The expression on his deceptively soft face was clearly challenging as he sauntered up to Keith and Lucas, looking them both over before he said, "A ghost and some human kid? Seriously, Dad?"
"Oh, I'm very serious about them," Hiraeth called from his perch with just an edge of warning to his voice. "They're lovely, be nice."
It was pretty clear that this Cherrytree Boy had no particular desire to be nice, but Keith swallowed around the pit in his stomach and held a clammy hand out to him anyway. "I'm Keith," he said. "This is Lucas, my, uh, our boyfriend—"
"Hey," Lucas said, lifting a hand in greeting. His brows were already lifted in his YikesTM expression.
"—And it's nice to meet you.," Keith finished determinedly, trying not to react to that. "Do you have a name you'd like me to use?"
Others had at least four layers of names that Keith knew of: fake names they'd use among humans, descriptor names based on known details that Others would use for each other when they weren't close, familiar names that they would use for each other when they were, and personal names that, as far as Keith knew, they kept completely secret. In Hiraeth's case, 'Hiraeth' was his familiar name, given in secret to Keith and Lucas; the descriptor name Keith used for him before that had been 'the Horned Boy', and his human name was 'Henry'.
The Cherrytree Boy looked Keith over again and then shrugged. "Avi's what I go by when talking to people like you," he said. "Or you can call me whatever."
His human name, then. "It's nice to meet you," Keith said. He left his hand out a little longer before letting it drop.
The Snakeskin Girl eyed Avi with a bit of secondhand offense—she was Avi's boyfriend's girlfriend, Keith remembered from Hiraeth's description, meaning that she probably was not Avi's girlfriend, too—then stepped forward. She shoved her goldfish bowl into Avi's hands.
"Be nice," she echoed Hiraeth, then smiled too-widely at Keith, literally cheek-to-cheek, showing uncomfortably long fangs. She took his hand before it could quite sag entirely away. "It's nice to meet you too. Go ahead and give him a descriptor instead of Avi, we're among like kind here. His dad already explained that you've got second sight."
Keith swallowed. Even if she'd given him permission, Avi hadn't. Her hand was dry and cool and he focused on shaking it. "Among other abilities, yeah," he said weakly.
"Other abilities? Even better," she quipped. "We're in a bit of a pickle here so it's just reassuring we don't have to tiptoe around it with you."
"Right, uh," he glanced between the Snakeskin Girl and Avi, and decided to just use a descriptor for Hiraeth, just in case she didn't know his familiar name. "His, uh, dad mentioned that something had happened to your mutual boyfriend?"
"Yep," she said. She pointed.
For a moment, Keith genuinely thought she was pointing to Avi for some kind of explanation. But he was scowling down into the fishbowl he was now carrying.
"The fish?" Keith asked, taken aback.
The fish—a fantail guppy, Keith believed, almost betta-like with its rainbow of colors and long tail, but lacking the snub nose or length in its other fins—swam a little loop-de-loop in his bowl.
Keith found himself helplessly flashing back to failing to keep his pet guppies alive as a child.
"He's such an idiot," Avi muttered. He shook his head over the bowl until one of the cherry blossoms came loose from his antlers and drifted down, resting on the surface of the water.
The fish swam up and ate it.
"He got himself cursed," the Snakeskin Girl said with stressed-out good humor. "I guess he somehow got sealed into his vessel, which reverted into its original shape. The two of us took care of the guy who did it, but it didn't undo the curse. We were hoping the shop might have some kind of curse remover."
Lucas made an unhappy noise, his face a little more shadowed than it had been previously, a sign that he was distracted. Whenever he didn't focus fully on his own identity, his features lost detail, one of his more unnerving ghostly traits. "He's still himself, though?"
He had reason to be concerned; the last time they'd dealt with things that forced Others to take new vessels, it had involved some very unpleasant cases of amnesia.
"He is for sure," she said, nodding to Lucas to acknowledge the relevance. "He responds to things perfectly well, he's just…" She held her fingers up a few inches apart. "You know. Silent, water-breathing, can't do much but swim in circles. It was only funny for the first hour."
"Dad, c'mon," Avi said. He put the fishbowl down on the desk and rested his face against Hiraeth's shoulder. "What do you think?"
Hiraeth hissed a concerned breath out through his teeth, deep in thought. "…I might be able to get you a better setup for him? A little bowl like that isn't much good for a fish."
It wasn't the answer Avi wanted. He whined softly, pressing closer; Hiraeth's arms rose around him in a gentle embrace, rocking him softly.
"We've got a good setup back in the van," Avi grumbled weakly, muffled into Hiraeth. "This is just for portability in case you had anything we could use on the spot. C'mon…"
"I don't think I have anything that can remove a curse that wouldn't also be removed by just killing the curser," Hiraeth admitted gently. "But we can sort through the shelves and see if anything jumps out at us." He rubbed Avi's back, a soft ruffle of dry hand over satin cloth, and Avi leaned into the touch, greedily drinking it up.
A little embarrassed by this demonstration of familial affection that clearly wasn't for him to see, Keith glanced aside. He noticed that the Snakeskin Girl was watching them, fond and a bit pleased; from the softness on her face, this sort of clingy behavior from Avi was probably a lot more familiar than the aggressive front he'd shown Keith and Lucas.
Keith really hoped that Avi wasn't insecure. He was definitely not ready to deal with having his boyfriend's kids acting like he was going to steal their dad's attention.
"Keith, anything you think you can do?" Lucas asked.
He'd asked it quietly, but even so, the Snakeskin Girl's head whipped around, and Avi lifted his own a little, not turning but clearly paying attention.
"I, uh, maybe?" he said, flustered under the attention. "I can look, at least—"
"How would he be able to do anything?" Avi muttered sullenly.
Hiraeth tweaked Avi’s ear swiftly, drawing a yelp. "He's very talented, you know! They're both smart and brave and kind and clever and I love them very much."
Keith went red, staring at his feet. He could hear the Snakeskin Girl giggle, and Lucas let out a little surprised oh.
Avi's steel-toed boots came into view a moment later as he approached, moving just a little too close before stopping. "Seems like my dad's got a high opinion of you," he said flatly.
Drawing a slow breath in, Keith forced himself to look up. "I mean, I have a high opinion of him too," he said, trying to stand his ground while his stomach did flip-flops. "I don't know that any of my skills will be useful but I have… I mean, more than just sight. Telekinesis and pyrokinesis might be useless, but I've got psychometry and the ability to pick up associations on things, and I can prod around in people's subconscious. If nothing else, I might be able to see or feel some kind of connection between an item here and, your, uh…" He searched for a name to use and settled weakly on, "Fish."
"Fish," both Avi and the Snakeskin Girl said at once, one with horror, the other with delight.
"Well, if you'd tell me what you want me to call him?" Keith ventured.
"'Fish' is fine," the Snakeskin Girl said, laughing. "Dumb Fish. It's what we call him half the time anyway."
"Sure, okay, I mean, we know who you mean." Avi huffed a breath. Another cherry blossom drifted down and Keith forced himself not to try to catch it before it hit the ground. "I don't know that I like this, but as long as you're just looking, it's fine."
Keith attempted a smile, though it probably came across queasy at best. "Sure," he said. "I'd love to help. Lucas…"
>
"Don't know that there's much I can do, but I can sort through the shelves more easily than you since I don't have to move around all the junk," Lucas said. "So I can start combing through for anything that looks magical?"
It was narrow and crowded in the shop, sure, but Keith knew how much Lucas hated walking through solid objects. He'd said often enough that sharing the same space as other things reminded him that he was dead—that, on some very real level, he wasn't even there anymore.
Still, Keith nodded. They were in this boat together, and if Lucas wanted to do this to help Hiraeth, Keith wouldn't stop him.
Avi pointed. "Then go look at the dumb fish."
Keith went, drawing a deep breath next to Hiraeth to inhale his wet-leaf smell and center himself a little. Hiraeth put a hand on his side lightly, giving it a little squeeze, and tilted his head. He didn't say anything, but his concern for Keith was clear.
A bit reassured, Keith shifted his gaze to the fishbowl. The polychromatic fish inside was waving his fins lightly, slowly drifting as he seemed to gaze back at Keith.
Keith let his eyes go unfocused, trying to sense something off the fish and, after a moment's hesitation—not entirely sure how protective the fish's partners were—he dipped a finger into the bowl, lightly touching that small back.
Sensation washed over him. He refused to let his consciousness sink into the fish's—he didn't know him, and playing around inside somebody's mindscape was dangerous to both of them if not necessary—but he let his mind touch a little. He felt a darkness there, centuries of history entwined in the curse, wound in and around the small form under his fingertip, wrapping up a sense of wry humor, betrayal, need, loneliness—
Keith drew a sharp breath. "He knew the guy who cursed him."
"Did he?" the Snakeskin Girl asked. Keith wasn't sure if this was new information to her, or if she were just curious about how much he knew.
"It feels that way. There's some kind of old grudge in this. If they didn't know each other I'd be really surprised."
"But can you find something that can undo it?" Avi asked impatiently.
The fish nommed Keith's fingertip lightly—a warning bite or a playful kiss, he wasn't sure which from the mixed feelings he'd seen there—but either way, he pulled his fingertip back quickly, flustered. "Maybe," he said. "I mean, Lucas is going to look for magical objects and I can try to feel out the ones he digs up to see if they seem like they'd… resonate with the curse in any way?"
"Good enough, I guess," Avi said. "Saves us having to try everything."
It would, sure. But thinking about everything that was on the shelves, let alone everything else stuffed into Hiraeth's back room, and the sheer mental pressure he felt when handling things like that, Keith suppressed a sigh.
It was going to be a long day.
chapter four
By mid-afternoon, Keith's migraine was really revving into full gear. He could no longer tell what things were giving off halos from spiritual energy and what was simply because of his throbbing headache.
Still, with the Snakeskin Girl and Avi handing him objects one after another, he didn't feel ready to stop yet. He wanted to make a good impression and, besides, their boyfriend still needed help.
There wasn't a lot of room in the back for people, and Hiraeth had figured it might take a while anyway, so he'd opened up the shop while the others searched. Keith missed his company while simultaneously feeling completely overwhelmed by the number of people here and their near-constant focus on him.
Fortunately, Avi and the Snakeskin Girl had begun to debate over adding a piece of jewelry they'd found into Fish's tank—less because they thought it'd break the curse and more because they thought he might enjoy it. She was saying something about enriching Fish's enclosure, and Avi was insisting it wouldn't be a problem for long enough that he'd need enrichment. Keith took advantage of the lull in their attention to wave Lucas closer.
Lucas drifted through the shelves to rejoin him. "Doing okay?" he asked softly.
"Headache," Keith mumbled back. "Can you go ask Hiraeth to bring me a glass of water?"
A cool, weightless hand passed over Keith's forehead, tender and soothing. "Sure thing. I'll be right back."
Keith resisted calling him back the moment he started to move away. Their tether, the spiritual bond that tied Lucas to Keith as the source of his haunt, didn't allow him to go far—usually only go a few rooms apart at best. The shop wasn't all that large, and Lucas could probably go hang out upstairs if he wanted to, so he had more than enough space to go talk to Hiraeth in the front room. If it wasn't for the headache, Keith wouldn't be thinking twice about that one additional strain and how it was almost too much.
The movement of Lucas leaving the room seemed to catch Avi's attention. He pointed out a section of glassware to the Snakeskin Girl—presumably because, being literal vessels themselves, any enchanted glassware might interact with whatever was going on with Fish—and then came over, crouching in front of Keith.
Keith tried to ignore the scrutiny, attempting to focus on the box of keys in front of him. He slowly dropped another two in the reject pile. Both were enchanted in some way, and maybe Hiraeth would be able to say how, but neither of them felt either enough like Fish's whole situation or enough unlike it for him to feel that there was any connection.
But Avi didn't move, and finally Keith had to look up. "Uh?"
The look on Avi's face was hard to read, too much of a mix of emotions for any one to seem to bubble fully to the surface. Keith was a little tempted to try to reach out with his empathic skills, but those were weak and hard to consciously control at the best of times, and with his head in the shape it was in right now, he'd probably pick up only the worst feelings and misread the situation even more.
After another long moment of just staring at him, Avi said, "You know you're temporary, right?"
"Uh." Keith turned a key over and over in his hands, trying to use the cold metal and uneven weight of it to keep himself centered over the sudden spike of anxiety. "Like, existentially?"
"That too. Definitely that too," Avi said. "But dad falls in love easily. I'm not saying he'll throw you over—he and my mom are still good friends. And maybe you’ll stay friends with him for the rest of your life. He's got a big loneliness in him that he keeps trying to fill, right? But you shouldn't be the one to do it. Even if he can fall in love with a human, because he's just like that, you should let him go. Let him get some space from you."
"Cool," Keith said. "That's a cool thing to say."
He bit down on his lower lip to stop himself from blurting out anything else, whether it was going to be further admonitions or straight up apologies. His heart and head were throbbing in time with his panic and hurt. He was staring at Avi now, and was slightly surprised to find Avi staring back at him with what seemed like shock.
Keith noticed dimly that Avi’s eyes looked brown from a distance, but were actually a deep dark pink, like cherries themselves.
"I didn't mean—" Avi seemed actually taken aback, expression almost injured, though it shuttered a moment later. "Whatever. I didn't expect you to get it. Guess you can be as careless with him as you want."
"What is your deal?" Keith began, his head feeling ready to explode, his jaw clenched. "I'm doing nothing but trying to help you right now—"
"Scia," the Snakeskin Girl interrupted them both—with part of Avi's familiar name?—putting an arm between them and glaring at Avi in warning. "Could you not?”
Avi took a step back from them both, nearly running into a shelf. "I know he's helping us, but if I'm going to warn him off, I'm not going to… to drain him dry of his use first!"
"Well, you should," she said, rolling her eyes. She gave Keith a sympathetic, too-wide smile. "No, seriously though, I don't mean to sound callous with that. I think you're fine. He's just overly worrying about his dad when he should be worrying about our Fish while letting his dad live his
own life, you know?"
Keith glanced away from them both. "I didn't… look, I'm with Hi—with him because we both want to be. We went through a lot of stuff together. He's… good to me and Lucas, and I think we can be good for each other."
"For now," Avi muttered ominously.
The Snakeskin Girl threw her hands up. "Go sit over there," she ordered Avi, pointing to the back of the room. "There's some tools there, and you're a tool, so you'll be a matched set.” At his sullen resistance, she added, a bit more gently: “Seriously, though, at least two of them feel off somehow, so please take a look."
Avi gave her a bit of a haughty glance, tossing his head—narrowly avoiding knocking some teacups off a shelf as his antlers grazed them—and stalked to the place she'd pointed out. It wasn't terribly far, given the small size of the back room, but it at least gave them the illusion of privacy since it was partially obscured by a set of shelves.
"Sorry about that," the Snakeskin Girl said, plopping down in front of Keith.
Suddenly longing to be anywhere but here, Keith just shook his head. He lowered his aching eyes to the key in his hand, decided the aura around it was just a symptom of an ocular migraine, and dropped it in the reject pile. "It's fine," he muttered.
"It's not fine," she said. She put a cool, dry hand over his, gently patting. "I bet you were worried about meeting us and now it's gone all to pot because Avi's got a daddy complex."
"I don't have a daddy complex!" Avi yelled from his corner.
"Complex feelings about his daddy's feelings, anyway," she said, undeterred. Avi's attitude didn't seem to even make her blink. Then again, Keith wasn't sure she could blink. "Just give him time, okay? You seem nice, and his dad likes you, so he'll come around."
Keith wasn't sure he could get more miserable, between the headache and the conversation. He shrugged and nodded.
The door from the front opened and closed, and Hiraeth poked his head uncertainly around the shelf between them and the door. "Uh, was someone yelling about a daddy complex…?"
If Wishes Were Fishes Page 3