CHAPTER NINE #3
I’m over at my largest trunk, a velvet blue that holds spare bedding – mostly an array of blankets ranging in degrees of softness from the time I challenged the fair to give me something that felt like my old dinosaur onesie.
I pull out a set of sheets from the bottom and close the trunk with my elbow.
“Can you bring my chairs to the center here?” I say, unable to see if he’s following instructions due to the mound of fabric in my arms. “We’re building a fort.”
Turns out that Everest is actually pretty good at building forts.
Beam’s already noticeably happier than she was when she came in.
Everest is hunched over my trunks, pulling out cushions and tossing them at her.
She dodges each one, giggling whenever he gets close.
I grin, asking the fair to blow out all the candles in the tent apart from the one under the fort.
Despite its strange temperament recently, the fair’s energy right now feels like it used to; playful, as it sends a gust of wind to tousle Beam’s hair, and has the whole tent smelling faintly like cotton candy before a bag of her favorite flavor appears at the entrance, Cillian along with it.
I drop to my knees as Cillian trots over, and Beam embraces her sweet treat with unfettered delight. Meanwhile, Everest assesses our construction. “We can do better than this.”
He grazes the edge of the fort entrance, and the fabric lights up in shades of azure and periwinkle blue. It looks like we’re going underwater.
Cillian’s tail puffs up until he hears Beam laugh. The space where her mouth should be shimmers in blue and white. “We should have invited Everest sooner.”
Everest takes a mock bow, then holds the fort open for me.
“Not too badly done,” I admit, slipping inside and onto a pile of cushions. Cillian follows and settles promptly into my lap.
Everest lets out a low whistle and ducks inside. “A compliment and an invitation to an exclusive fort? I think I’ve peaked.”
“This may be your greatest accomplishment to date,” I agree, as he takes a seat against a fluffy white cushion across from me. Delusional god that he is, he pats his own empty lap, hoping Cillian will come over, but the cat is too busy being treated to my superior pets.
Beam settles between us, nodding exuberantly. “We will need you for every fort from now on.”
“You do this often?” Everest asks slowly, gauging my response. I continue stroking Cillian, letting Beam take the lead on this one.
“I come here whenever I have daymares,” Beam tells him. “But you’re not allowed to tell anyone because it’s embarrassing and Ender will make fun of me for being a baby.”
Everest leans forward, and I notice how he brings himself to her level, looking at her like she’s the most important person in the world. I’m struck again by how present he is when he’s around. No wonder I have competition for being her favorite. “Daymares?”
“They’re like nightmares but while awake,” Beam says. “Sometimes, I start remembering too many things about… about before I came here.”
Everest grows still, and maybe now he wishes he’d bolted. The gods don’t love the “drama” that comes with humans, hence their aversion to being at the fair. And Beam’s story could leave even the hardiest of stoics speechless.
Like I told Valentin earlier, we don’t really know the details of how Beam ended up a ghost touched by time, but no story that ends with a deceased five-year-old is anything good.
I can’t decide if I’m glad that she doesn’t remember it or not – what we’ve pieced together over the years is that Beam’s mom passed away, leaving her on her own.
She wandered through the woods near her home until the fair appeared to her, but not as a quester.
I wonder if it recognized that she was already straddling the line between life and death and decided to take her in as its own.
Sometimes, though, she gets flashes of memories. Things disturbing enough that she can’t be alone. So, she comes here.
“Why a fort?” Everest asks.
“It feels safe,” Beam says. “And Ryka says that sometimes when thoughts get too big, you need to put them in smaller spaces. When they shrink, they become less scary.”
I should take my own advice. It’s startling how much more secure I feel with two of my favorite people in the world. The universe’s problems can billow outside, but in here, just for a while, I’m liberated from them all.
“Ryka is a wise woman,” Everest says, looking at me.
The intensity of his gaze is startling, and every sensation I felt before Beam arrived returns in full force.
The world fades away and it’s just us two, bound together by a powerful current that makes it difficult for me to think – so difficult that had I been alone with him a little longer, I would’ve kissed him.
I ignore the heat that rises to my cheeks. We’re not alone, and that’s probably for the best. “See if you still agree after the next part of our daymare ritual.”
Beam claps her hands sitting up straight.
Everest looks wary. “What else have I signed up for?”
I wink at him. “Now, we tell ghost stories.”