Chapter Text
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Faraway was a suburban town. The type that people moved to when they needed a quiet life. One where they could settle down, start to build a family and wash away their past sins. Building a life worth living behind white picket fences or under red roofs. There wasn’t anything special about it, for it was like any other suburban place with neighbourhoods littered with many, almost identical houses. With their flat green lawns that looked every bit as real as they did fake. All of it was just a maze of beige walls, trimmed bushes, and concrete sidewalks. Just locally owned shops and house after house. Nothing stood out, and nothing really stayed in. It was the type where nothing happened, and yet, day by day when looking back, it is clear that so much had changed and grown.
Time snuck up on people here. One minute it's spring, the next it's winter. No one noticed how time passed until the very moment a small change was caught. The sidewalk would chip away slowly through the years. The hedges would be taller than remembered before. All of which were reminders that nothing stays completely still. Changing, slow and quiet. To Basil, it was home.
It was also no secret that Faraway was a religious town.
That meant that Basil, having a religious grandmother, spent every Sunday right when the day hit its highest peak of heat, underneath the roof of a crumpling church.
The church was an old battered down building. A large room with no walls dividing the interior. Only decorated by pews to the left and right, creating an aisle that led to the pastor’s podium. Everything was always coated in a thin layer of dust. The heavy, cracked walls trapped in the summer warmth. Creating a feeling of sound silence that mellowed everyone into worship. It was surprising how somehow the entire town of Faraway could fit into one rickety place, but it held still. It didn’t matter their backgrounds. Everyone understood the importance of the sermons, they held their bibles close to their hearts regardless if the pages were torn or fresh.
Every Sunday. Basil was meant to sit on those benches that were aligned row after row, to pray. For it was his duty. It meant he got to hear all these wonderful stories of how god was something they all carried with them, as long as they worshipped him enough.
Basil knew how important this all was. He understood it perfectly well. That’s what his grandma said anyways, that he was, “A child of god, Basil, you need to keep your head up high and never lose faith. No matter what.” Those were her words and he always reminded himself of that. Of how faith was all they had in this small close-knit town that had little else.
So the day was spent singing the songs of their lord. Basil loved it. It made him feel connected to the people all around him in a way he couldn’t put into words.
Always making sure to listen diligently to everything the preacher had to say, and never lead himself astray, as he was taught.
All of this weekly work was worth it for Basil felt the promised faith; feeling his entire body ground itself when he sat on the brown wooden pew. This body tethered, but his heart was carried up like a sacrifice to the lord. Carried faraway and where it needed to be. High up to the sky, for that was the only place a person like Basil could find peace. In an old building, hearing a raspy voice lecturing, and feeling as though he were no one. No one under the eyes of a god.
That’s why when that boy appeared; sitting tall and upright on the other side of the church, he stood out so much. His dark demeanour broke the perfect little cycle. Shifted the atmosphere Basil couldn’t have anywhere else. It was a painful fall from grace, just seeing someone who didn’t belong in the only place that was made for unity.
…
That fateful day, Basil was on his knees praying before the sermon started. Basil wasn’t praying for anything in particular, he never did. He slowly opened his eyes with eyelids that felt heavy, only to see something dark in the corner of his vision. He turned his head slightly to spot a smudge of pitch black hair. He looked closer to see that it was a boy, somewhere around his own age. Though he didn’t act like it. He was far too graceful. He took a seat daintily into a pew, kneeling his head down a bit as he sat. Hiding his eyes behind his sleek hair. Basil felt nervous looking over at the stranger. He didn’t know why but he felt almost captivated. Like it would’ve been a sin to look away.
Not that there was anywhere else to look.
Something about this mysterious new boy was so strangely elegant. The way he was dressed with pristine clothes that were perfectly trimmed and ironed. His hair was dark as night, interestingly contrasting with all the beige and white. But as the stranger lifted up their face, Basil felt his breath get caught up in his throat at how glass-like the boy’s dark eyes were. They were as empty as they were full. As intricate as they were plainly boring. That boy somehow had caught Basil, and put him on edge.
He was like an ink blotch, on an old piece of parchment. He was a stain on an otherwise perfect image. He didn’t carry himself with the humble demeanour everyone else did, no, he sat down as though he were merely here to watch and judge with an idle, unmoving face. Basil couldn’t help but stare with his mouth slightly agape. It was so obvious that that boy did not belong here that Basil found it so unnerving. Though he could not articulate why. Basil couldn’t point to a reason for why his heartbeat was unsettled and his palms suddenly felt clammy. It scared him, for never before has he found someone to be so striking.
So Basil tried to look away, but It seemed that no matter how hard Basil tried to fix his gaze on the tattered red rug on the dusty floor, his eyes kept darting back up to see if the black haired boy was still there. Every time he tried to pry away, he only found himself staring even more intently. It was so badly instinctual, that Basil gave in and watched.
Watched as the boy looked over at the girl sitting next to him. She had matching black hair that went down to her waist covering the back of a white, pretty lace dress. Basil assumed it was the boy’s sister. She leaned toward her brother and told him something Basil couldn’t hear. Then the boy’s face scrunched up a little bit in such a subtle way that Basil would’ve missed it entirely if he wasn’t paying as close of attention as he was.
Then the boy dropped down to his knees to pray. Except, his eyes looked uninterested and dull. He closed his eyes like it was a chore and brought his hands together in a fluid motion to pray. It looked practised despite all the annoyance the boy carried.
He sat there still as a statue with no expression on his pale face. Basil studied all the intricacies of the other. To his surprise, he couldn’t find any. Nothing about the other stood out and that made him all the more alluring. Just then, the boy opened his eyes slightly. His pupils immediately fell directly onto Basil’s own like finding a lone light in a dark crowd. Glancing at him, as though he could sense Basil’s staring through his closed eyes. An echo from a beckon.
Suddenly the air was caught in Basil’s throat and the whole world stopped. All at once it became so difficult to breathe. The room simultaneously became too big and too small to contain the both of them. They were equally far too close than permissible and much too far away. Each perched on different sides of the earth glancing at each other through a narrow telescope. Only an aisle away.
Basil watched adamantly as the boy scrunched his eyebrow slightly into the lightest scowl, one so faintly drawn in the creases of his mouth that it would’ve been missed if Basil wasn’t glued to him as he was. And in a quicker moment still, the other boy passively looked away as though they never saw each other.
Resurfacing the water, Basil gasped for air. Now it was like he couldn’t stop breathing. He tried to calm down, but he was a gutted fish lying idly on the shore, far out of the water. Basil forced his eyes down onto the ratted red carpet on the ground and squeezed them shut. It was almost painful to look away, but he didn’t want to see the other look so distant.
The boy looked, for a lack of a better word… mean. And it scared Basil…
But not nearly as much as how the boy’s eyes terrified him. He was just so pretty. Scarily pretty.
The only thing on Basil’s mind was, ‘please god, no, god, please don’t make him a regular thing.’
Basil was never blessed though, and so his prayers were always left unanswered. Perhaps this attested to Basil lacking enough faith.
…
From then on it became a routine to go to the church every Sunday at midday, sit at the pew next to his grandmother, before his eyes would frantically watch each new person who passed by him down the aisle. Basil was searching for danger as though he was on high alert, but what it was he was trying to foresee he never knew, because every Sunday that same boy would enter the church. Sitting at the same spot with his sister leading him on and hovering at his side. And every sermon, he would look endlessly bored with narrow eyes and down turned lips.
Never again would he look in Basil’s direction. Leaving Basil to start to worry more and more about how little the other boy seemed interested in him.
It got to the point that Basil would constantly stare at him, trying to will into the world for that dark hair to just turn ever so slightly to the left giving Basil the chance to get a better look. But all Basil could see was the boy simply facing forward in his seat. Seemingly have forgotten their small interaction. As though it didn’t mean anything to him.
The only problem was this meant everything to Basil. It made his mind wandered as he wanted to know more about him. What was his story? Where did he come from? Was he always in Faraway this whole time? But despite all of Basil’s wondering, the boy still remained an enigma. Far away on the other side of the church.
Leaving Basil wanting desperately to see if the other boy would ever dare to look back.
The longer it went on, the more certain Basil was that he was being toyed with. That the new boy was so mean to not even offer Basil another glance, because Basil knew for a fact that the other could sense his stares. He knew it from the way he could see the other boy’s neatly pressed white linen shirt would crease as he shrugged his shoulders everytime Basil’s stare landed on him. As though mere eyesight alone was enough to send shivers down the other boy’s poised back. So Basil would just look away and try to look again to see if he could catch another crease of his shirt, just to see a hitch of the black haired boy’s gentle breath. Testing him from feet away, to see if Basil was worth at least a little bit of his attention.
If there were a god, he’d probably not like being tested. Even then why would something so grand and omniscient bother to take a glance at someone as insignificant as Basil anyways?
…
Basil stopped staring after that, he was probably doing something wrong in not focusing on what the pastor was saying. He was probably missing a lesson that would explain that funny feeling in his chest, or how it would suddenly get so difficult to share a room with someone he didn’t even know. Because even though Basil stopped staring at that dark hair and pale nape, he was still entranced. For every time he sat on his knees whispering a prayer to himself right before the session would begin, he could feel the exact moment the other boy walked into the room. Prompting Basil to glance slightly to the right. Always catching the very moment the same pair of shimmering, polished black loafers would pass by the aisle. The ritual of it all ending resoundingly with Basil looking away for the sight of those shoes would burn him.
Basil thought that that would be the end of it, just wondering about the mean boy without ever knowing anything more about him. Only getting to see him on Sunday before he’d eventually disappear as he exited through the church’s doors silently. As if he was never there to begin with. Basil would just wait until he could see the ghost boy again by the end of next week.
The ghost boy with the glassy, dull eyes.