8. Home
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“Hey, so,” Davy said, tapping his lip thoughtfully, “What the fuck just happened?”
Flora rubbed her eyes. “Huh?” She wiggled her toes in the prism of crystal water. “Oh,” she murmured. “Oh, no.”
“Is that a forest?” Lila asked, squinting at the dark trees along the meadow. Maewyn leaves swayed in strings, weeping like a blackout curtain around the forbidden grove. “Did a wildfire go through here?”
Flora splashed out to the sandy shore, smacking a palm to her brow.
“Lila, did you... am I high?” Davy asked, genuine. “Lila, I swear to god.”
“Wasn’t me,” she replied with a shrug. “Not this time.”
“So, um…” Flora chuckled nervously. “I should explain.”
“No, no—I saw the whole thing,” Davy shushed, looking around in wonder. “Little white petals of paper started to break off of you, then blew away until you were gone. Then Lila, then me.” Fluttering his fingers, he added, “Gone—like parmesan in the wind.”
“I... what?” Flora stuttered.
Noec had described the same spectacle before, minus the cheese thing. That’s how she ‘poofs’, he’d said, at the end of the day when she touches Lunara’s water. And in a similar manner, she had managed to take Davy and Lila along with her.
The cleric had only two rules for Flora: the midnight rule, and what Flora referred to as the “no crossover episodes” rule.
Essentially, Flora had to be very limited about what items she fell asleep holding, avoiding items that would be culturally disruptive in Emyre.
Tamagotchis and MP3 players were one thing.
Davy was another.
Well. Flora sighed. Shit.
“No, I’m definitely high,” Davy said, putting his hands on his hips with a grin. “Good one, Lila.” He high-fived her.
“Okay, well…” Flora looked around, realizing Noec wasn’t waiting there like he normally was.
She was more than a little late, after all; it must’ve been at least mid afternoon.
“Let’s go down to the village and check in with a friend.
Then, we’ll come right back, and I’ll take you both straight home. ”
Flora put a hand on the side of each of their faces and smushed them together. “You will not go into the spooky forest,” she asserted. “You will follow right behind me.”
“‘Kay,” said Lila. Davy blinked.
Flora let go and glared at both of them sternly. “Okay,” she exhaled sharply. “Come on.”
Flora led them down the familiar path toward the village. She heard Davy and Lila talking behind her, in no particular rush to keep with her anxious pace.
“... flowers are cool as hell..."
“Don’t eat that, dumbass.”
Flora breathed shallowly as she walked. This was bad.
Either one of two things were bound to happen: either she would wake up in the morning to find Davy and Lila still sleeping comfortably, meaning that she had dreamt the whole of her “life” in Emyre, or Sona was going to absolutely murder her for bringing outsiders.
And… she forgot Sona’s journal.
“Son of a bitch,” Flora muttered, patting her pockets as though it might’ve magically shrunk to fit inside. The journal was still sitting beside her bed at home. And as she passed the spot where Feya’s mimic had stood, she realized that she never even had the chance to read page 258.
Still, she felt a wave of comfort when she could finally see the tattered red flag at the gate, and even more when she saw who stood before it.
“Perri!” Her heart swelled at the sight of him steady on his feet. She glanced back at Davy and Lila, still strolling at a leisurely pace a ways back. “Perri, how’re you feeling today?” Flora asked, running toward him.
“There she is,” he said with an odd smile. Flora slowly stopped. He smiled, ear to ear as always, but his eyes—his smile didn’t reach them. “Been waiting for you.”
“Everything okay, Perri?” she asked, her voice growing sheepish.
“You tell me.”
He remained silent as he watched her, his still smile unchanging. Something about the look in his eyes made her blood run cold. He tilted his head just slightly, not once looking away as he stepped closer.
“Perri?” she said, taking a step back. “What’s going on?”
Run, a thought whispered.
“I was just curious...” he asked, his teeth beginning to show.
Run, now!
“... why you killed my sister.”
Flora’s eyes widened. “Sona?”
There was a seething snicker on Perri’s lips—a foreboding threat, and Flora turned to run. But just as she did, Perri lurched forward, grabbing her arm. The force of his grip surprised her, stronger than his frail body ought to be.
“Perri, what?—”
She felt a staggering blow to the left side of her head.
Suddenly, she was on the ground. There was an ache in her skull and her ears were ringing.
Dazed, she looked up at one of her closest friends as he knelt down and grabbed her by the collar.
His face was erratic with fury, but his eyes grew wide with fear.
“Stop me,” he begged, a new emptiness in his gaze. “Please.”
Terror and confusion swirled within Flora. She barely had time to register the change in Perri's demeanor as his hands trembled, still gripping her shirt.
“She’s not fighting back…” he muttered, but he said it to himself as though Flora were merely a prop in his hands. “Why isn’t she fighting back…?” But when Perri’s shifting eyes settled upon hers, his expression hardened.
“I guess we both know why, don’t we?” he rasped low.
Perri’s fear had vanished as quickly as it appeared.
In its place trembled a ravenous grin, and the terror it instilled left Flora feeling unable to move.
He drew back his fist to strike again, but it just hovered there, frozen in the air as though some invisible force were holding him back.
For a moment, he was Perri.
“Hey, wanna be friends?” he had said on the day they met. They had played by the creek, growing together as the seasons passed. And by now, it was safe to say that Flora knew Perri as well as she knew her own brother.
Perri was allergic to blackvine and wheat, and he’d pretend to be allergic to figs, too, if that’s what it took to get out of eating Elia’s fig cookies.
He was scared of the dark, but he’d run straight into Night Sky Forest just to convince you otherwise.
He was brave, and he was bold. But laughter was Perri’s superpower.
Perri could draw out laughter even on the cruelest days—when the sirens took Flora’s grandfather into the night, or when a silk dress and hopeful heart were wasted on a no-show prom date.
But what stayed with Flora wasn’t the sorrow.
It was Perri, staying by her side until her tears were warm with laughter.
Flora knew Perri by heart, and he knew all her secrets—even the one that Noec didn't. Perri had been her first crush, and her first blatant rejection. But time had shaped their bond into something different—blunt, loyal, and thick as thieves.
And for a passing moment, the furious man before her looked just like Perri.
“Perri,” Flora murmured with a weak smile. “Perri, you’re out of bed.”
Perri blinked, and his fist began to sink and unclench.
Suddenly, a sopping, cactus-patterned sock slammed into his jaw.
Perri’s head snapped backwards, and his grip on Flora’s collar loosened.
Lila seethed, swearing and gripping her foot like she had kicked a brick wall.
Perri chuckled up at the sky, leaning back on his knees.
He shook his head and aimed his sight back down at Flora.
“Perri…” Flora murmured, crawling toward him when she should have been crawling away. “What happened to Sona?”
Perri gritted his teeth.
“Get the fuck away from her.” Davy tackled Perri by the neck and threw him to the ground. “Or I’ll put your scrawny ass in a wheelchair.”
Perri rolled to his feet, quicker than Flora had seen him move in months. “Oh?” said the friendly boy with the freckles. He smiled—a wicked, unfamiliar smile. Perri laughed a bubbling laugh, but it was a cursed sound. He exhaled slowly, and his eyes fixed upon Davy.
There was a chilling calm in his glare, and Davy saw it too.
Perri suddenly lunged forward, clamping his arms around Davy’s waist. He knocked Davy off his feet, slamming him down into the dirt, and Davy gasped as the air was knocked from his lungs.
Still smiling, still laughing, Perri knelt on Davy’s chest and swung down at him.
Davy shielded his head, but Perri was wailing his fists, over and over, until all at once they ceased. A tear trickled down his cheek.
“Stop me,” Perri begged once more, this time a desperate cry rather than a quiet plea.
His bloody fist trembled in the air, and his eyes trailed back to Flora as he stood. Davy laid in a daze on the ground as Lila crouched to make sure he was still lucid.
One step forward. Then none. Perri’s foot stayed planted, heels rocking like he was trying to talk himself out of something his body already decided. Perri’s eyes were wild, shifting erratically. He reached into his pocket, flipping open a pocket knife as he dragged himself toward Flora.
“Stop me, Flora,” he heaved. Blood dripped from his fingers, but it wasn’t hers—not yet. “Say you didn’t do it,” he screamed at her. “Lie to me if you have to.”
“Perri…” Flora began.
“No,” he cried. Perri shook his head, clasping his hand to his brow as his eyes flared wide. His pupils had all but vanished—brown, no black. “I’ll... I’ll kill you for what you did to her!” Knife in hand, he stumbled toward her faster.
Flora’s vision blurred. She heard a grunt and a thud, and there was a chaotic flurry of movement, one that Flora couldn’t quite make sense of.
She felt as if she were underwater, and voices were beginning to sound muffled and distant.
There was a groan from where Davy lay on the ground, and the blur of a scuffle between Flora and where Lila watched in horror.
The scene began to spin, then fade, then—nothing.
“Hey. You awake?” Flora heard his soft voice, blurred like a reflection in a stream.
“Mmhmm…” Her eyes opened to a busy white room.