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There were stars hanging bright in the sky when you saw Alyosha last. Twinkling dots that held whispers of long-forgotten promises. Now, there are none. Night is nothing more than a looming swath of darkness that hugs the pale forms of Del and Bri, threatening to swallow the two moons whole. The suffocating blanket of darkness above, along with the oppressive heat that returned with the sun and spring, reminds you of what constantly gnaws at your insides just as it does your face. It’s not just the heat and the dark, it’s an anxiety and an absence as well.
There were still stars in the sky when you saw him last. When he stood at the top of that hill, peering down at you with the wrong kind of quiet in his eyes. The kind that you always hated but never knew how to absolve. You could have reached up for him –- you were always reaching up, weren’t you, Arrell? -- but instead you watched the way those stars seemingly shone like dewdrops in his hair, pearlescent dots shimmering just like the flowers he often wove into his long, blonde hair.
But, it must be your imagination, your very deepest of dreams, willing those kinds of beautiful details into the past, since you can no longer have them in the present. He was much too far away to see such things, after all. He was much too far away when you saw him last.
He was alive, then, says a voice in your dreams. It sounds like yours, low and rough and barely a whisper, and it startles you awake in the dead of night, sweat dripping down your haggard, decaying face. The heat is unrelenting and your heart pounds so loud that for a brief moment, you deliriously think it could raise the dead.
It could raise him, because he’s--
Your realization is absolute and certain and crushing. You feel it in the basest parts of your bones, the very core of them, where they have always ached not from the weather or from weariness, but for him.
There’s no one around to judge you for crying, loud and gasping into that suffocating blanket of night. No one except maybe the gods you’ve now come to despise.
When your tears are dried and crusted on your face, the beginnings of dawn peek over the horizon of Velas. The sunrise, something he often spoke of as wondrous, only highlights the way the city is crumbling, being pulled apart at the seams. If he were here, would he acknowledge the obvious decrepitude? Or would he find the small beauties within tragedy, like he always did? Drawing your attention to things like the flowers growing and twisting up from the cracks in the ground.
The memory of him draws you out of your bed –- perhaps there’s been something to those shadows you’ve seen dancing in the darkness lately after all -- into the still, spring air of your home in Velas. The thought that maybe Alyosha has been trying to call out to you this entire time, instead of the pointed absence you've come to regret, is enough to return that spring in your step. The thought of him is enough to make you fight against the entropy once again.
The tattered walls and wooden floorboards of your home creak underneath the weight of something, although there is no wind. You rush out into the morning light, still dressed only in your loose nightshirt and trousers, feet bare and hair wild.
You couldn't return Alyosha to you when he was alive, but maybe, just maybe, you can now that he's dead.
The forest near Velas still sags underneath the weight of winter, the ground muddy and sinking from the melting snow. You can hear trickling water as you wander through the thickets of dense leaves and branches. The dirt you walk across is warm underneath your toes, moist and covered in moss. You don't come across any other people or even animals -- instead, it's just you and the trees and the low thrum of intent buried deep in your chest.
As you wander, dawn becomes morning and although the forest is thick enough to block out most of the sun, some of the light still peeks in through the canopy, filtering through the leaves and washing you and your surroundings in a soft green light. Even though there are no sounds but the squelching of mud underneath your feet and rustling of leaves in the light breeze, you feel safer than you have for a long time. This kingdom marked by shadow and warmth almost seems impervious to the heat and the dark.
You wander until it seems right. You feet stop at the top of a small hill, not unlike the one upon which you saw Alyosha last. The sunlight is a solid weight on the back of your neck. There are clovers and daisies littering the hill, growing thick underneath pine needles and maple leaves. It seems like such an impossible collection of growing things that you know it's the right place. You kneel to the ground, trouser legs instantly becoming dirty and wet.
The spell to raise the dead is easy, much easier than most people think. It requires nothing more than a person, their magic, and a desperate, inconsolable sadness in their voice as they whisper the things they'd never spoken but always meant to say.
You wait for minutes, maybe even hours, kneeling in the dirt, whispering apologies over and over, as the sun gradually creeps overhead. Once it's directly above you, it's light pushing you further and further into the mud, that's when you feel the ground underneath you begin to rumble and shake.
"Give me a hand, would you, love?" says a voice from somewhere below you, muffled but full of delight. It brings tears immediately to your eyes and just as you reach down, a pale hand and thin wrist bursts up through the dirt. You grasp it, pulling hard, and then suddenly a body is tumbling into yours, knocking you both back into the clovers and daisies on top of the hill.
You closed your eyes as soon as you grabbed his hand and now you're hesitant to open them as you feel him on top of you. Your hands tremble against his shoulders. The solid weight of him is a relief, a want warmly spreading throughout your chest and heavy in your lungs, but suddenly you're very afraid, very aware of how things were when you saw him last, when--
But then Alyosha is kissing you. He tastes of honeysuckles as he threads his hands throughout your hair, then down your face, carefully around your chin. When he pulls away, you open your eyes, and there he is -- the man who's love you thought you had finally lost. There are smudges of dirt across his cheeks and bits of grass and leaves sticking up from his hair. His pale face is flushed, lips curled into a wide grin.
"You came back for me," says Alyosha, a flutter of laughter in his voice. It's not out of surprise, no, but instead you recognize certainty, like something is being reaffirmed for him. Maybe not his faith, but rather, his faith in you.
You press your hand to his chest until you find his heartbeat, steady and there. The feel of it leaves a tightness in your throat. Alyosha smiles and ducks down to press kisses from your ears down to your neck.
The two of you lie there together in the forest on top of the hill, making up for lost time as best you can.
When finally, the day slips into afternoon and then into dusk, the two of you walk back to Velas. Things are different now –- flowers sprout around his ankles wherever he steps. Alyosha's eyes are still full of life and light, but in a different way. Where once there was nothing but confidence in his religion and humanity, there now seems to be a conviction of a different kind.
Alyosha speaks of many things, of his plans, as he leads you back into town, back to your home, back to your bed.
This time, you're happy to follow him.