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“Incorporeal. Invisible to all with some exceptions. Some animals appear to sense her. Most cats, for example, though cannot entirely be sure since cats do not talk. Can, with some effort, make herself invisible to me. Have asked her not to do this. Find it worrying. Does not sleep. Does not need food. Says she believes it is possible she can taste things that I (Ty) eat. Will test this—Livvy wait in other room while I taste various foods—but not the most pressing of experiments, and there is the question of whether or not this is entirely related to Livvy’s current state or whether it is due to being twins or the undeniable fact that I have made all of this happen. Magnus says there is very little reliable information. Sense of smell unimpaired. Tested her on clean and dirty socks as well as various herbs. Insensible to extremes of heat or cold. Says that she is happy to be here with me. Says that she loves me and wishes to stay with me. Proof, can we assume, that some things (some emotions or relationships) survive the grave?”
— excerpt from The Lost World
• • •
"The world and everything in it had changed... People passed me as I sat—people who laughed and joked and gossiped. It seemed to me that I watched them almost as a dead man might watch the living."
— Arthur Conan Doyle
• • •
10 January
Incorporeal. The further we are apart, the greater strain on this bond. Causes tiredness and fatigue in me. An experiment to be conducted tomorrow: how far can Livvy go before I start to feel such symptoms?
12 January
Weather, cloudy. Colder than usual. Today Livvy wanders the halls of the Scholomance as my spy. She is a better Watson than the original because (1) she is invisible, (2) no one can hear her, and (3) she can go through walls. Note to self: compile an article on the benefits of having a ghost as your partner. However, this is with the exception of her unmediated, uncontrollable outbursts. I tell Livvy to go into the training room today to gather intel from casual conversation but she accidentally knocks over a rack of knives and scares the targets off. Unfortunately, her value as an assistant is undermined by the volatility of her nature. More to be done to hone her abilities as a Watson.
14 January
Weather, cloudy with showers of rain. Cold. Livvy has been reading my journals and she is angry at me for saying that she is not a good Watson. Stop reading my entries Livvy! This is my personal journal, for my eyes only. Now that we have gotten that out of the way, we experimented again with our senses. Today I ate a tablespoon of salt and Livvy doubled over, cringing. Accurate to say that our gustatory senses are linked. She tastes what I taste. Considering all that she cannot do now as a ghost, she rejoices at this one thing. She keeps making me eat all her favourite food now. Ice cream, pudding, apple pie. We are supposed to keep a diet at the Scholomance but at this rate I do not think I will be able to pass my physical tests.
10 February
Weather, cloudy. Cold. Anush and I study in the library. Livvy knocks down a whole pile of books accidentally. For a ghostly Watson, she is far clumsier and wreaks far more havoc than I anticipate. She shoots me a sorry expression and quickly zooms out of the place. I blame the mess on Irene and Anush does not suspect anything. However, Irene looks at me, betrayed, and she refuses to be petted by me. She spurns my touch and hisses at me. But by night she relents, settling onto my stomach as I am about to fall asleep.
22 February
Weather, mildly sunny. Cold. Collapsed today because Livvy flew too far away. Sensation similar to fatigue. Anush brought me to the infirmary. I have been spending more time with him these few days. He is very helpful. I always thought that friends were not a necessity in the Scholomance but I think that while not a must-have, they are a good-to-have. It is nice to have a friend in a place that often feels dark and cold. We train together, study together, eat together. Not that Livvy is not enough (sorry). Just that it feels better when more people are around.
23 February
Weather, light showers. Cold. When I awake from the infirmary, Livvy comes back to give me a silver pendant to wear around my neck. I don’t need her to tell me what bird is welded into the metal to know that it is a heron. Herons have signature thick dagger-like bills and long, sinuous necks that make them easily identifiable. They can curl their necks into an ‘S’ shape, which is quite amazing, as far as birds go. They are tranquil creatures and passive feeders. They stay motionless for long periods of time at the water’s edge, waiting for prey beneath the water. I quite wish that my family symbol is an animal instead of a wreath of thorns, which is boring and inanimate. Lacking life.
Thinking about family symbols makes me think of Him. He doesn’t suit his symbol either. Too loud and restless to be a heron. Too wisecracking and laugh-ready to be the calm, composed heron waiting silently above the water for its fish lunch. This system is inadequate. We should be allowed to choose our own symbols.
Livvy says the pendant is to call Magnus if we ever need help, so I always have to wear the pendant because I never know when I will need help. Through sleep and shower, it rests against my chest. I don’t mind much. At this point I have already gotten used to this new weight. At night I find myself worrying the ridges of the pendant against my fingers. I think I know it so well I must have gotten it memorized.
We need new symbols. If I could make the choice for Him, I would choose the Sun.
4 March
Weather, rainy. Colder. Today we do an experiment I’ve wanted to do for a long time, but classes at the Scholomance made it impossible to carry out earlier. With Anush around, I have even less time to conduct our experiments so we treasure all the time we can get.
Livvy zooms out through the windows, shimmery and diaphanous, hurtling to the furthest ends of the earth just like I ask her to. I brace myself for any impact and I find that the pendant works. I no longer feel as fatigued. What used to feel like a hook in my chest yanking me forward feels only like a gentle tugging now. No dark spots. No dizziness. I feel fine. I think it is possible to be like this forever. I think that Livvy can be with me for good and we can make it work properly. Not quite like the old times, like before, but just as good.
That’s just it, isn’t it? Before. Before with a capital B. ‘Before’ has become the barometer which I find myself comparing everything against, to see if the standard is up to par. Before the singular incident where nothing can be the same again, only ‘just as good’. The thing that splits my life into two. Livvy of the living and Livvy the ghost. The Livvy whose hair I can feel tickle my cheek whenever she leans in close and the Livvy who floats by my side without ever leaving a trace.
Before with a capital B. Before my life loses its perfect parity. Two eyes, two arms, two hands, two legs, two of us. Before we even came into the world, we learned how to fit around each other in our mother’s womb. I rather have her ghost than not have her at all. Without her, I have nothing.
10 March
Weather, rainy. Cold. The good thing about having a friend is that after a fight, there is someone to patch you up. He dresses my wounds very quickly and efficiently. Out of nowhere, he kisses me. Then he apologises, presumably because I am so shocked. Then he asks me if it’s okay. I search in myself for anything that says it’s not okay, but I come up with nothing. Because I like him. A bit late to have realized this, but I do. Noticed that his hands are very careful and his hair is dark and wavy. Noticed that when he is concentrating very hard he sucks on his bottom lip. Noticed that this produces warm feelings in my chest, similar to that of drinking a cup of hot chocolate, or when I pet Irene and manage to elicit a loud and contented purr from her. I search and find nothing to dislike about him. He is a perfectly fine person. Surely if there is nothing to dislike about, this means I like him? I say, it’s okay. And then we kiss again.
Livvy teases me. I know you’re reading this Livvy – close this book and get away from it now, how many times must I say ‘my eyes only’ – but do not let me hear any more about how awkward you felt and how inexperienced we looked.
Anush and I. We’re dating now. How oddly nice this feels.
He draws me a healing rune and watches the cuts and gashes littered all over my face recede to a tiny white fleck of a scar. You’re quite amazing, he says. I think that this is not the first time someone has said this to me. Then I think of someone else.
8 August
Weather, rainy. Cold. During the mid-term break, we visit Jem’s house in Cirenworth Hall in Devon, England. Devon is warmer than the Carpathian Mountains. The sun is not as often blocked out by the clouds and the sky remains a clear blue. There’s more sun here too. Livvy tells me that I have to watch my skin otherwise I might risk a burn. Everyone is here. Julian, Emma, Dru, Tavvy, Helen, Mark. I hug them. They say that they miss me and I return the sentiment. Then somewhere in the grassy knolls surrounding the estate, around a nearby lake, we run into Him. At first I do not recognize him. I very nearly walk past him, but my better instincts tell me to pause. After some time, I realise who it is.
Prosopagnosia is the inability to recognize faces but this is not that. It is not that his face has become something unknown to me. It has just, quite simply, changed, as is expected with the passing of time. Perhaps more angular. The roundness of his face has melted away with his baby fat. He is more freckled as well. His blonde hair hangs in front of his face, too long. We both have grown taller but my growth exceeds his. He stops walking when I do.
Standing here like this, suspended in motion, something clicks into place. Kit, Livvy and I. Three points on a triangle. An inevitable stroke of fate. As if the Earth paused its rotation since the moment the three of us departed, and now that we have returned to each other, it slowly starts to resume again. Thousands of feet below us, molten rock flows. Plates move, the ground sings with change. Something slowly churns to life. Me (Ty), who keeps quiet. Kit, who looks between the two of us with a strange look in his eyes. Livvy, standing in front of the lake, looking freshly materialized from the water, as translucent as silk curtains fluttering against window panes, bringing to mind memories of a different time. A different night.
Neither of us says anything. We simply stand there watching each other in recollection.
9 August
Weather, cold. Rainy. Kit finds me and corners me. Livvy conveniently blips out of existence. Where is she when I need her? Must discuss ghostly etiquette with her. Rule no. 1: Preternatural siblings stick together.
First he apologises for leaving. Then he says I was wrong to raise Livvy. I was wrong to go against the very laws of Physics that the entire universe was predicated on by raising the dead. And I was again wrong because I might have engendered something worse – torn a hole in the fabric of the universe or something of the like. Rash and foolish act. His words feel like many, many accusatory fingers pointing at me. You did this wrong! This and this!
Very rich coming from you, I say. You abandoned me and lied to me. You act like this whole situation is out of your hands but the fact of the matter is, you chose not to stop me. And the most pivotal argument – how can you ever say that raising Livvy was a mistake? I have given her a new lease on life. And she, in turn, makes me feel not-so lonely anymore. Is it such a bad thing to have her around?
Kit looks angry. Balled up fists, vein sticking out from his neck. He is looking at me pointedly like he wants to catch my gaze but I purposely do not let him.
She is unnatural, he says. She endangers your life.
Then his eyes flit to the pendant around my neck. He reaches out to grasp it. Index finger brushes my skin. For a moment, searing warmth. I cannot help but feel tugged along with the pendant towards him. Out of control, unbidden. I want to tell him about the heron and how we both need new symbols and of the new one I picked out for him. It is a tranquil creature and it picks its fish slowly and patiently from the water like a skilled fisherman. I want to tell him of the thousand other thoughts I have had in his absence that died on my tongue because he was not there for me to tell him.
I recall myself. I snatch my pendant back. His mouth drops open a little and his eyebrows rise – shock – and then his hands fall open and the vein in his neck fades away – receding anger. Then he takes a step back and lowers his head. Now this emotion is more inscrutable. It is not like in the picture cards Julian showed me when I was younger (Julian and I, sitting cross-legged on the mat in mine and Livvy’s old bedroom. Julian flips up a card. Downturned eyebrows and upside down smile. Angry. Flip . Crinkled eyes and rightside up smile. Happy. Flip . Saucer eyes and open mouth. Surprised. ). This is not textbook, not discernable. Kit takes a few more steps back.
You’re angry at me, I say.
His hand latches on to his straw-yellow hair and pulls. He exhales. Long-drawn, all the air whooshing out of him in a single gust. Another unidentifiable emotion.
I’m not angry at you.
I don’t believe him. Even if he’s not angry, he cannot be happy. He does not have crinkled eyes and a rightside up smile. His face is just doing nothing now. Just – flat mouth and inexpressive eyes. Unreadable. If he is neither angry nor happy, what can he be?
But in the end I don’t find an answer because he’s done talking. He says that he will see me at dinner and leaves. At the dinner table, we don’t talk at all, unless furtive glances and forced smiles are a language in itself.
10 August
Weather, cold. Rainy. Mina takes her first steps today. The whole family is there to witness it. Amazing how such a small baby can command their entire attention. The second she takes her first steps, everyone whips out their phones and asks her to go back and forth from one armchair to the next over and over again, untiring of this single trick. The baby, unaware of anything, gurgles happily and obliges.
I look up just in time to see the flash of a dirty sneaker heel and the door fall shut. Livvy, hovering unnoticed in the room as a silvery spectre, glances meaningfully at the door.
So I go. I find Him at the front steps, back against one of the thick pillars holding up the estate that is coiled around with climbing plants. He is not doing anything in particular. Just staring out into the green hills and blue English sky, hands shoved into his pockets. More meditative than I’ve known him to be. I think with the passing of years he has acquired a sense of serenity. In fact he quite looks like the heron, the slow bider of time, the skilled fisherman, body curved gracefully against stone. He has aged. He has gotten taller, stronger, and broader. Suddenly it hits me that there are years between us that we spent apart from each other, where I wasn’t there for him, where I didn’t get the chance to see him change, and grow, and develop. He has new freckles, new scars that I don't know about. I feel something in my chest. Why does it hurt?
Joyful cries are still in earshot. I ask him what he is doing out here and why he is not inside with the others. He says, nah. I shouldn’t be in there. Why not? I ask. And he says that he feels like an outsider to their family. I find it hard to believe that Jem and Tessa regard him as an outsider but he just shakes his head and shrugs. Just better for me not to be in there, he says again. I look closer. He looks very tired. He sees me looking and laugh-smiles, which is neither a laugh nor a smile but a strange chimera of both. Let me see that, he says. And again he picks up the pendant in his hands. He has a fixation on this pendant. His fingers drift over it, feeling its ridges like I used to do. I wonder, why is this our first instinct with this pendant? To feel it and commit its grooves and ridges to memory?
He asks if it keeps me safe. I say yes, Livvy can travel far away now without me passing out. It also alerts Magnus if I ever need any help. He asks if I wear it all the time. I say, yes I do. He asks again, all the time? I say, yes. To bed and the shower.
Strange physiological symptoms begin to manifest in my body: elevated heart rate, trembling hands, difficulty breathing. My knees feel like they are about to give way any time soon. Surely Livvy has not left the estate to some far-flung corners of the world. No, she is still here in Devon. The sensation is not like those times. It is something else, something new. Kit looks equally shaky. We are both brittle like glass.
Did you ever think of me when you were there? he asks.
I say, I did.
In a very small voice, he says that he thought of me too.
It is one of those moments when you think something is going to happen. When the atmosphere swells and builds. I can count his pale eyelashes. I can see that his eyes are pure blue, unblemished, without an errant fleck of colour. Its usual glimmer of mischief is drowned in something darker. We are on the cusp of something, teetering right over the edge of a precipice. And at the very height of this moment – he lets the pendant drop. It thumps back against my chest. Hollow. Moment dies. Where we are once lost in it, we snap out of it immediately.
Ha, he huffs. Strange laughter-bark. He says, I almost actually – I almost actually did – that. Ha.
I ask, what?
I almost forgot. Things are different now, he says. Kit sounds a bit hysterical now. Frenzied. His voice buzzes with a hard edge. Livvy told me – Livvy told me you were dating Anush.
Of course. Yes, I still am. Hearing Anush’s name knocks the breath out of my lungs. How could I have forgotten? I’m caught off guard for a moment. I try to come up with something to say.
Without another word, Kit retreats back into the house and I follow a while later. I ignore Livvy when she questions me, though I suppose now she will know. Ghosts and their ability to transcend the restraints of the physical. If only there was a journal that could keep itself out of their prying hands.
9 September
Weather, cold. Rainy. The mid-term break is over and I’m back in the Scholomance again. I still work and train as hard, but this time sleep comes with more effort. Whenever I close my eyes my mind cannot help but be filled with Him. My thoughts are punctuated by easy smiles and loose laughter, gentle but strong hands, veins running down forearms before splitting into smaller tracks like tributaries. It’s all wrong. I shouldn’t be thinking about him. I never used to think about him like this. Sure, this is similar to my early days in the Scholomance, but over time it (the thoughts) went away. Now I don’t understand why they have returned to me after all this time with such a vengeance.
Today Anush and I go for a walk in the forest alone. A date, as couples do. Livvy courteously makes herself scarce even though I don’t ask her to. Not that I want her to be there. But I also won’t mind if she accompanies me. These days I find that it is harder and harder to talk to Anush without feeling guilt. My traitorous thoughts. The heat of our proximity that day. The almost-whatever with Kit. Anush stops suddenly in his tracks. I halt sheepishly as well, unable to help but think that he has caught me red-handed in my thoughts. But all that proves to just be paranoia when he calls me over and shows me a purple, pulsating fruit hanging from a branch. He asks me if I know what it is. I tell him it is a Carpathian berry and that it will explode on first touch. Does it now, is all he says and we continue on our walk. Me, very quiet. Him, too caught up in the natural surroundings to notice that I am being more quiet than usual. A few more times along the walk, he stops to look at some herbs or plants he wants to test for medicinal properties. At the end of it he kisses me again, hugs me, holds my hand, and I do feel warm. There is nothing wrong with this. Everything is perfectly fine.
1 January
Weather, cold. Rainy. It's a new year. Anush and I kiss when the clock strikes twelve. Privately, Livvy and I have our own celebration. I indulge her by eating one of her favourite foods, apple pie, not caring that I am breaking the diet. We find an isolated cliff in the mountains where no one goes and we look at the ground below. Wind whips my cheek. Livvy is unbothered by the cold. She rests her head on my shoulder but all I feel is cold seeping into my bones. Dimmet Tarn is visible from this spot. A glossy, dark, undisturbed surface holding its own moon so for a brief moment, there are two moons on this earth.
I think of worlds away from my own and the people in those worlds. So different from myself. I picture warmth and grass and laughter. Happy new year, I tell the night sky, hoping that it will reach Him.
30 April
Weather, warm. Sunny. The next time I see Him is not during mid-term break at Cirenworth Hall. It’s at the Los Angeles Institute. Home. I am glad to have a reason to be able to see my siblings, but on a bleaker note, it is because war has broken out. An old war reignited, dozens killed already in a massacre down by the beach as a warning. Everyone has grown so big. Tavvy is no longer the babbling child I leave behind, but a grown boy. Julian looks older and yet younger with the weight of the previous war easing off him. And Emma, ever sharp, like one of her knives. Dru envelops me in a warm hug, already so grown I can hardly believe it. Before I say anything, she whispers against my shoulder, voice filled with mischief, Don’t worry. He’s here too.
Livvy and I go to our old room. I sit down on my bed. Dust billows. Livvy sits down on her bed but she doesn’t disturb the dust-settled sheets. The two of us, we look at each other. Home, I say. Just like Before but not quite.
10 May
Weather, warm. Sunny. While on a mission, Anush gets injured. The culprit: an arrow laced with poison, shot from a great distance. Attacker unknown. It’s not fatal but still he lands himself a stay in the infirmary.
Centurions are sent on missions with their pre-assigned partners, but now that Anush is unwell I have no one to assist me in my investigations. Penhallow notices this and she says that she will find someone to accompany me on my missions. I go into her office expecting someone from the Clave and I am surprised to see that Kit is there. Kit’s face echoes the same surprise. Penhallow says apologetically that it was difficult to find a replacement partner on such a short notice, so they had to ask non-Centurions for help. She introduces us to each other, Kit this is Ty, Ty this is Kit, which is funny because we know each other like the back of our hands. We used to go everywhere together. An introduction is the last thing we need.
Kit finds this funny as well. Tentatively, I smile at him. Tentatively, he returns it. Everything unresolved between us – our near-whatever, searing heat, strange laughter-barks, anger and other indecipherable emotions – is swept neatly under the rug if only so that we are able to savour this moment for what it is. A proper reunion, a reintroduction to each other. A harkening back to old times. Our usual volleys, our wordless communication, our conspiratorial glances. How we can always match each other perfectly, measure for measure. The times when I smile and he smiles. He laughs and I laugh. I feel a pang in my chest and realise how sorely I’ve missed him.
Penhallow looks at us strangely. She says, I’m sensing the two of you know each other already. Is there going to be any problem with this?
Kit bounces languidly on the balls of his feet, thumbs hooked into the loops in his jeans. No problem, he says.
I say that there’s no problem as well.
Good, she says, still looking uncertain, looking between the two of us and perhaps wondering if she mixed the wrong chemicals together – Kit and Ty. A deadly combination!
I enquire about the mission and I hope Kit is paying attention because now he is my Watson again.
15 May
Weather, warm. Sunny. Embarking on this investigation feels like settling back into an old rhythm. We go to his old turf, the Shadow Market, to question vendors on what they know about the beach massacre. I first enquire with them professionally. If they are surly or non-compliant, this is where Kit comes in. Kit’s always been one to know the right thing to say. He can haggle and swindle his way into getting the vendors to tell us the right information. Another bonus about investigating together with Kit is that I don’t have to ignore Livvy anymore. During a lull in the investigation, Livvy tells him all about Irene.
A Carpathian lynx? He says quite disbelievingly. What is that?
Picture bigger than a housecat, I say.
And twice as evil, Livvy adds.
He smiles. Crinkled eyes. Happy. Seriously, Centurion. I leave you for three years and you become a crazy cat lady?
Grown-up Kit, eighteen-year-old Kit, is beautiful. Confident, laid-back, glib. Prone to throwaway laughter and occasionally inappropriate sarcasm which I don’t always pick up on but can appreciate in the rare times that I do. I like the times when I pick up on it. I like to be able to laugh and look to Kit and see him grinning back at me, warm flush spreading across his cheeks with the pleasure of someone appreciating his jokes. He holds himself loose-limbed and languid, moves with an easy grace, and is always ready with a sharp grin that I’m sure has tempted or aggravated the likes of many people. But beneath this playfulness, there is something else about him. He is strong and sturdy. His hands are muscled and veined. He has grown so much.
What about you? I say. I leave you for three years and now you’re shorter than me.
Just to let you know, Kit sputters, voice shrilly with affront. I am perfectly above average for someone my age. I don’t know what’s in the Carpathian water –
Tiny Kit, I say, smilingly. I trace the disparity in our heights in the air with my hand. It’s not that much of a difference, really, but Kit’s reaction is spectacular. Small.
— they genetically enhance their soldiers! Kit continues. Penhallow told me not to tell you this, but they add chemicals in the water to make their Centurions sprout like young saplings –
Livvy claps a hand over her mouth, unable to stop the laughter from coming out of her. Neither can I. Just before Kit turns away, huffing, I see the slightest smile on his lips, barely there. A private smile, not meant for anyone else. Just for himself.
18 May
Weather, warm. Sunny. Los Angeles has everything I need, but I cannot help but miss the weather in the Carpathian Mountains. Sun beats down on my skin, making me feel warm and hot all over. Another reminder of why I hate it. Kit teases me for this, laughing whenever I hide in the shade any moment that I can. On the way back from one of our missions, I cannot take the searing heat anymore. I duck under an awning in front of one of the shops lined up along the streets.
Kit’s mouth is screwed to the side in amusement.
You hating the sun. This does bring back memories, he says lightly. Perhaps it’s time for you to stop wearing black.
Like you? I ask. I look him up and down. White shirt, casual jeans. Dirty sneakers. Very un-Shadowhunter like. Even now, though he puts on a general appearance of compliance, he still finds little ways to rebel against the system.
Yeah. Why not? It’s very airy, he says. Maybe it’s time to drop the Hot Topic wardrobe and go for something more avant-garde. A breeze blows through his hair, tousling it. He looks windswept, unkempt. Bright grin spanning his face, eyes dancing. Like this, it’s easy to know when he’s being sarcastic.
White’s not good, I tell him. Blood shows easily.
I suppose if you want to get into technicalities, he concedes. Then he says, wait here. I’ll only take a moment.
Before I can say anything, he’s gone. Ten minutes later, he emerges, breathing heavily like he ran all the way back, with an ice coffee in each of his hands. Condensation has gathered on its surface.
Here, he says and hands me my drink. Just the way you like it.
I take the drink from him, unable to help but feel immense warmth in my chest.
Thank you, I say. Kit flushes and looks away without acknowledging this gratitude.
When I return, I check on Anush. He is doing much better. He asks me how the investigation is going and I tell him its developments. He asks how Kit is doing and how helpful he is to the mission. I say that he is very helpful. Anush apologises for not being able to be there with me and I assure him that he has nothing to worry about and he should just focus on recuperating. I stay with him through the night, attending to him whenever he needs anything.
20 May
Weather, sunny. Warm. Livvy has a serious talk with me today.
What’s up with you and Kit? she asks.
I tell her, Nothing.
The both of you have been so close these past few days. You do remember you’re with Anush, right?
Of course I haven’t forgotten about Anush, I say. I like him.
Do you? Or do you find yourself liking someone else? she asks. I’m only asking because I don’t want you to hurt anyone.
Absolutely not, I tell her. She doesn't seem satisfied with my answer, like she knows something that I don't. This frustrates me for some reason, the idea that Livvy can overhear my conversations with Anush and Kit. Those felt private. But then the thought goes as quickly as it comes because I remember Livvy and I are twins. She's known me since I was born. We share everything. Does it really matter if she overhears one or two throwaway conversations? Either way, I don’t know why she must bring this up now. Everything has reached a tentative state of peace and I don’t want to disturb it. Anush and I are fine. Kit and I are fine. Kit and Livvy and I have the perfect dynamic, it’s just like Before. Isn't it?
If you keep dragging this out, you’re going to hurt someone, Ty, she presses.
Get away, I tell her, not very kindly.
You're so stubborn, Ty, she retorts. You've always been.
She huffs and zooms out the window. Our fights are not unusual. We are siblings after all, no matter how tightly connected we are to each other. But in the past when we fought, sometime after she stormed out of the room in anger, I would have heard the door click and known that her anger had dissipated. She would crawl back into her bed and there would be a knowing in the air that we were okay again without us having to say anything. This time though, with her bed looking dusty and undisturbed since the day we arrived here, it is impossible for me to know that. This fact leaves me staring up at the ceiling, wide awake for the rest of the night, waiting for a sound that never comes.
25 May
Weather, warm. Sunny, but it is about to change. Of all places, the investigation sends us to the Scholomance. We receive intel that Zara Dearborn has been hiding something instrumental to the Cohort’s plans at a location near the school. Catarina Loss is brought into the Institute to conjure a Portal for us. We pack everything that we might need on the mission: weapons, food, water, steles, witchlights. Before we leave, I check on Anush in the infirmary. He’s getting better steadily. He looks much healthier. We kiss. He tells me to come home safe and I say, of course, but I cannot help but feel a stab of guilt as I recall Livvy’s words.
Another thing is that I haven’t seen Livvy for longer than usual. She refuses to show herself to me. I’m starting to think that maybe this is not one of our usual fights. Maybe I’ve hurt her more than I intended and she will never return to me again. This fills me with a niggling sense of unease that doesn’t go away.
Once we are through the Portal, we land on the grounds of the Scholomance. It is silent and completely vacant since all Centurions are currently engaged in missions. We unload heavy baggage in the Scholomance before we start canvassing the surrounding area. I show him my room. Irene bounds up from where she is curled up on the ground and leaps into my arms. Though I claim that Irene is well behaved, Kit is firm on his stance that she is murderous and full of bloodlust. She gives him a wary sniff. He says “Here, kitty-kitty” in the most amateur manner of socializing with a cat and she snarls at him. He yelps. Your cat hates me, he says woefully. I correct him by saying that it is a Carpathian lynx.
Lynx, cat, oversized rat, he says. He looks at her with narrowed eyes. Aren’t you the charming one.
We track around the perimeter of the school, cutting through forest and river. In the distance I can see the faint glimmer of Dimmet Tarn from where we are. We look under crevices and slip into cracks. We walk for hours on end, scouring the place, but we find nothing. Kit talks a lot as he stalks through the high grass. It’s mostly mindless prattle but it fills up the silence just the same. I am content enough to just listen to him. He’s got that restless, mischievous energy buzzing about him, the kind that says he’s always up for a caper, like I can tell him I want to do something and he’ll throw his head back and say yes with no further questions. Kit, stalking through the high grass. Elegant. Easy grace. I watch the muscles of his back move under his shirt (white again, unafraid of the splatter of ichor, because he simply can’t help himself from breaking a few rules). The light-footedness of his steps. I don’t remember what exactly, but he says something that makes me laugh immensely and afterwards he doubles over laughing himself. As he does that, a lock of his hair falls in front of his eyes, out of place, and I reach out to set it back. My fingers graze his ear.
He quiets all of a sudden. Halts in his tracks. It’s so sudden that I continue walking on without him for a few more steps before I realise that he’s stopped. I turn around. The lighthearted banter is gone. Suddenly we are steeped in a different atmosphere. More tense. Indecipherable.
What? I ask.
Nothing, he says. But his shoulders, his hands where they are clenched into fists clearly say that it’s not nothing.
I apologise and say I didn’t mean to make him uncomfortable. This is not the first time I overstep. I remember the countless times I hid behind Julian’s legs as he explained to a stranger that I didn’t mean to be so familiar with them.
No, no, he says very quietly. He says, You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s nothing, he says again. He makes to continue on with our journey but I refuse to move. I insist that it’s not nothing because it’s clearly not. As if this simple word can belie the drastic shift in his mood. He turns around and rakes a hand through his hair like he normally does when he is frustrated. Another lock of hair falls in front of his face. We both stare at each other, caught, as if the culprit, the instigator of this sudden tension, has made its appearance again.
I ask him if it is because of that. He says, no.
Let me do it again if it's not, I say, just to prove to him that he is lying. Because if there’s no problem, surely you’ll allow me to do this.
He huffs out laughter. Looks around the forest at an invisible audience for commiseration.
C’mon, Centurion. Let it rest. I assure you, I haven’t got my panties in a twist because of a strand of hair.
He’s still joking. It’s always a sign that he’s trying to deflect something.
Well? I persist. If it’s nothing, let me do it.
He doesn’t say anything. I go up to him again and repeat exactly what I did before. I brush the strand of hair neatly away from his face and tuck it behind his ear. This time, however, he lets out a soft sigh. He catches my wrist as I withdraw my hand. I’m so shocked that I meet his eyes directly for once. His thumb runs over the tender skin where my pulse jumps, caressing over and over the jut of bone at my wrist. For a moment, I feel fixed under this small point of contact, unable to move or breathe or think at all, as if my entire center of gravity has been gathered into the place where he draws circles in my skin.
His eyes have lost their usual playfulness. In its place is something darker. Something more serious. Then he places my hand back by my side gently, holding me with such carefulness like he is afraid that something will happen if he makes too-sudden movements. My hand returns to my side limply, an errant child put into place. I can still feel a circle of warmth linger around my wrist like a bracelet. Then he says, as if nothing happened, let’s continue.
His face is one that I can’t read. I think back to the picture cards. No upside-down smiles, no crinkled eyes, no slanted eyebrows. Just – nothing. A blank slate. He’s infuriating. Absolutely infuriating.
He walks off. I shout to his back, you’re angry with me, aren’t you?
He stops but doesn’t turn around.
For raising Livvy. You’re still mad at me. Ever since you’ve returned.
I’m not, he says softly.
Then why are you acting so weird?
C’mon, Ty. Sun’s setting soon. We should return to the Scholomance.
You’re angry.
An exasperated sigh. Why do you always think I’m angry?
Because you look angry. You’re tense and rigid and –
Do you want to know the reason? You really want to know?
Kit storms up to me and jabs a finger at the Herondale pendant. The problem is this, he snaps. Every time I look at this pendant it reminds me of what we did back when we were kids, alright?
My hand instinctively comes up to grasp at it. After all these years it’s still there, resting against my throat. Through sleep and shower. There still hasn’t been an occasion for me to use it.
You’re still going on about this. Why are you so against Livvy? Why can’t you just accept the way things are?
Because it’s wrong! He cries. He’s furious. Suddenly I can feel everything that we’ve so wishfully swept under the rug begin to unspool and come to light. You’re literally wearing it because if she moves too far away, you’ll die. And don’t you realise that everything that has happened, everything that has accelerated the war, is because of the rift in the Spirit world that you created when you raised her from the dead?
How was I supposed to know! How was I supposed to know that the source was corrupted!
A long-drawn sigh. He shakes his head. He gives up.
And you. You, he repeats. His voice is lower. Differently seething. I try to track this change of tone but I can’t. You’re – you’re too close for comfort.
I cannot help but feel stung. All these years I didn’t realise that that was a problem. I’m sorry. I won’t touch you again.
No, no, it’s not that. He pinches the bridge of his nose. Veins pop at his neck. I look at you and I see that bloody pendant there and I – I just – it protects you, doesn't it? It keeps you safe. And you wear it all the time. I can’t get it out of my mind. I think about it constantly. There’s so much of me on you, and here you are, sweeping my hair back like we’re a couple or something.
If you don’t like it I’ll stop, I say.
It’s not that. You should think more about how your actions affect people.
Oh, so now you’re lecturing me on how to behave, I say. First Livvy, then him. I feel my own anger bubble at the base of my throat. You know, all I thought I was doing was helping you out and being nice to you. I can’t say that I expected to be scolded for it.
No, Ty, Kit says quietly. It’s just that if you don’t like me, don’t treat me like that.
If you don’t like me. This reminds me of the day when Anush first kisses me and I’m forced to confront my own emotions, to do a wholesale recalibration of how I feel. Do I like him or do I not. It’s a careful cost-benefits analysis, it’s me filling up a checkbox of what I think ‘like’ should be. Clumsily tripping over emotional landmines, reading the wrong things, saying the wrong things. It’s all, after everything, so tiring. But this time it’s different. If you don’t like me. His words jar me. Like without me even having to process his words fully, my body revolts against this mistruth, like it knows that it’s false so viscerally, so intuitively. If you don’t like me. Do I not like him? I don’t like him because I’m with Anush. But also, how can I not like him after everything? After all the days I’ve spent thinking about him. His smile, his laughter, his reckless abandon. The cause of my sleepless nights. The flush of guilt in my chest whenever I hold Anush’s hand. If you don’t like me. The veins that run down from his arm like streams, containing multitudes. Some nights in my more frivolous moments I picture shoals of fish swimming down those tracks, jumping up and plunging back into the water, his skin. If you don’t like me, he says. But there’s a part of me that says, maybe, I do.
He freezes. Stock-still. It’s so quiet. Only the chitter of insects can be heard. And our breaths, pouring from our mouths in mists. Heavy and hesitant.
Don’t say that, he mutters.
But I do. I say it again for him.
He shakes his head. Just shaking and shaking it in vehement denial. No, you don’t.
Do you need me to say it again? Because I will. I like you.
No. Shut up, Ty. He stalks off without waiting for me. I am taken aback for several moments before I catch up to him. I call after him to stop, to wait for me. Hear what I have to say, but he’s adamant. He continues intently onward, forcefully shoving his way through ferns or grass or branches or anything that is in his way. I call, why do you not think I like you? He says that it’s just because I don’t. But I’m saying it right now to him that I do like him. He gives me no response. Then – because why shouldn’t I say it? — I say, I love you. It’s the truth, after all, though belatedly realized. I am sure of it now. I know it, as deep as my bones. Finally I find the origin of this warmth that has been pent up in my chest for so long. Where else could it have come from other than the Sun himself? Kit. The sun whose rays don’t bother me, whose warmth is one I can bask in.
No, you don’t. His voice is hoarse and haggard. Cloudy with the imminence of tears. Though the viciousness of his denial is still strong enough to carry over the distance between us and reach me.
I do. I’m sorry it took me so long to realise, but I do. I really do. I love you.
Save your pity.
His voice smolders out at that last bit, cracking.
I love you, I insist.
He begins to lose steam. His footsteps slow, anger seeps out of his shoulders. He laughs quietly. Resignedly. Always have been so stubborn, haven’t you?
His brisk walking peters out to a saunter to a stop. Once he slows, I slow down as well. I watch him pace around in circles, hands on his hips in thought. He blows out a long breath. He has lost his anger. I reach him. I ask, why do you think that I don’t love you? He gives me a rueful smile without meeting my eyes. Because no one can, he replies simply.
I know. I know that he has always felt that he is a drifter, encroaching into people’s families. His pack-and-leave relationship with his father, his neither-here-nor-there state, his constantly changing family members. And this has made him feel that he is unwanted, unloved. It has made him reject love when other people offer it to him. That day in Jem’s house. To think that he can think there is no love for him in a house filled with it.
You’re wrong, I say.
He seems to deflate. His shoulders hunch in on themselves. All the air that he is puffed up with leaks out of him. He is no longer the Kit with the bravado or the Kit with the glib tongue. He is just Kit. He looks for something else to focus his attention on as if unable to bear even one second of this honesty. I refuse to let him escape. I continue saying, you think you are unloved, but you’re so wrong. That’s the furthest thing from the truth. You are loved by everyone around you. Including me.
His face twitches. His eyes dart around evasively, scanning his surroundings, and land on the purple, pulsating Carpathian berry. What’s this? he mumbles to himself and goes to touch it. But before I can finish telling him not to, the berry explodes onto him, covering his face with jam. I let out an exclamation of shock and run over to help him. I produce a handkerchief from my pocket and slowly begin wiping the jam off his face. I wipe out an eyebrow, an eye, a cheek. It’s a Carpathian berry, I explain, it explodes on first touch. For a moment, he is so overcome with shock that he is just frozen into place, but a minute passes and he starts laughing, which starts off as a chuckle and then evolves into hysterics. He laughs so hard that he has to clutch his stomach. And I start laughing too.
Carpathian berry, did you say? He asks, once the laughter has died down. He looks down at his soiled shirt, jam all over himself. Geez, look at me. I’m a mess.
I smile. I explain to him the logistics of the Carpathian berry, how there are sacs of pressurized gas within its purple skin. He’s very quiet. I dab away the jam, clearing a circle around his other eye. Two blue eyes gleam back at me. I wipe the jam from his mouth and surface a soft smile.
He laughs a little helplessly. Eyes sparkling with mirth. You’ve always been so much smarter than me, haven’t you?
And he’s so – he’s so beautiful. My heart breaks for him.
Smart enough to know this, I tell him. And I take him by the chin that he thinks no one loves and tangle my hand in the hair he thinks no one loves and I kiss him. On the lips he thinks no one loves. I taste berry that I neglect to wipe off. He lets out a soft, surprised noise, but afterwards he kisses me back. When we break away, I whisper on those lips, I love you. And he doesn’t say ‘no’ or ‘you’re lying to me’. He just says, I love you too.
At night, we decide that it would be a great waste of resources to sleep in the Scholomance when there’s all this nature around us. So we find camping gear in a storeroom and we lug it to the clearing around the lake at Dimmet Tarn. We set up the tent and bundle ourselves in winter coats because its just so cold. I think we must look quite ridiculous. We’ve both got on two layers of coats, scarves and a pair of gloves, and he’s still trying to find space to wind another scarf around my neck. Gotta protect yourself, you know, he says. He presses me flush against the grass and kisses me. I feel complete, for some reason, though I wasn’t aware that I’d been missing anything before. I do what I’ve always wanted to do. I trace the veins along his hands with my finger and press my mouth against it, tracking its full length. He smiles at me. I smile at him.
Isn’t there a legend about this lake? He asks. We are both splayed out on the grass, eyes turned towards the night sky. It glitters with many little stars that would be invisible in the city. Beside us, warm fire crackles. I tell him yes. There are many legends about this lake. One of them is that Dimmet Tarn will show you your heart’s greatest desire. He sounds intrigued by this. Have you tried it out? He asks. I say no. Why not? Strange. I don’t have an answer to that question. All that time spent living here and never once have I felt compelled to look into its surface.
It’s hogwash, I say, muffled against my arm. A local myth. I am comfortable where I am, pressed against his side in our valiant effort to stay warm. When he gets up from the ground, I mourn the loss of his warmth. I twist and see him clambering to the edge of the lake, cautiously peering into the water. He goes very still. What do you see? I ask. He is silent for a while. Nothing but the sound of night insects, chirping in their own elusive language. Chirrup-chirrup. My curiosity gets the better of me. I go over to where he is and he shakes his head. Hogwash, he repeats. Nothing happened.
I look over the edge and – he’s right. It’s just an old wives tale, something circulated to attract tourists. Huh, I say. I must say I’m disappointed. I always thought this place was magical.
That’s the thing with these stories. Some are true and some are not. You got to take them with a grain of salt, he says.
A hand comes up to draw idle circles in my back. I sigh and lean into his touch. We cannot help but continue staring at the lake as though with continued effort, something might rise from its depths, or it will gradually uncloud and show us what we are looking for. But, sort of expectedly, nothing happens.
I give it one last look. Two pale faces, two smears of white, two people reflected in its dark, unrippled surface, huddled side by side against each other. Wide-eyed and unblinking, twin expressions of hope.
26 May
Weather, warm. Sunny. Livvy appears to me all of a sudden one day as I pack my things in my room. As I’m turning to make the trip from the bed to the closet, I run into her. Shimmering and silver, hazy around the edges. My first instinct is joy. Long-suppressed fear melts away and I feel great relief that she is here with me again. This is the door-click moment I’ve been waiting for this whole time. She smiles at me wryly. Did you miss me? I ask her where has she been, why did she leave for so long, is she angry with me? Then she says that she thought it would be good for us to have some time apart. We each need our own space and she also wanted to explore the world a bit, see what it has to offer now that she has all this ability in her. When I ask her where she went, she cryptically answers, here and there. I update her on everything that happened while she was gone. Of Kit and our new relationship. Of my breakup with Anush and how it goes better than I expected, of how the last thing he says to me before we part as amicable friends is, I saw it coming anyway. Livvy squeals in delight when I tell her this. She is very happy for me.
Please, you two were obvious from a mile away, she says.
You’re joking, I insist.
No I’m not, she says. Actually – scratch that. To be more precise, the both of you were obvious from three years ago.
Right from the start? I ask incredulously.
She taps her finger against her temple and says with a knowing look in her eyes, I’m your twin. In some ways, I know you better than you know yourself.
After a long day of investigation and Centurion business, we go down to the beach. The three of us. Kit, Livvy and I. Like the old days. Like how it’s supposed to be. Something from the past revived for the present. In some ways it is different. We can no longer duck through small holes and explore tiny seaside caverns like we used to. And we are no longer so foolhardy as to leap across sharp slippery rocks in search of the rare and prized tide pool. I see Livvy look behind to see two sets of footprints left in the wake of the three of us. But it is more than enough.
We dip our feet in the shallow end of the water so the gentle waves lap at our ankles. The familiar brine of the sea breeze reaches our noses. Gulls streak overhead. By six o clock, the sun is already beginning to set. The sky is a shade of warm tones and it is darkening. Kit lies down on the sand, hands criss-crossed beneath his head, soaking in the last rays of sun. Down by the surf, Livvy chases the tide as it retreats and retreats as it chases her. She shimmers in the light. I take this opportunity to stroke the length of his arm gently and ask him, how are you feeling? This has become a thing between him and I. To ask him plainly what he is thinking so that I will not have to hazard another guess. He opens his eyes. I’m feeling…, he pauses for a while, deliberating his answer. Finally, he settles on, in love. He grins.
Oh, are you? I smile.
His eyes are ever dynamic. There always seems to be a hidden joy or mischief in them. They’re always gleaming. Blue like the sky. Blue like the sea when the sun hits the water and diffuses all over. Blue like… the handle of that bucket over there in the sand. Look at me, always hated every piece of literature I’ve read and here I am trying to string together a fitting metaphor. And I realise this is where you are when you’re in love. In love is where you feel like an altered version of yourself, doing something you wouldn’t normally do. In love is where he pushes himself up on his elbows to press a kiss to my neck – once on the right side and once on the left side – before finally kissing me on my lips, murmuring, you’re totally hot for me, aren’t you? and you crumple in embarrassment. In love is where you tell him your bad metaphors and he laughs. Where the sharp fangs of his sarcasm are sanded down so that even when he says, aw, you’re full of cheese, you’re gonna make me blush, it has lost its bite because he really is blushing. This wonderful place of in love. This beautiful and happy place.
Livvy drifts up from the surf to where we are, perching in the sand beside Kit. She looks between Kit and me teasingly. Nice day, isn’t it, boys? She says. The three of us sit like this, watching the sun go down. I feel happy. The happiest I’ve been in a long time. Livvy catches my eye and I know what she is thinking. The two of us, at the beach, with the setting sun, and in between us is the boy we both love. We look at each other and smile.
17 September
Weather, warm. Sunny. It has been quite a while since my last entry. I have been too busy to write. The impending war suddenly lost its impending nature. All of a sudden it became the ‘now’ war. The war that was happening ‘now’. At the time it was a mad rush. Everyone scrambled to find resources, to make sure that we had sufficient weapons and manpower. There were a lot of meetings to discuss the future of the Shadow world. Every group wanted a stake in the decision. The Cohort, the Faeries, the Clave, the Werewolves, the Vampires.
Julian represented our family as always. He just couldn’t bring himself to relinquish that responsibility even now that we are nearly adults and can fend for ourselves. And now that the war’s over, all the bloodshed’s over and done with, he looks the most beaten I’ve seen him. He has survived two wars now. Callused hands, nails bitten to the stub. I see him walking around the hallways these days, sorting whatever remaining paperwork that needs to be done. He doesn’t walk so much as plod. Weighed down by an invisible something. His footsteps are a thick and heavy noise.
I’m just glad the war is over and our family has emerged intact. This business is sorted out and we can all resume what we were doing before.
18 September
Weather warm, sunny. Something is wrong. I’m in my room one day when I suddenly collapse and start convulsing. I blackout soon after. Livvy snatches the pendant from my neck to summon Magnus. Later she tells me that even in her limited state, she has never felt more grateful that the one thing she can touch is this pendant. I wake up on a bed in the infirmary to see Magnus looming over me. He offers me a glass of water and I take it eagerly. Livvy hovers nervously by my side. He explains that the rift in the Spirit world I created when I rose Livvy is allowing other spirits to pass through, like a leak in a tank. And not only does this mean that some spirits which are not supposed to be in this world are now in this world, the spiritual energy as a result of this travel is harming me, as the human whom Livvy is tethered to.
He delivers the final piece of information: the only thing there is to do is to close this hole. And with the other Spirits that have escaped, Livvy will have to return too.
He continues talking, unaware of how my mind has completely blanked. I barely register what he says next. There is no time to waste. They have to close the hole by tomorrow, otherwise it will be impossible to keep track of all these loose Spirits. He looks at me solemnly with his cat-eyes. How long has he been on this Earth? He’s probably decades old. Probably knows a few twins who lose each other along the way because he says it like there’s no searing gut-punch to his words. No absolute shutdown of mind.
You will have to decide, Ty, he says. Save the world or save Livvy.
No, I say. Absolutely not. This is no choice at all. He says he will be back tomorrow and he leaves me to make my decision. There is great sadness in the way he walks. The door to the infirmary closes behind him. Bang. Livvy looks at me. I don’t look at her. I refuse to look at her. I sweep the glass of water that Magnus offered me off the bedside table and it crashes on the ground. Little, tiny, infinitesimal shards glitter up back at me.
No, I repeat more firmly. No. You aren’t going to leave me.
Livvy drops her head. Even her tears are shimmery. My world feels like it’s overheating. It feels like its slowly simmering over a flame, bubbling and approaching a boil. Sights and sounds and colours blend together in a lurid stream. The battering of my heart thrums through my entire body. It rattles my bones.
Ty, stop! Livvy cries. I can’t stop rocking back and forth. I need to or I will burst. She wraps her arms around me but they just go through me.
No use, I want to say and it almost comes out bitterly, but I feel a cool spread through me. A chill that starts from my core and gradually suffuses all the way throughout my entire body, fighting away the heat of it all. My pulse slows. My vision settles. Slowly, I regain my composure. I slump against the bedhead. Suddenly very tired.
I ask her: why do you have to go?
It’s not just about all that business about the Spirit world, Ty, she says. I don’t know why she’s wiping her tears off her chin when she can’t feel them anyway. She still has the instinct of the living. I’ve been feeling for a long time that I don’t belong here. I… I experience things so limitedly. I can only talk to very few people. I can only touch, feel, and smell very few things. This is not how I want to go on forever.
But you're with me. If we are together, then we’d be ok.
I don’t want to be with you like this, she says. I want to be with you when I can touch and hold you. I don’t want to forever be an observer to your life, to watch you live your own life while I can’t live mine. Ty, like this, I feel like – like I’m a prisoner. Forever chained to you. Neither here nor there. Condemned to live a life of nothingness where I can do nothing. I’m sure you feel it too, how present I am in your life.
No, I say. Though I know inside that what she is saying is true.
But how will I live without her? Two eyes, two arms, two hands, two legs, two of us. Before we even came into the world, we learned how to fit around each other in our mother’s womb. How will I ever live without her when I’ve never known a world without her? How, when nature has brought our two souls together and entwined us together so tightly that neither of us can live without the other, like two climbing plants, each supporting themselves against the other as they race towards the sun? Livvy and I. Me and Livvy. My sister, my twin, the other half of my soul. I can’t – I can’t do it.
I can’t stop crying. Neither can she.
No, she says. But you will learn to. It’s like losing a limb. At first you will wonder how you ever managed without it, but slowly you will acclimatize. You will adapt. You will learn to find new ways of doing things. You will find new people to do things with, and over time you will forget that you even had that limb in the first place. You will be going through life naturally, without ever feeling that something is lost.
But you’re my heart. You’re my eyes and my ears. I can’t do it without you. Out of the two of us, you’ve always been better at people stuff.
She shakes her head. She taps her finger against my chest, where my heart is. No, she says. Between the two of us, you’ve always had the bigger heart.
Livvy and I. I want to say that while I still I can. I want to say it over and over while she’s still here with me because I don’t know if she will be by the end of tomorrow. Livvy and I. Livvy and I. She curls up beside me on my bed and we fall asleep like that until the morning comes.
21 September
Weather, warm. Sunny. It is fitting that the day that Livvy leaves is so close to the day she dies in the Accords Hall. Three years late. She disappears into ash and dust. No one questions why I refuse to come out of my room. They all chalk it up to the nearing date of her death anniversary and I cannot feel any more thankful to Magnus for agreeing to maintain this secrecy. The first few days were the worst. I couldn’t eat or drink anything. It wouldn’t have gone down my stomach well. I kept turning around, hoping that she would once more materialize in front of me, but she never did. As days passed, I began to take a few bites of food. I could wake up in the morning without immediately searching for her and I let the pain of loss set in. This heavy weight on me. This knowledge that she’s really, truly gone. No more necromantic shenanigans. Just gone.
It feels like a new loss altogether. Fresh grief. I lose her once and then another time.
I hear a knock on the door. Julian pops his head in. Can I come in? he asks. I say sure. I’m a little surprised because we’ve hardly spoken since I returned from the Scholomance. He sits down on the bed next to me. He sees me staring at her bed, pressed up against the wall, unslept in for years, and he sighs.
It’s today, isn’t it? He says. Like we both just remembered. Like it hasn’t been in our minds since a few days ago. Yes, I say.
Hm, he says. We fall into a silence. He’s different. Fidgety. He wrings his hands in front of him like he’s mustering up the courage to say something. I ask him why he’s here. He says he thought I might want someone to talk to on this day and that it’s not good to remain cooped up in my room. I tell him I’m fine. He nods, seemingly accepting of this answer. Silence again.
Then he says, shifting his weight on the outer end of the bed, Look, Ty. I’ve been meaning to speak with you for quite some time but I wasn’t sure how to do it. You know, so much has happened to our family. In fact I can’t remember the last time when everything was normal. You know, when mom and dad were still around, before Mark left. It was years ago. And – I just wanted to – I just wanted to say that I love you. I love this family, and I’m – trying my best to keep it intact. And to – make sure that none of you are ever hurt again. And – his voice cracks. His eyes are bright. – I’m so sorry for everything. I’m so sorry for Livvy. Everything I’ve done is for this family but I fucked up. I fucked up with the plan and the Accords Hall and – I’m sorry about dad too. I’m sorry that I – I killed him.
Dad? I realise that he’s talking about the day Sebastian Morgenstern stormed the Institute. The day that I see Julian plunge a knife into our black-eyed father and kill him because he was going to hurt us. How many years has it been?
Julian is looking at me like I hate him. There is fear in his eyes of what I will say next. Julian, my unflappable brother. The brother who sits at my bedside while I fall asleep again after a nightmare. The brother who fashions stimming toys for me out of creative materials. Pipe cleaners, lego bricks, rubber bands. The brother who is so fiercely protective of me, defending me against anyone who says I am unusual. The brother who has nothing but patience for me all the time, who breaks down the world for me into its more elementary pieces for me to understand. The brother who is also my father and mother. How could I ever hate him?
I realise how tired he looks. There are shadows under his eyes. He looks like he will keel over at any moment out of exhaustion.
Wordlessly, I pull him in for a hug. My fingers dig into his shoulders. I hug him as hard as I can, hoping that my actions will convey a deeper truth that my words can’t.
I love you, I mumble into his shoulder. He was the first person to teach me this phrase. I remember asking him, I don’t get it. Why do people say I love you? And now after all these years, I say it back to him, a meagre repayment for everything he has done for me. Full circle. I say, Don’t apologise. I know you have done everything you can. This family would have never survived if not for you. Thank you.
He is shocked at first, then his hands come up to wrap around me as well with equal ferocity. I think this is the first time I've told him this. This is also the first time he cries in front of me. His shoulders shake and shake.
Gently I tell him, Not one thing is your fault.
10 January
Weather, warm. Sunny. It is a pleasant day today. Kit and I go to the beach. We go down to the surf, take off our shoes and dip our feet in the water just like we did the last time. I don’t think we will ever tire of the beach. It won’t grow old or tiring. Not like a favourite food can, or a favourite song. The thing about the beach is that it is a repository of our memories. Every stone is a stone we’ve turned and every cave is a cave we’ve explored before. Everywhere I look a certain memory jumps to mind. Sometimes I will turn to Kit and point out to him that that tide pool is the one we found that starfish in, or that’s the cave that we found that warlock in. He will think for a while. When he finally retrieves the memory that is in both of our heads, he’ll let out a soft ‘huh’ and we’ll let the tide of the past wash over us.
Another thing about the beach is that no matter how well we think we know it, we don’t. There are always new caves to be discovered. New formations of tide pools. The constant crashing of the waves on the shore makes for a constantly changing landscape. It is an incessant moulding and remoulding of the place. One day we’ll visit and when we return, it will look completely different. Old but new. Brimming with nostalgia, and yet filled with so many new opportunities.
The two of us enjoy strolling along its length. We walk along the surf from far end to far end, his hand slung around my waist. He presses his mouth to the pendant hanging from my neck. It has lost its use but Kit tells me I can still keep it so I still wear it all the time. Sometimes we’ll lie on the sand and he will kiss me in that carefree way of his, sending warmth pooling down my stomach. Sand sticks to the caps of my elbows. The crashing of the waves against the shore roars in our ears. And I feel so grateful for him.
I think I will stop writing in this journal. After all, I kept it for Livvy and now that she is gone, there is no need for me to write in it anymore. There’s no more experiments to be conducted, no more trials or whatever I have to record down. I don’t know where she is now. Perhaps her spirit is still here somewhere, just invisible to me, and she’s in Russia visiting St. Petersburg just like how she always wanted to. Or maybe she’s in Italy, going down one of the canals in a gondola. Or maybe she’s pinwheeling amongst the stars, completely free, nothing tying her down, doing cartwheels and handstands in the face of the moon. Or maybe she’s just in darkness. I don’t know.
But I do know atoms. As tiny and indivisible as they are, hovering around in the world. Always there, never to be destroyed. And perhaps, if by some chance, that day, three years ago, when we burn her body on the pyre and her atoms scatter out into the world, that means that her atoms are still here. And if by an even slimmer chance that after wandering around aimlessly for a quite a while, drifting around, spinning and floating, that they find this journal, then. Listen to me Livvy. Here’s what I have to say to you.
I might have found it impossible to be without you on this earth. But one step at a time. That’s the key. Step by step. Day by day. Parcel grief out into what’s only needed for the day and don’t think about anything further. You were right. It’s the same as acclimating to the loss of a limb – that's how essential you were to me – but slowly, surely. The paraplegic finds his footing. The blind man learns how to feel his way through the dark. And I too can learn to live without the sharp pain of loss running through everything that I do. I learn to stop with the twos — two cups, two plates, two pillows, two blankets — and I learn to realise that one is enough. It is a steep learning curve but well. There’s not much I can do, can I? It’s just one foot at a time.
I see Tavvy chasing after a toy train that's trundling round and round on the carpet, his little feet barely half the size of mine, gleeful laughter escaping him. I see Julian's arm wrap protectively around Emma as he watches him. I see the small smile curve along his lips. I see him seeing the family that he has built and protected and fought for, all happy and content for once, if only just for this tiny pocket of time. I see the quiet pride in his posture. I see the bright gleam in Mark's eyes. I see Dru tossing her head back in laughter, the full and beautiful apples of her cheeks. And then I realise how wonderfully elastic, how unbreakable their hearts can be. They have been surviving all this time without you, with not even the silvery dregs of your existence to comfort themselves with. They let go of you three years ago, at the Accords Hall, and still their spirits can summon up the strength to smile. If this is a truth that they can accept, then why can't I? What makes me so different that I must drag you back from where you went so that you might be with me?
Now I know that you’re an atom. You’re tiny and little and you can’t retain much. But if there’s one thing you must retain, retain this. Ignore all the other bits because this is the most important thing, the thing you must carry on in your whizzing electrons and your impenetrable core forever into eternity, where someday I will turn to atoms as well, and hopefully our tiny selves can mingle amongst each other again. It is, quite simply, I love you. I loved you before I even knew you. I loved you before we even came into the world.