CHAPTER EIGHT #2
When I stir, a rosy hue greets me. The sun hasn’t completely emerged from the mountain ranges yet, but the drapes of my home glow just a touch.
It takes a minute for the delirium to clear; even now, I sometimes wake up thinking that I’m back in my bed at home, my ceiling painted pale blue, a glow-in-the-dark angel watching over me from a sea of stars and planets.
I’d count them every night before falling asleep, the master of my own universe.
Then, I remember that I’m not in my universe.
That I haven’t been for quite some time.
The fatigue – a different sort, an emotional load – crashes into me, but I pull myself out of bed, slipping into warm socks and thermals to defend against the oncoming cold.
I have to check on Iris and the carousel, to see if the debacle at the Mughal court has done even more damage during my short hibernation.
I tread lightly past tents filled with bored ghosts, who seem relatively settled.
No one’s screaming about missing body parts, at least. Resolving to properly check in with them later, I head towards the deserted carousel, where it’s just me and the nascent sun studying the new darkened threads.
Sometimes, when I’m alone with it, I talk to it out loud, feel a palpable warmth against my consciousness in return.
“What’s wrong with you?” I whisper.
There’s nothing but cold wind against my teeth.
My heart turns into a rock, falling straight to my feet. As I wordlessly stalk back towards my tent, I catch sight of a figure walking past.
Valentin.
She notices me a moment later and her shoulders relax, but there’s unmistakable tension threaded through her muscles.
“I hope they haven’t given you too much trouble,” I say by way of greeting.
She shrugs. “It can’t get a lot more troubling than this.”
Truer words have never been spoken. “Is everything okay? Has there been more trouble?”
“Not that I know of,” she answers. “Everyone’s fine. Ender says the carousel has been quiet.”
Small mercies, I suppose. Valentin also looks better than she did when we first met, in clean heather-grey trousers and a soft, cream sweater more befitting of the chilly weather. But her skin is gaunter, stretched across the sharp lines of her face. She glances around us, fitful and curious.
“Has anyone given you a tour yet?” I ask.
“Everest left the day I woke up and said he’d give me a tour once he returned,” she replies. “Told me to keep to myself unless I wanted to be led into the woods with boots too large for me, whatever that means.”
His name sends a wave of guilt through me.
I’ve replayed our fight over and over again, and now that the intensity of my anxiety has quelled, I wish I could take back some of my harsh words.
Everest and I haven’t fought like that in a long time.
We used to when I first got here, when the fundamental differences in our beings were painfully clear and we butted heads at every turn.
It always ended this way, too, him prodding at the parts of me that hurt until I’d snap.
But I’ve come to understand him over the years, now that I’ve seen how immortality warps time and space, how hard I’ve had to cling onto every fiber of who I was.
I thought we’d gotten better at talking to each other.
Until now.
I don’t know why I expected him to stick around after that. He showed up for the trip, and all the events that have occurred since the massive rot, which is already more than I’m used to. It was just a matter of time before he left, dusted his hands of us until we sorted it out ourselves.
“You’re safe around Beam and Ender,” I assure Valentin. “The others will warm up to you soon enough. But come on, I give a much better tour than Everest.”
Since I’ve been nothing short of hostile towards anyone who intentionally seeks out the fair, I’ve never realized how wonderful this place is from the eyes of someone new.
Valentin’s face is open and eager as the unmanned cotton candy machine in front of us whirs, spinning sugar in flavors of passionfruit (my favorite) and pina colada (Valentin’s pick).
“You can ask the fair for anything you’d like,” I tell her, licking the sugar off my fingers one by one.
Showing her around is resetting my wrought nervous system.
“Everyone has their favorites, and the food here is edible for humans and ghosts. At night, the dining tables are automatically plated with food. Ninety-nine percent of the time, it’s amazing, unless the fair’s trying to send us a message.
Let me show you the hot spring – that was a wish the fair granted me when I begged for a warm shower. ”
We walk towards the blue-green lagoon at the back of the woods, near the fair boundaries. It lies nestled between burnished rocks, and Valentin gapes as she gets to her knees and dips her hand in its clean, toasty waters.
“Has the fair ever not given you something?” she asks. “Are there limits?”
The water shoots up like a broken fountain, splashing her in the face.
Valentin lets out an umph and falls on her butt, while I try not to chuckle.
“That’s the fair’s response to your question,” I say, watching her wipe her face. “Let’s just say this place decides what its limits are.”
Well, it did struggle with the hearth at the council meeting.
But I don’t want to frighten Valentin. “It’s given us a lot of things.
Blankets, clothing, vending machines, games.
The tents change colors on demand, too. But I’ve also asked to leave the boundaries, or to have them extended, and it’s never worked.
Beam requested a dinosaur, but thankfully for all of us, that wish was declined. ”
Valentin laughs, brushing the last drops of water out of her hair. I sit down next to her.
“Obviously, I’ve asked to go home, as well, and it’s never taken me there,” I say quietly.
“Oh, yes, Everest mentioned that,” Valentin says.
I stiffen, instantly wary at what he may have told Valentin. Everest may make sporadic comments about my desire to go home now, but it’s nothing compared to how he used to be when I first arrived.
“Why are you so bothered about your family?” he asked me once, truly confounded. “Not to be crass, but they’re going to die soon, while you get to live for as long as you’d like.”
He didn’t understand why I refused to speak to him for weeks after that.
“He didn’t tell you that you’re better off here, did he?” I ask, driven by an inexplicable need to explain him. “You must know, Everest isn’t like us. He’s been alive, well, forever, and he doesn’t get human connection the same way. But he cares a lot; it just comes out differently.”
Valentin frowns. “Oh, no. He was actually pretty nice. Said that you’d make sure I get home okay. Told me not to worry.”
“Oh,” I swallow. “That’s good.”
The hot spring burbles happily. Valentin assesses the water, but I know she’s really interested in her reflection, brows furrowing as she scrutinizes the face of a stranger.
“I was pretty lonely when I got here,” I say. “And I want you to know I’m here if you want to talk. Don’t get me wrong, the ghosts, Everest, they’re all wonderful, and I love them dearly. But they don’t really understand people like us.”
“Really?” Valentin asks, swinging her feet in the water so the ripples break her still image.
“That’s not the impression I would have gotten.
All they talked about was you. They knew what clothes you’d want to wear when you woke up, what food you would want to eat.
They even shunned a couple of ghosts who came in complaining about transparent body parts, saying you’d threaten to cut their limbs off if they woke you up early. ”
I let out a laugh. “They do know me very well, it’s just…”
Just what? I’m not sure. They all know how much I miss home, to the point that Ender and Quill are helping me break the laws of the universe to try to return.
Everest knows that I’ve asked Quill for help, and he doesn’t try to change my mind anymore.
Then again, he’s unaware of how serious our efforts are.
I’d felt misunderstood when I first got here, but that hasn’t been true in a while.
The fair’s residents may know me better than the people I left behind.