Chapter Text
An old house stood atop a lonely hill. Dusty windows stared at the world below, waiting. Two figures approached and stared back.
“Are you sure about this,” the woman asked, cladded in blue, too many boxes balancing on her arms and heavy bags hanging from her wrists. Beside her, her companion sighed and nodded, a cat curled in his arms, purring gently and pawing at his forearm.
“Ja,” he said. “It is the only place I could find that would rent by month.”
She frowned at that. He knew perfectly well how suspicious that was, but what other option was there? “What if there’s a meth lab in the basement, Caleb, and a drug lord burst in and…”
“Beauregard,” he scolded as he began the trudge up the gravel path towards the front porch stairs. They creaked under his feet but held strong beneath his minimal weight. “I assure you, there is no meth lab in the basement.” He dug in his pocket, coaxing his cat up on his shoulders to free his arms. The keys jingled as he pulled them out, undoing the three locks, remembering his landlady’s advice to ‘pull for one, release for two, push for three.’ Easily enough, they all clicked open and he strode inside. “Obviously it is a weed farm. Perfectly safe.”
Behind him, Beau snorted and followed, setting boxes and bags down. “I mean. Looks the part.” she spun on her heels, taking on the room around them. The living room was mostly mismatched sofas. A big grey thing, L-shaped and modern seemed to be the principal seat, covered in colorful pillows and quilted blankets. Another sofa sat diagonal to it, something that had probably belonged to a very cool grandmother once, classic Victorian in shape and velvety and deep pink. A massive knitted pouf and a cluster of floor cushions, all probably homemade, laid sprawled on a bundle of fluffy and braided and jute rugs. Patterns were everywhere, flowery, stripy, damask, polka dotted, geometric, paisley, and more.
Upon the dusty-pink walls various painted plates hung, all of them depicting different species of butterflies. Above it all, sitting on the low, wooden rafters, pots of various sizes and materials housed an absolute jungle of devil’s ivy, vines hanging high and low in a living curtain. New leaves sprouted even then.
“Well,” Caleb sighed, pushing the door close behind him with his back, releasing his cat to the wilderness that was his new home. “Whoever decorated here would appreciate my mug collection. Unlike you.”
She groaned, as they both watched the cat sniff at the furniture, surprisingly devoid of dust.
They puttered around for a bit, in a comfortable silence. A box labeled ‘The Frump’s’ was opened first, scissors gliding through brown tape. A pet bed was placed on top of the grey sofa. Toys were intentionally thrown around. Bowls and a bag of food were carried to the kitchen.
Caleb crouched near a corner, arranging the bowls and ripping open the bag, holding his breath for a couple seconds as the initial puff of kibble dust and fishy smell escaped it. He could feel Beauregard standing close, behind him, staring, most probably. There had been many conversations already, on the drive from his empty, shitty downtown apartment, and he knew more were to come.
He was not ready to talk about it. But he had to anyway. For her sake.
The time came, soon enough.
“Caleb,” she said, in a tone he knew well. It was a warning for him, after years of knowing her. A warning of a long, complicated, emotionally exhausting conversation. He didn’t turn to look, filling the chrome bowl with dried kibble, the fancy type, of course. “You know Veth wouldn’t mind you staying with her, right?”
He suppressed a sigh, watching his cat rush from his perch on the highest shelf on an empty bookstand, jumping gracefully towards his food. “I know.” In a poor attempt to look unbothered, he concentrated on patting his little friend, smiling at the crunching of kibble and excited huffs. “I also know she is pregnant and that she has more than enough on her own plate.”
Behind him, his sister was pacing, he could hear her, sneakers squeaking against tile, see her shadow go from the cupboard to the door and back. “What about my apartment?” He stood, knees creaking, and turned to look at her. Beau’s pacing did not stop, even as he shuffled to hoist himself up onto the kitchen counter. “It’s small, but I mean, I could take the sofa, I fall asleep there all the time anyway.”
“I’m not kicking you out of your own bed, Beauregard,” Caleb said simply, and went on just as she opened her mouth to rebuke. “And you are working on your thesis. You, also, have enough on your plate.” He lifted a hand, stopping her from denying the facts, once again. “You have a stack of plates, now that I think about it, please take a rest.”
A minute of silence followed after that. Eventually, Beau huffed and stomped her way out of the house, porch stairs groaning loudly enough to be heard all the way from where Caleb sat. He counted in his head, seconds, spots on the butcher-block counter top he sat upon, boxes that needed unpacking, until the stomping came back, louder.
Beauregard returned from her trip to the car, plopping a box of plates a bit too forcefully on the table, ceramic clinking worryingly inside. “Fjord and Jester’s?”
Caleb snorted and hopped off his seat, plucking the scissors as he went. “Nope.”
She laughed, at least. “No explanation for those two, huh?”
He rolled his eyes, cutting the tape and popping the box open, sighing in relief to see that all his ‘fine china,’ as they jokingly called it, had survived. “They literally came back from their honeymoon a week ago, I am not barging into that.”
They began to unwrap piece by piece, mismatched glazed earthenware in blues and whites and pinks and yellows, organizing them by size on the table. Gifts, all of them, from trips to other cities and strange antique stores and random flea markets. His favorites were the mugs, glossy colors dripping over rough clay like eternally fresh paint.
He loved his damn mugs.
Outside, a broken windchime by the door made a muffled sound, more a thud than a ring. Beau stopped her work, suddenly wrapping a trembling hand over his wrist, too gently for her usual demeanor, her voice barely a whisper. “You wouldn’t be a burden for any of us, Cay.”
He knew what was coming. But he said what needed to be said anyway. “Yes, I would.”
He could see her feathers bristling, face going red and grip tightening, if only for a fraction of a second, before she forced her hand to relax. “No, you wouldn’t!”
“Yes. Yes, I would.” Before she could snap away in a fury, he placed his own hand over hers, trapping her, staring her directly in the eye. “I know you want to take care of me, I know you would give me your own bed in a heartbeat, Beauregard, but I don’t…” Words were hard. Feelings were even harder. “I don’t want to hold you down, alright? I know you don’t think of me like that, but…” How do you tell your own sister, your chosen sister, that you need your own space to die in. That you want to hide like a sick dog looking for a hole to sleep forever in, or an injured rabbit crawling deep underground to bleed out in peace. He couldn’t. “Shit, this is hard to explain,” he whispered instead.
Thankfully, she was smart. Very smart, very insightful, and just as shit at feelings as he was. “I think I get it.” With a last squeeze, as gentle as she could manage, she released his wrist, holding his hand instead. “You are shit at explaining it, yeah. But I get it anyway.” After that came a deep breath and, before they knew it, their unpacking of soup bowls and a rather phallic looking serving tray, Jester’s own contribution to the collection, continued. “I just… what if… alone?”
“We’ll figure something out,” he said, and meant it. “Something.”
Beau agreed, nodding lightly. “Something.”
They went on like that, for a long moment. The whole crockery set laid on the table, as Caleb brought them pile by pile to the sink for a rinse. Beau opened a window beside him, overlooking the side of a hill, all rolling grass, except for a lonely tree. Long, droopy branches swayed in the wind, and cried, as the weeping willow greeted them.
Grim.
She sighed, hurrying towards the exit once again. “I’ll get more boxes.”
In turn, Caleb grabbed his phone off the table, muttering while he tapped in a number. No need for a contact list if your name is Caleb Widogast. “I’m ordering us lunch from the noodle place.”
That got her smiling. Food always worked. “Hell yeah.”
Hours later, Caleb stood on the kitchen, unfolding and piling up flattened boxes, a crinkly ball of discarded packing tape gliding across the floor a Frumpkin swatted at it. Beauregard had left a while ago, full of noodles and exhausted from carrying boxes from the car and into the various rooms. Not that there was much, honestly. Not much other than books.
Crystals he hadn’t noticed before hung from the window frame, shooting rainbows all across the floor and the walls as the last rays of the setting sun hit them just right.
On his own, in the silence of the house, he could finally think.
It was a strange place. The one and only home for miles which rented on a monthly bases, no need for a year-long commitment, and refraining from asking too many questions. Yasha, the woman he had met in the hole-in-the-wall teashop downtown that was Caduceus’ pride and joy, had taken one look at him and simply slid the contract over, right across the table.
Caleb had read it carefully. Twice. Just as promised over the phone, all she asked for was a two-week heads-up if he decided to move away. Pets were not a problem. It was fully furnished, the kitchen appliances were all supposed to work, there was heating ready if he stayed all the way through autumn and into winter. It was perfect. And it wasn’t even expensive.
It had made him suspicious, very much so.
“I have to ask,” he said, “places like this are not easy to find. Is there a catch?”
The sad smile that answered him almost made him feel guilty. Almost. This would probably be his hospice home, he was not about to risk sleeping on a former crime lord’s hideout. “A condition.” She cleared her throat before continuing. “The furniture and… design… Do not change anything. It is very much out there but it must stay how you’ll find it.” He couldn’t even get another question in before she went on, hurriedly explaining. “There are no trinkets or clothes anymore. The shelves and closets are yours to fill, of course, but other than that…” Words left her, it seemed, as she glanced out the window, mismatched eyes glazing over. “Don’t… change it.”
Caleb sort of got it, then. She wasn’t really looking to make a buck off the house. Perhaps she was simply looking for someone to maintain it. He could do that. Be good to the house, if it was good to him. “Sounds fair.”
She glanced over to him, hesitating, taking a sip off her cup before continuing. “One… one more thing.” The saucer clinked as she gently set her drink down. “I come over sometimes to care for the plants. There’s an herb garden in the back and some flowers in the front… I hope it’s not a problem.”
“That is fine.” Definitely wanted to keep the house, then. Sensing the mood of the conversation would keep spiraling down, he quickly changed the subject. “You wouldn’t happen to have fresh mint at the house, would you? My cat goes feral for the stuff.”
She had smiled.
They had a perfectly lovely conversation after that. Yasha had spoken about the plants in the house, about how they were very easy to care for. He had shown her pictures of Frumpkin and promised the excited woman that she could come in to meet him next time she went to care for the flowers. In the end, the contract had been signed with no further suspicion.
A series of taps against the window brought Caleb out of his musings. Frumpkin had jumped up on the edge of the sink and was swatting at the crystals, pulling and trying to bring them down to play with. With a sigh, he went to untangle the cat’s claws off it, fitting the animal in his arms, smoothing back his fluffed-up fur.
“Hey, hey,” he muttered, bouncing the kitty up and down, making the animal purr and melt into a warm ball of dough. “Yasha told us not to change anything, remember? I’m sorry, Kätzchen, those stay there.” He kissed the top of his little head and went to the small drawer on the side he had stuck the treats in. “Let’s get you a consolation snack, hm?” The familiar sound of a metal box being opened made the animal immediately perk up. He waited, anyway, for Caleb to take a couple of dry fish bits and for him to fuss with the lid and did not even wiggle in his grasp until he was offered his treat, eating off of Caleb’s hand. “Good cat. Best cat.”
Glancing around, boxes everywhere, discarded bubble wrap and craft paper and balls of tape, warm kitty in his arms, Caleb felt completely exhausted.
His heart thrummed steadily, at least.
“Let’s call it a day,” he told himself, nudging the drawer close with his hip, flicking the light switch off with his elbow as he went out the kitchen and towards the stairs. Thankfully, he had checked the mattress and changed the bedding earlier.
As he went up the stairs, Frumpkin sitting up on his arms, paws and head over his shoulder and looking back, he thought things would be fine. It had been a good day. Exhausting, but good. Things had gotten moved, some unpacked, hard conversations had ben had.
And then Frumpkin meowed.
Caleb liked to think that he knew cats pretty well. He spoke their language of tail flicks and slow blinks and biscuits. He knew that call, and it made him stop in the middle of the narrow stairs.
A greeting.
He turned, slowly, and looked back, looked down, towards the moonlit cluster of seats that was the living room.
Nothing.
Moving back down a couple steps, stooping low and then around the wall, he found Nothing. Nothing at all.
With a sigh, he hurried up once again. “Who are you saying hi to, silly cat? Do we have a mouse?” Frumpkin blinked up at him. “Ja, ja, let’s get to bed. Time for mice tomorrow.”
Moments later, laying in the dark of his new bedroom, looking up at the hanging pots over his head housing more devil’s ivy, hearing the rhythmic squeaking of the old ceiling fan keeping him cool, he felt a bit dumb.
Nothing, he thought, eyelids finally dropping.
It was Nothing.
There were needles in his arms.
There were needles in his arms, and a tube down his throat, and machines beeped beside him. His eyes stung. His lungs burned. He could not move.
Pain.
An I.V. went drip, drip, drip nearby.
Sobs reached his ears, echoing all around him, bouncing off the walls he could not see, but knew were closing in on him, and he recognized them.
I’m here, baby, I’m here.
He knew her voice, he knew it in his heart, it clenched at it, the sound pierced it, her tears drowned him, he couldn’t breathe, could not breathe, would not breathe and he wanted to panic, he wanted to kick and scream and scramble but his limbs were so heavy, and his heart thumped too strong and then too weak and then not at all and he was dying, a sputtering fire, and then too strong again and it hurt.
Pain.
Cold fingers grabbed his wrist. Clenched it. A prick on his arm. Then another and another. Cold liquid up his veins.
Shush, Bren, said his mother, invisible, beside him. A hand brushed his long hair. Alles ist gut, mein Kind. Alles ist gut.
Nein, he wanted to say. Couldn’t.
Pain.
Don’t believe him, Mama. It hurts, I’m burning, I’m dying, stop it. Stop it.
Make it stop.
Take them out, make it stop.
Pain.
Take them out.
Pain.
“Take them out!” With a gasp, Caleb sat up on the mattress, scrambling to push himself back, working his feet against the damp cover, until his back collided with the cool glass of the window that served as a headboard for his bed.
His eyes were fuzzy, but he felt at his arms, at his neck, he pressed two fingers down against his pulse, felt the quickened thump-thump-thump of his heart.
Strong. Steady. There.
He surveyed the room. The bed was nothing but a mattress on the floor. He had filled it with pillows and blankets. The ceiling fan above him was dark metal with tanned palm spades, and it squeaked with each turn. The window behind him was tall and arched at the top, sheer curtains doing nothing against the moonlight. Three hanging pots were screwed to the ceiling, cotton cord knotted together and nestling even more devil’s ivy.
The walls were light blue, the floor old wood, tinted white with a paint that was not supposed to be used for flooring, chipping on each board. A fluffy carpet beneath the mattress, dark blue with silver sparkles, tried to hide this fact. There was no door, only a series of tapestries that separated the nook from the dark of the hallway to the bathroom and the stairs.
Two red dots stared at him from the shadows.
Eyes.
Caleb rubbed his eyes, hard, way too hard, shooting stars behind his eyelids, and then he looked again, vision blurry from the abuse. Nothing. As he blinked and saw clearer and clearer, even in the dark, he was assured there was Nothing.
“This is stupid,” he told himself, wiping at his nose as he stood up on bare feet. The tapestry division flew out of the way, he smacked the light switch on and descended the stairs, two at the time, jumping into a stumble at the very end. “This is so stupid.” He rubbed at his arms as he went to the corner of the living room, towards a stack of boxes, plucking the scissors off the coffee table as he went.
Two boxes ended up on the ground, pushed out of the way, before he found the one he wanted, scissors ripping into the packing tape and on cardboard, as he pulled it open. Piles of documents greeted him, punched into binders, inside manila folders, loose notebook pages, carelessly ripped off. He plucked the biggest makeshift file and read the first page.
Case No. 4693628-9847
People of the City of Rexxentrum (Plaintiff)
vs.
Trent Ikithon, MD; Cerberus Medical Center (Defendant)
Caleb pushed his hair back, plopping himself in the Victorian couch beside him. It seemed the most appropriate to faint on, if it came to it. It was going to be a long night, after all. He went on reading, swallowing the bile that rose up his throat, ignoring the bitter burn of acid in his mouth.
He went on reading, though he knew the words by heart:
Complaint for Medical Negligence and Battery.
It had only taken a couple days for Caleb to set up a decent living situation. His kitchenware had been unpacked and organized by the first morning spent there. Clothing had been hung and folded into an empty dresser in the bedroom, shoes tucked below it. He didn’t have too many outfits, honestly, and it was mostly sweaters, as he had no need for work clothes anymore and a near constant chill had settled on his bones.
The last step, and what he had worked on for the rest of the week, were his books. Boxes and bags and piles and more boxes of books, lined into shelves and organized on tables, tucked in the cupboard under the stairs. A pile lived next to the floored mattress that was his bed. A whole kitchen cabinet had also been filled with books.
He was almost done. He walked into the back room, carrying the last pile on his arms, huffing with relief as he set them on the desk.
At the beginning, he’d had a hard time figuring out what to call the room. It had obviously been a sunroom once, with its wide expanse of windows. Perhaps it had been a fancy sitting room or a dining room for many guests. Either way the person who had lived there before him had giving the room a completely different purpose.
There was a gigantic loom in the very center, on a sunny spot, with an unfinished tapestry hanging from it, colorful threads forming grass and flowers, tufts of red and yellow and orange roving puffing up for each petal. The beginning of a sky, light blue, complete with fluffy clouds, chains of beads hanging off somehow from between the rows of thread and yarn, an interpretation of rain.
It was both a beauty and a tragedy, standing there, unfinished, bleaching under the sun.
There were smaller looms against the walls, some embroidery hoops piled up in a corner, and a stack of boxes filled with fabric and balls of yarn and spindles of thread. An antique sewing machine was pushed to a corner, along with a plush, Victorian chair, deep pink like the sofa in the other room, perhaps another piece that had once belonged to the hypothetical cool grandma. An absolute monster of a beanbag laid on the sunniest corner of the room, the coziest piece of furniture Caleb had ever seen.
The strangest piece of equipment, in his humble opinion, was the metal ring hanging from the ceiling. An acrobatic lyra, Beau had called it, as she jumped to grab it and hung from it easily, doing a couple push-ups which made Caleb’s arms ache just from watching.
Perhaps ‘the studio’ was the most appropriate name.
Either way, he only needed the desk. He was quite fond of it, if he was being honest, glossy, scratched-up dark wood and canted legs reminding him of his mother’s work table, usually filled with the remains of flowers and discarded soil and perlite. For the moment, his desk was filled with legal documents and reference books and his own notes, as well as his old, wheezing laptop.
“Enough setting up,” he said to No One, as he pulled the chair back and sat to work. Not even his cat was in the room at the moment. Caleb opened his laptop, fingers tapping rapidly the too-long password, files flying open on his screen. “Time to work.”
The Empty room did not answer.
An old routine had found him easily enough.
Wake up, feed Frumpkin, make tea. Work until tea is gone. Text Veth. Shower, change, brew second cup. Check vitals. Answer emails. Work, type, read, review. Rinse and repeat. Eat. Drink. Meds. Review, edit, re-read. Text Beauregard. Feed Frumpkin. Answer Jester. Re-read. Edit.
Delete.
Rewrite.
Compile.
Journal. Blood pressure? Normal. Heart rate? Steady. Too slow. Breath? Short. Fatigue? Incoming. Appetite? Workable. Pain? Not yet.
Like that, day after day, as it had been before the house, for four years already. New house, old house, Beau’s loft, Veth’s apartment, everywhere. It gave him purpose. Purpose gave him spite. Spite kept him living.
It was still exhausting.
Almost every night Veth would call him. He would close his laptop as soon as the first ring echoed through the house, answering as he stood. “I am walking to the kitchen, I swear,” he would assure his best friend in lieu of a greeting.
“You better!” She would call back, automatically, exasperated, somehow fondly. “What are you making today, Caycay? Something fancy?”
“When do I ever get fancy, Shatzi?”
She laughed, as Caleb put her on speaker, plopping his phone on the kitchen counter. “When I visit you get plenty fancy! What did you make that one time? With the creamy stuff on top and the fries on the side and…”
“Jaegerschnitzel.” He opened the fridge, quickly surveying what he had at hand. “Yes, excuse me, that was one time and only because we were celebrating Fjord finally asking Jester.” Precut veggies with cheese and some reheated chicken it was. “Also, because Beauregard refused to believe me when I told her I could cook better than her.”
Caleb cooked and ate and rested while she told him about her day. The work at the store, the advancements to the nursery, some pregnant grievances. Yeza even popped into their conversation at one point, shyly piping up until he gained enough momentum to make his own points for a while. Eventually it was only Veth and Caleb, as it always ended up, the redhead once again sitting on the desk, laptop open before him.
“His team keeps trying to contact me.” His fingers flicked at the trackpad, up, up, up, until he found the email he was referring to. “They are getting desperate, I think, they’ve tried all the tactics they know, and I don’t think they understand why I have not budged.”
“Assholes.”
“Indeed.” He leaned back, eyes still on the screen. “And they always start by saying we hope this email finds you well.” He groaned, sinking in his seat. “It didn’t. What do you want now?”
“Please tell me you sent them that response.” There was noise on her side of the call, the clicking and popping of a gas stove, the clanking of a metal pot. Yeza heating water for her feet, probably. Good man.
“I’ve learned that just sending them a ‘no, thank you’ drives them insane.” He laughed. “So, I do that.” His screen went dark right then, the laptop’s rasping coming to a halt as it entered sleep mode. Just as Caleb went to press on the spacebar to prevent his old machine from turning off completely, something caught his attention.
In the reflection, right below the lyra hanging off the ceiling, stood someone, bright red eyes shining behind a heavy curtain of tussled dark hair.
Caleb could not help the loud gasp that came out of him, turning and standing in one fluid motion, toppling the chair to the ground and backing up until his lower back collided painfully with the edge of the desk.
Nothing.
There was Nothing. He turned, he spun. There was Nothing.
“Caleb!” His phone had fallen out of his grasp. Veth was screaming loud enough that he could hear her even then. “Caleb? Are you ok?! What happened?!” He crouched and tucked himself under the table, stretching to grab the phone, bringing it to his ear as quick as he could to stop, what he knew, could quickly become a call for the whole cavalry to come save him from Nothing. “Do I call the cops?! No, no, fuck them! I’ll go myself and…!”
“No, no, Veth, I’m ok.” He hurried to stand, bumping his head under the table and suppressing a groan that would only stress his friend even more. He managed to get out from under it, giving the studio one more look before lifting the chair up and collapsing onto it once more, breathing in deep, bringing two fingers to time his pulse. “I’m ok, I’m ok, I’m sorry, I just thought…”
She hurried, voice still tainted with worry. “Are you sure? I can go right now, I’ll get Yeza, grab a knife and…”
“No, no, I’m ok. I thought I saw someone, that’s all. Just a weird reflection, I just…” He stopped, registering her words, eyes narrowing. “Veth, do not grab a knife.”
“Ok, ok, geez, I’m just saying…” They both laughed, at least for a moment, at the idea of tiny, massively pregnant Veth, coming to defend him from a robber with a butter knife. She could totally pull that off, and they both knew it. She cleared her throat. “How’s…?”
“Steady,” he answered before she could finish her question. “Steady, I promise, I’ll be ok.” It was not a lie. His heart pulsed quick, but, for the moment, at least, it did not struggle. It would just tired him, instantly. It was already starting. “Lieber Himmel, I should go to sleep.”
“Yes, please, Lebby. Go rest up.” He stood, clicking his tongue until Frumpkin came from behind the gigantic beanbag in the corner, meowing and marching towards the stairs. “Call me in the morning?”
“Of course.” He flicked the lights out, deciding against another look as he hurried towards the bedroom. “Talk to you in the morning, I promise. Good night, Veth.”
“Night.”
They hung up at the exact same time, just as Caleb reached the bathroom beside the bedroom. Out of all the rooms, it was the strangest, hand painted in a purple gingham pattern, wall to wall and floor to ceiling. The mirror above the sink was old and ornate, massive burnished gold frame left artfully marred by time. Surrounding it, hanging off the walls, were a couple dozen hand mirrors, plastic and wood and metal, classic and modern.
Caleb hated it.
He wasn’t fond of mirrors, in general, reminding him of all the weight he had lost in recent months, of the way his beard didn’t grow quite full enough anymore, of the purple bruises under his eyes brought from insomnia. Some mornings, the bad ones, when he couldn’t get out of bed until well into the afternoon. He looked like an actual corpse, limp hair and sallow face and blank eyes.
Also, who wanted to watch their own damn self as they sat on the shitter from a dozen different angles?
Fucking hell.
As he stood before the mirror, brushing his teeth, he kept his eyes trained on the reflection, just above his shoulder, through the open door into the small hallway, looking for the eyes-in-the-dark again.
Nothing.
Not when he spent way too long on his front teeth, not when he straightened himself out too quickly after spitting out the minty foam, afraid of missing something, not when he rinsed his mouth and turned quickly.
Nothing. But it bothered him.
There was something there, just beyond his sight, his senses, a breeze through a curtain, confirming the existence of a world outside he could not reach.
Was he finally going insane? Was this a new, awfully cruel symptom of the mess that was his body? A side effect of his medication? Or of the insomnia? Or of the pain that was surely due soon enough?
He pushed his hair back, out of his eyes. He had other things to think about. Doctor visits he kept pushing back and hiding from his friends, legal documents he wanted to review and sort, assets he had to arrange before it was too late. No time for tricks of the light and strange reflections and insanity. With a huff, he went into the bedroom, chucking his ratty t-shirt to the side, slipping out of his pants, already too loose around his hips, despite being only a couple months old, and he let himself fall face first on the bed, over the covers.
Caleb groaned, at Nothing.
Tiny paws eventually found his back, harmless pinpricks of blunted claws probably leaving faint scratches on his skin. He turned his head, looking at the pile of books beside his bed. Scooting carefully, not wanting his movements to disturb his cat, he stretched and reached and dug among the books, finding what he was looking for at the very bottom.
The Turn of the Screw and Other Ghost Stories.
He stared at the cover of the beaten paperback. A sinister looking shadow, that of a man, stood against a moonlit window, the rest of the room around him barely silhouetted in the low light, though clearly depicting two small beds, a pair of siblings clearly cuddled up and sleeping on them.
“Stupid,” he called himself, putting the book down, at the top of the pile this time. He pulled a pillow, fully intending to sleep like that, in his underwear and over the covers, kitty curled into a tight ball on his lower back.
The lights stayed on that night, electricity bill be damned.
It was a week after that night when Caleb got a strange confirmation that, perhaps, it wasn’t all nonsense.
He stood in the kitchen, pushing left overs to glass containers and into the fridge, grumbling to himself as he went, cursing his perpetual lack of appetite, when things went wrong.
It was due time.
A stab of pain in his chest had him doubling over, palms slamming onto the kitchen table. Breathing became an agony, white and hot in his chest, but a practiced one, which he diligently tried to work through. His eyes watered, his knees wobbled, his heart thrummed with no rhythm, trembling and quivering like a dying bird, a sputtering camp fire. He crumbled to the ground, as slowly as he could, remembering that one time, the first time, he had slammed on his knees. Bruises like that lasted too long.
His hands stubbornly held on to the wooden edge of the table, knuckles white. He wanted to dig his nails in, to ground himself with that feeble show of strength, and yet he didn’t. Don’t change a thing, Yasha had said, watery smile and bright, mismatched eyes.
He wouldn’t.
He knew the grief of change.
His body was panicking. He couldn’t bring much air in. Quick, shallow intakes only made things worse, he knew, but he couldn’t do it, he couldn’t do it, he was going to choke on nothing, drown in his own pain, and they would find him on the kitchen floor, face blue and eyes bloodshot and unseeing and it would be horrible, and he had so much to tell them, so much to do.
So much to do.
He thought of a pair of unseeing eyes, and unsteady, trembling hands holding his own. He thought of others, hurt like he was, strapped to bed and at the mercy of someone who had promised to fix, but had only broken them beyond repair.
So much to do.
Eventually, finally, blessedly, his lungs decided to cooperate again. Deeper breaths had his heart slowing, calming, ceasing its needless struggle. It found a rhythm, a weak one, but Caleb could work with that. He would accept anything. It was only a matter of taking it slow, one step at the time, maybe sleep on the beanbag to avoid the stairs.
He could last one more day, he thought, pulling himself up to stand. He could last another week. Another month. He could last until the wrongs were righted.
“I can do this,” he said to No One, breathing in, holding, releasing. In, hold, release. His hands slid on the table, feeling the chipped wood, memorizing the pattern of the grain, until he saw it.
A napkin.
A single napkin, which hadn’t been there before, sat on the table, near his knuckles.
Sniffling, Caleb took it. He couldn’t remember leaving a napkin there, and he remembered everything, always. He rubbed at his face, noticing his damp cheeks and runny nose.
Maybe he had forgotten. He had just experienced his body beginning to shut down. A napkin could be forgotten. So he wiped his face with it and blew his nose, and tossed it in the bin and left it there when he missed. A napkin could be forgotten. He clicked his tongue a few times, Frumpkin running to him from across the living room and following him to the studio.
He could remember kilometers of stories and all of the phone numbers of the restaurants he liked and every single detail of legal jargon for his case. He remembered all of the Crayola names Jester liked, from Radical Red to Wild Blue Yonder, and all the ingredients in Caduceus’ relaxing tea: rose, lemongrass, orange, chamomile, peppermint. He remembered the bright yellow button earrings Veth loved to wear on rainy days. He remembered Beau’s pop-pop-pop-kick morning routine at the gym, and Fjord’s coffee order of half milk, three sugars, don’t tell anyone.
As he guided himself in the dark, towards the beanbag, he remembered his father’s dark suit, with his white shirt and blue tie, as he lay. When he plopped himself on the softness and pulled a fluffy blanket over his legs, he remembered his mother’s hand on his shoulder as they lowered the box into the ground, and the way she smelled of old roses.
When he closed his eyes, he remembered the rain of that day, and then the rainbow they saw on the way back home, and how they had cried, together, as they sat on the porch.
But a napkin.
A napkin, maybe, he could forget.
Life was strangely convenient after that.
He had slept through the night for the first time in a long, long time. He knew it had only happened thanks to the bone-deep exhaustion his pain flare had left him in, but he enjoyed it either way, stretching on the bean bag and curling up even tighter when he realized he would have to step on the cold floor.
It turned out he didn’t have to worry at all. Neatly arranged on the floor, right where he could reach them, were his ratty, grey slippers. The ones he refused to throw away because Fjord had gifted them to him. Also, because he was yet to find a more comfortable pair.
Perhaps he had left them there the day before, he thought, as he put them on and shuffled to the kitchen to brew his tea, blanket still bundled around his shoulders.
Too late, he realized the napkin was not on the floor near the bin anymore.
“Frumpkin,” he called, loud enough to be heard upstairs. “If you poop paper again I am going to be very angry!” His cat did not come out until the rattling of kibble on his chrome bowl lured him from under the coffee table in the living room.
Caleb sat on the floor next to him, carding his fingers through the soft fur on his back, as he sipped tea.
A napkin. Slippers.
Later, he would find a pen he had lost under the desk the week before, neatly placed over his laptop. The next day, he woke up in the middle of the night, as it was usual, only to find that he had, somehow, ended up with the blanket he had forgotten in his exhaustion covering his bare feet. The next morning, a tea bag was placed on the counter, ready to use. The ceiling fan on the bedroom would be magically off in chilly mornings, or on if it was too hot. A pile of recovered, dusty hair ties found itself next to his stack of books.
On one memorable occasion, a rainy day Yasha had shown up to care for the jungle of ivy in the apartment, two mugs had found themselves on the kitchen table. It had spurred them both to an impromptu tea date.
Either he was forgetting, and he could say good bye to his perfect memory, or Frumpkin was becoming an incredibly thoughtful roommate.
Or.
Nothing.
He called Beau.
She used to take a while answering her phone. Several rings would go by, sometimes she would miss the call completely and just send a message saying nothing but ‘what’ back. Those days were long gone. He heard her voice a little after the first ring. “Caleb.” When he did not answer immediately, suddenly at a loss, she went on, panic raising in her voice. “Are you ok? Is it…?”
“No.” He said, quickly, not thinking. Which question was he answering? “No? I am fine, it’s not that. I am just…” Was he ok? Stupid, it was so stupid, what was he going to say? “I don’t know, Beau, it’s just…”
“Hey.” He could hear her chair scraping on the other side of the line, and then how she stomped across her tiny studio apartment. “I’ll be right there, ok?”
“You don’t have to,” he hurried, “it’s stupid, I don’t even know what… I am ok, you don’t have to.”
She huffed at him. “Even if it is, it’s about time I visit.” She didn’t let him interject. “Don’t argue, see you soon.” The phone clicked, and she was gone. Gone and coming over.
When she arrived, knocking loudly against the glass panes on the door, he was almost nervous. He had told her so many things, all his worst thoughts, and she had done exactly the same. At the stage they were, what was one more instance of raving lunacy?
Soon enough, Caleb and his sister had plopped down on the sofa, a bag of chips between them. “So,” she started, clearly looking around, probably still unused to the house and the colors and patterns. “What has you stressed now?
He thought for one more moment, before sagging back against the couch. She was going to think him insane anyway, might as well just dump it all out for her to dissect. “I keep seeing…Nothing. Eyes.” Words, as always, were hard. “Things keep happening, I keep finding things that are just conveniently where I need them, and…” She rose one of her eyebrows, worry twinkling in her blue eyes. “Don’t look at me like that, I know how it sounds, I don’t think it’s a new symptom.”
Beauregard leaned forward, trying to examine him. He leaned back, away, but allowed her to grab his face and turn him one way, then the other. “I mean… Cay, would you even know if it…”
“I know, Beauregard, I know, but hear me out.”
He spoke then, straight up babbled, as he recounted everything. About Frumpkin meowing to No One. About the Eyes-in-the-Dark staring at him from the hallway, from the studio, from the reflection. About Nothing feeling just out of reach. Caleb told her about the napkin and about his slippers, about his pen and the mugs and the hair ties and the fan and he talked and talked about his train of thought, and he kept sinking and slipping, until he was pretty much laid out on the cushions.
She humored him, listened, but he could tell, she had a lot to say and was holding back.
“You don’t believe me.”
“Nah.” She ate a chip. “Look, it’s not like I think you are crazy, it’s just…” Another one. And then another. Buying time. Then she wrinkled her nose as she swallowed. “Ugh, not being an asshole is so hard.”
“Be an asshole, I can take it.”
“I know you can.” Beauregard smiled at him, and then pulled him by the arm, until he was sitting again and not melted down. They ended up sitting cross-legged, in front of each other, as they always did whenever they had a serious discussion about anything. “Have you been sleeping?”
“Yes.” She frowned. Caleb rolled his eyes. “Badly, but I have.”
“Maybe you are tired? You are spending all your nights rereading those damn documents, aren’t you?” Without looking, she pointed at the coffee table, absolutely covered in manila folders, a thick journal opened in the middle of it all, brimming with shorthand notes. “Caleb, you know them all already!”
“I don’t want to miss anything.”
“As if you would miss anything, Mr. Keen Mind.”
“That is exactly my point, Beau.” He took the bag and grabbed a handful of chips, just to bother her, more than because he actually wanted to eat them. “I don’t miss things. I don’t forget things. How would I forget I placed my slippers right where I would need them in the morning?” She opened her mouth to argue, but he went on talking. “Ok, ok. How about forgetting I went on a hair tie retrieving mission and piled them all conveniently next to my bed?”
“I mean, Caleb…”
“Ah, yes, I forgot I placed two very opportune mugs on my kitchen table when Yasha visited me. Silly me.”
“But Caleb, maybe...”
He grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest. If he was allowed to be stubborn about something, it was his cursed perfect memory. “Ask me something you think I would easily forget.” She looked at him for a long moment, clearly annoyed. “Go on, prove my point.”
“Ugh, fine. You, absolute asshole.” Beau ate a couple chips as she thought up a good question. Something unimportant, probably, something no one would bother to store in their brain. “What paint color did I choose for my room last year?”
“Hazy Skies,” he said, no hesitation. “Your other option was Forever Denim, but you were only considering it because you thought it was the most lesbian paint color you could choose.” He went on, just to further state that his mind was in mint condition. He had checked. “Jester had suggested Big Chill, because you needed to…”
“… to calm the fuck down.” She slid against the sofa, sinking into the softness. “I get it, I get it.” After a moment of silence, she looked over at him, a mix of awe and worry dancing in her eyes. “What the fuck, Caleb.”
“Ja, I know.”
“Alright, alright. But what is the other option?” She sat up straight, snapping up, arms flailing dangerously close to his face. “Aliens?”
“I was thinking ghosts, but I’ll add aliens to the list.” He mimicked writing on a notebook, licking his pencil, putting it away in his non-existent breast pocket, all the while looking straight at Beauregard. Eventually, she groaned, standing up. “Where are you going?”
“I’m getting your shitty laptop and we are going to watch a dumb movie and we’ll have a great fucking time and you’ll shut up about ghosts.”
Caleb hummed before answering. “Or aliens.”
She flipped him off and strode out of the living room. “Get us food.”
He smiled, plucking out his phone from between the sofa cushions. “I’m not getting noodles again!” She groaned once again, all the way from the studio. He could work with that, he thought, as he began popping the numbers for the nearest pizza place and waited for them to answer.
Ghosts. He could work with Ghosts.
What a concept.
He could not work with ghosts.
The conveniently placed objects around the house continued, usually around the morning. He hadn’t gone around barefoot in more than a week, slippers always conveniently next to where he had fallen asleep,
That didn’t bother Caleb, really. He was even strangely thankful about it. He kept thinking about horror movies, about poltergeist flinging things across the room, about doors opening by themselves and people being dragged off of bed by their feet. Out of all the options, possessions, hauntings, ghouls and demons and weeping souls dragging chains across the floor, he had gotten the friendly spirit.
A considerate ghost.
No, what bothered him were the implications of souls being real. Of something else that wasn’t eternal sleep coming after death. It brought too many questions to the surface.
Were his parents roaming around, somewhere? Was his father stuck in a cold emergency room at the General Hospital? What about his mother? Was she still in his childhood home, crying her eyes out? Maybe, just maybe, there were together at the cemetery, waiting for him.
Waiting for him.
Hell, was he going to be a spirit too? Was he going to be stuck in the house? With the spirit of someone he knew only from their interior design abilities?
Perhaps he could work with ghosts, but he could not work with not knowing.
That thought exactly was why he found himself sitting in bed, late at night, looking at the hallway, Frumpkin curled up and purring on his lap. “Alright,” he said, loud enough for his voice to carry through the room, possibly all the way to the stairs. “I am very thankful, really, about the help.” What was he doing? Who was he talking to? Was he going insane? “I do not mean to sound demanding. But.”
He swallowed. Hard. But.
“I know you are there.”
Nothing. No one. Empty.
“I know.” Caleb faltered, brushed his hair back. What was he doing? “I’ve seen you, I think. I’ve certainly noticed you. So.” With one last deep breath, he decided. If there was no answer, he would stop. He would ask Beau to accompany him to a doctor and everything would be ruined. He would be declared unable to stand trial and Ikithon would get away with it and he would keep mangling people and ripping families apart. “So, please, come out?”
He hated how his voice trembled.
For a terrifying moment, nothing happened. Nothing happened, and he felt cold and desperate and his hands shook, and he wanted to scream.
Then, a shimmer. A movement.
Before him, a shadow manifested in the moonlight, both beautiful and frightening, a lilting voice like a ringing bell echoing in the room. “Hello there, Mister Caleb.”
He thought he had been ready.
He wasn’t.