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Through the warped old glass of the bathing house Dewdrop could see the outlines of the trinkets siblings had lost to the deep. Bits and pieces he had been so fond of collecting and arranging on the windowsill. A locket so damaged by the water its tiny, heart shaped inhabitant had vanished into a blur. A key to someone’s dorm, still on its chain but too rusted to serve its purpose. Nothing the siblings would come looking for if they knew he had fished them from the water.
For the long wintery months only the water ghouls bothered to keep the bathing house tidy, far more tolerant of the cold than the siblings who only braved the chill in the long, sunlit summer afternoons. Unlike the ghouls, humans were susceptible to drown in the frigid water as their bodies shut down from the shock. They were not like River, who floated just below the surface some nights to watch the stars or the Aurora Borealis on rare occasions. Nor were they like Mist who hid, blinded by the darkness at the bottom of the lake when topside became too bright.
Save for the soothing patter of rain, the lake stayed cocooned in soft silence. Someone would find him, he knew, but it gave him space to breathe. Without the eyes and whispers and sickening pity that crushed his ribcage and tightened its hold every time he passed a mirror. For now though, it was mercifully silent as he sat, staring down past his reflection to watch trout swim in lazy circles. The familiar sting of tears made him scrub desperately at his face, failing to stop the hurt that had suddenly bubbled up in his chest.
It had been a long, long time since he had dared to touched the water. Months maybe, but he couldn’t remember clearly. He found he remembered frighteningly little of anything anymore. If he strained, remnants of memories flashed through his mind but it hurt. It always hurt. Sometimes he could not remember why it did. But he missed the water so much it ached, and it hurt even more when he couldn’t remember why.
With a sigh the ghoul pitched forward, slipping ungracefully into the water below.
The water of the lake was icy. A far cry colder than he remembered it. Pale light filtered from the surface, the glassy surface destroyed by the droplets of rain, shattering the cold sunbeams. Suspended underneath it all Dew watched as fragile bubbles rose from his lips, trailing to their doom on the surface.
It was odd to feel weightless in a way that kept him in his body. Not like the uncomfortable, disconnected feeling that came with disassociation. When Aether’s voice sounded like static and he didn’t have to feel the stab of a syringe. This was different, almost soothing. Almost.
He inhaled, letting the frigid water fill his mouth and lungs. Dew could taste the salt, his own bitter tears that had mingled with the lake water as he cried. This way his tears were hidden, the saline swept away by the cold fingers of the lake. It felt like drowning and it hurt. It should have been safe and now suddenly it consumed him like prey.
The water filled his ears and dulled the static that filled his mind endlessly. It surrounded him, filling his lungs and his mouth and dragging him downwards, further from the shimmer of the surface. Consumed by the cold soundlessness of the lake, he didn’t register the surface shattering above him.
It was only when hands grabbed him roughly that he screamed, clouding the water with the trapped air as he thrashed and fought.
Stop
Pathetically he began to cry, praying suddenly that the ghoulette was a hallucination of his half drowned mind. But she didn’t disappear when he tried to push her away, only tightening her grip.
I’m tired Siren, please
His sobs came out contorted by the water.
Mist’s arms were nearly as cold as the lake itself, but Dew couldn’t find the sense to mind. The water ghoulette waited, letting him cry until he began to choke, losing the little oxygen they could trap in his lungs.
It’s time to go Droplet
He wanted to sink, to wait in the dark weightlessness until his body fell asleep, but Mist pulled them both towards the surface anyway, knowing he would follow.
The bright light of the surface spun stars through his vision as he coughed, desperately forcing in air. Mist hauled herself gracefully from the water like a siren, sweeping her silvery hair out of her eyes. There was no unsightly, pathetic gasping, but she did not watch him with the pity the other ghouls had taken to.
“I wanted to-“ Before he could even try to continue, the ghoulette cut him off.
“I won’t let you.”
Vicious as she was pretty, the ghoulette was known to be easily angered. Omega had told Dew that they suspected it was due to her being isolated in the pits, used to the cold, dark loneliness of the depths. Many things triggered her and the ghoulette reacted too often with violence, disagreements ending with narrowed eyes and needle-like teeth.
But Mist’s expression was devoid of that all too familiar anger. Now, half blind in the sunlight, she looked afraid.
Two things registered to him at once.
The first was that every water ghoul trait that would have kept him safe had been torn from him, without asking, without doing so safely. Without caring whether he lived or not.
The second realization was that it had almost, almost worked.
Reality hit suddenly, sharply. A blade between his ribs before he could anticipate it. Gravity snatched him back from wherever he had been lost, disembodied by the weight of the water. If the fire ghoul had been less drained, he would have screamed until he ran out of oxygen again, until stars appeared at the edges of his vision and his head became clouded enough to keep his screaming mind quiet.
But the sound that fell from his lips was closer to a whimper, muffled my Mist’s shoulder as the usually avoidant ghoulette wrapped him in a tight hug.
They sat in silence for a long while, Dew half cradled in Mist’s cold arms. Slender, ghostly fingers brushed the constant tears from his face as the ghoulette mumbled soft promises into his hair.
Keeping close to the horizon, the winter sun stayed cloaked in wispy clouds, sending glittering fractals of silvery light across the lake. Catching in the frost like spun starlight. Mist, used to the depths with little to no light, narrowed her eyes against the glare, dipping her head.
At some point, when Dew has lost track of time and space, he felt the ghoulette retract her hands. Leaving the ghost of her impossibly cold touch lingering on his skin.
“I need you to tell me what they did to you.”
The fire ghoul flinched, blank expression morphing into one of rage, followed by hurt and finally apprehension. Although she had not phrased it as such, it was intended at a question. One he would do anything not to answer.
Aether had tried to ask, over and over until Dew had nearly burnt him in his overwhelm. Chain and River and even Papa had made similarly vain attempts but Dewdrop had curled in on himself and buried it all. He was sick of seeming fragile, of the ghouls treating him as though he were something breakable.
But beside him, Mist laced their fingers together, pretending the contact did not burn. Tilting her head as if she might be able to feel his thoughts. She did not beg, but she stared expectantly back at him. Patient in a way she so rarely was.
Avoiding her eyes, he focused instead on pressing his fingertips into the frost and watching it vanish under his touch. Icy wind caught in his hair, taunting him as it sent shivers down his spine. The cold was a different kind of burn, soothing in a way the fire under his skin would never be.
“Fine.”
Mist stayed silent, only watching, statuesque, as he spoke. Dew glared into the lake, words spilling over the top of each other to force them into the cold air, trying to get them out.
Silence crept in, becoming suffocating as Dew regretted his words. Beside him, the ghoulette remained frozen, staring into space. Flakes of snow caught in her hair, settling in her eyelashes and across her cheeks, her lower body temperature keeping them from melting. Ethereal, almost angelic in the most terrifying way.
But eventually, when Dew was sure she would never speak, the ghoulette’s hand tightened around his own. Even in the silence, he could feel her seething, leaching into the air surrounding them.
“I’ll kill them. I will gut them and let them bleed out and they will die slowly. I want them to suffer for what they did to you.”
She spat the words with such conviction that Dewdrop tore his gaze from the swirling water. Mist’s expression was unreadable, almost eerily so. Half hidden behind her curtain of hair, the ghoulette’s eyes held everything she kept off her face.
“They are going to die, Droplet. I promise.”
-
Four days before Yule, when the depths of winter had settled across Sweden, the remaining upper clergy sent a feral water ghoulette back to the pits. Most of the ghouls forgot about forgot about the festivities entirely, vanishing from their duties to mourn.
Seven members of the congregation were buried days later, casting a shadow over the festivities and lacing the gloomy weather with grief. Despite a pointed effort to keep the whispers at bay, it was hard to conceal. After all, some poor sibling had to get on their hands and knees to scrub the blood from the floors.