.”
Cipher watches as I raise my hands. “Mine,” I sign, and he laughs.
“You could have just said that—we all know you can.”
“Just translate, or I might suffocate you in your sleep.”
He smirks at me, and I continue. “You are mine and I am yours. I love you all more than words could ever express.”
With a huff, Cipher shares my sentiment aloud.
“You don’t need words, big guy, just sign language.”
We all laugh at Noa. He may be a lot for some people, but we think he is perfect just the way he is. Noa tells Cipher he needs him to sign something, and Cipher points out that I’m not deaf, which makes Valli laugh.
I think this is the moment that I might finally be okay with the man underneath the Scarecrow.