Fearful Symmetry

by Francis Gideon

  “I’ve been here for only a day,” he said again. His mother squeezed his hand and nodded. “I know it’s hard to believe. You slept a lot. I bet you had crazy dreams.”

  Dryden looked down at the bed. Was that it—all a crazy dream? No, he didn’t want to believe that. He couldn’t allow his story to end there—with him being a foolish boy who walked out of his bed in the middle of the night because he was angry that the stories his mother told him hadn’t been real. They had been real, but with a different meaning. His mother had been right about the beast but wrong about the way balance worked. Emmons showed me… but now it appeared to be all gone. There has to be something left, Dryden thought. Something to prove what he had been through.

  “I didn’t have anything with me?” he asked. “Anything at all?”

  “No,” his mother said. She narrowed her eyes. “Were you supposed to? Did Claudius take anything? I swear. He’s a sweet boy, but he doesn’t know the meaning of no sometimes….”

  Dryden held up a hand to touch his mother before she got carried away. He saw no bracelet that he had made on his wrist. Because I’ve given it to Emmons, he reminded himself. Because he has it, and he is waiting for me. Dryden took comfort in that absence. Even if it had been Claudius who had stolen his bracelet, Dryden didn’t care anymore. Sometimes it was easier to believe something, in spite of what all evidence was telling you. Believe it because you felt it to be true.

  “No,” Dryden finally stated. “I had nothing with me when I went into the woods.”

  His mother nodded, sitting back down into her chair. “You’re a reckless child sometimes.”

  “I’m not a child anymore, Mother.”

  “I suppose so. Which makes your reckless behavior even more depressing, since you’re an adult now. You have to start taking care of me in my old age.”

  Dryden smiled weakly. He wanted to tell her everything in that moment. The hunter who had shot the fox, the riddles and the tea, the beetle and butterfly trapped inside a labyrinth. He may skip over the juicy bits and abbreviate some of the conversation, make himself sound better (by not falling asleep on the roof), but Dryden knew he would always end the story in another way. Emmons would get out in his version, and they would be here, in this bed together, trying to figure out how their new life could work.

  “Are you all right, honey?”

  Dryden laughed weakly. “I’m fine. Just thinking.”

  She eyed him again. He wanted to tell her everything—but he also knew how she would see his story. Oh, honey. You’re telling me a fairy tale! Go back to bed and dream up another for us to talk about later on. It would be nothing but a lesson in humility, in fearful symmetry, when Dryden knew real life was nothing like that at all.

  “I’m fine. Really,” Dryden insisted again. “I think I just want to rest some more.”

  “Then we’ll talk?”

  “Sure. Then we’ll talk.”

  DAYS PASSED in quick succession. Without the small cabin and the pressure of riddles, the world seemed so big to Dryden. At first, he spent most nights in his bedroom going over the story in his mind to make sure he wouldn’t forget. He considered writing it down, but he worried that writing would only allow him to forget easily. If he kept it inside his head like a secret, maybe the fantasy would last a little longer. There was also no risk of his mother finding the story, either.

  Most of his wounds healed quickly. As the bandages came off, Dryden began to recognize the marks on his body. Not from arrows or gashes on rocks, but small cuts from falling into brambles. The biggest wound had been on his arm, but that—like all the others—was superficial. And definitely not made by an arrowhead.

  The only wound that stayed the same from Dryden’s dreams to reality was the one on his face. The small scar came down below his nose, under the small ridges and then up around one nostril. It was misshapen and ugly, and his mother told him so often.

  “It’s so sad. Out of all the places to hurt yourself, you had to fall on your face, didn’t you?”

  “I like it,” he told her. He never said why, but he figured she could fill in the blanks with her own version of his story. Now that his pretty face was marked, no one could take it away; that would always be his mother’s version of the story. Dryden loved the mark with all his heart because it meant his dreams were real—and that he, like Emmons, shared a similar mark on their faces. At times, Dryden wondered if Emmons was only his reflection in the mirror. A different version of himself, maybe, one with dark curly hair and a thicker body, instead of his pale hair and a skinny frame. The nights that Dryden did sleep all the way through until dawn, he would dream of Emmons. And he knew Emmons wasn’t just a shadow of his former self. Emmons was his own person, with desire and a name.

  And one day, Dryden thought, I will find him. Or else he really will be just a dream.

  WHEN DRYDEN could no longer hide in his room, his mother began sending him on errands. He had to help with her jewelry, but he also had to be the one to sell it.

  “My legs aren’t want they used to be,” she said, gripping her knees. “But you’re young and apparently like wandering. Go and sell these treasures, then buy a little something nice for us. We need life in the place. Some beauty.”

  Dryden nodded but didn’t respond. As he held the bracelets and necklaces in the satchel by his side, he wondered if he could remake them all so they could be perfect. If someone was going to try and buy from them, Dryden now knew there was no harm in offering them the best.

  When Dryden arrived at the marketplace, the smells brought him back to a few days earlier when he had learned the truth about how the world worked. Smells always brought back memories; he knew this for a fact. But he didn’t try to hide from them. Instead, he went up to each vendor who had been so kind and asked if there was a special kind of jewel they had been longing to have made.

  “Really?” Malachi asked. “Any kind at all?”

  “I’ll see what I can find,” Dryden said. “I will do my best. But give me colors. I know I can locate those.”

  Malachi touched his small goatee. He listed off a few of his wife’s favorite colors, then asked if he could have something for his daughters made too.

  “Of course.”

  “And what would I owe you for all of this? Taking requests?”

  “Nothing. I like to make pieces that help people. That impress them.” Dryden folded away the small ledger book he now carried with himself once Malachi’s request was transcribed.

  Malachi furrowed his eyebrows. “Nothing? In exchange for a favor? Surely your mother hasn’t allowed this.”

  Dryden shrugged with a pleased look on his face, which made Malachi laugh. “Perhaps not. But I’m the man of the house. And I say it’s about time to celebrate with new pieces—and new requests.”

  “You’re an odd business partner.”

  Dryden gave a slight bow. “I do what I can.”

  “Well, we will pay you the normal rate. That’s only fair. But I do appreciate the thought that goes into asking for patterns. I love your mother’s designs, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “But… it’s nice.”

  Dryden gave Malachi another nod before leaving, only to have Malachi slip him a couple extra pounds of what he had first come to buy at the marketplace. Dryden didn’t argue, though more pork shanks had never been Dryden’s ulterior motive when asking for personalized orders. He wanted to know, for his own curiosity, what the people around him liked.

  Dryden moved on and asked more people and got much the same response. How nice! Very sweet. Not right now, but I was thinking something blue. Dryden wrote each preference down, all labelled with the person’s name, their colors, and what they wanted. Dryden soon had his book filled with orders and his satchel filled with extra benefits.

  When he reached the herb table, the man narrowed his eyes at Dryden.

  “I want nothing of this new venture,” he stated with folded arms.

  Dryden pau
sed, then nodded. He tucked away his book and then asked for his mother’s order. He paid the man, then began to walk away.

  “That’s it?” he heard him call back. “No trying to convince me?”

  “I see no need.”

  “Hmm. You’re a very strange businessman.”

  “So I’ve heard today.”

  The herb vendor pinched his lips together, then smiled. “Well, then. You’ve convinced me. I would like a white jewel. I don’t care what kind. And it doesn’t have to be hemp—actually, can it be wire?”

  “Of course it can be.”

  “And you’re asking for nothing in return?”

  “I’m asking what you want,” Dryden said. He wrote down the man’s order, and then waited for anything else.

  “I owe you nothing at all?”

  Dryden shook his head. The man paused, then looked down. Dryden soon realized the man had nothing to offer. His herb shop was the only business he had, and not many people came by. Dryden was sure it was only his mother who was the man’s regular customer, and that was probably more because she wanted to sell him jewelry and not because she was particularly fond of herbs. The man’s hands were dirty and his clothes’ edges frayed from overuse. Dryden could sense his turmoil about accepting a gift that may or may not come with unwanted side effects.

  “Hey,” Dryden said. “Do not worry, all right? Sometimes we all need help.”

  The herb man nodded. “Thank you. I suppose we do.”

  DRYDEN WAS almost out of the marketplace when someone called out his name.

  “Dryden! Dryden, wait!”

  He turned to see a young girl, maybe about fifteen. One of the twins from the neighborhood, he thought. She looked vaguely familiar in the way all people—especially twins—from around the area did. But her eyes. There was something extra special about her eyes.

  Dryden shook the only thought away that came to him. Emmons. The girl’s blue eyes were the exact shade of Emmons’s. But every person Dryden now saw when he stepped outside his door reminded him of Emmons. The herb man’s stature and narrowed face; Malachi’s curly hair. Everyone Dryden knew was a piece of Emmons, here and there. Even his name was something that had only pieces—lemons, like the lemons from the tree his father had built using nothing but stones. Emmons, Dryden had come to accept, was a fantasy he had made up. A needed and necessary one, one he would probably stay in love with the rest of his life, but only that. A fantasy.

  But then this girl. Her eyes. That was the only part of Emmons that had not been replicated in the other people Dryden passed by. Emmons’s eyes were always his, always so clear and blue.

  “Hi,” Dryden said, realizing he had been staring at the girl for some time. “I’m sorry. I don’t think we’ve met before? Or if we have, it was when I was quite young.”

  Dryden stuck out his hand and stated his name. “Dryden Morris… the Third.”

  She shook his hand, chilled and familiar. “Nice to properly meet you, Dryden Morris…the Third.”

  She winked at him as she mimicked his speech patterns. He became flustered and turned down to his ledger book. “Right. So. What would you like me to make you? Is that why you’re here?”

  “Yes.” She waited to speak until Dryden had his pen ready. “I was hoping I could get something made into a sacred heart.”

  Dryden paused. “What?”

  “A sacred heart,” she stated. “It’s the kind of heart that used to appear in religious art. At the center of Jesus’s chest. Basically, a red stone that looks like a heart with flames around it. Maybe you could use copper?”

  Dryden swallowed hard. “Why do you want this?”

  “I used to have one, but I lost it.”

  “How did you lose it?”

  “It’s a long story,” she said, smile lingering. “And I don’t think I can tell it here.”

  Dryden didn’t like the hope that filtered through his body then. It was cruel—in the very way hope had been cruel before the woods. No, he thought suddenly. Hope was never cruel. It was needed, necessary. And you should not have given up on your dream so quickly, Dryden chastised himself. You shouldn’t ever give up on dreams.

  The girl reached forward and touched the mark on his face, running her fingers along the scar. “I’m sorry he did this,” she murmured.

  “I…. How did you…?”

  “Shh,” she said, pushing her finger against his lips. She didn’t say anything for a long time. “Why are you so sad?”

  “What?”

  “Why are you so sad, when you’re finally at home again?”

  Dryden wanted to have the whole story come out of him. He needed someone else to believe it—even if he was sure now more than ever in this moment that this was Emmons in front of him.

  “Because someone helped me, and I don’t have him. As far as I know, I’m not really home until I have him.”

  “You’ll be home soon, then. I was never that far.”

  For a moment, he heard Emmons’s voice over the girl’s. He had no idea why Emmons was like this—why he had shifted into her body. Another curse? Another trick? Maybe his shifter abilities lingered, but he had to disguise himself in some form or the other.

  “Emmons, what’s going on? I don’t understand.”

  “Shh.” She pressed her finger against his lips again. “Not here, not now. But I needed to see if you were all right.”

  “I am. Always have been.”

  “Always?”

  “Always.”

  The girl smiled. Her blue eyes shimmered. She leaned in close and whispered into his ear. “At midnight, meet me by the willow tree at the foot of the forest, just before the woods take over. Remember—don’t go inside the woods. Wait for me before that risk.”

  “I will. Of course I will….” Dryden was about to thank her once again, before she ran away and disappeared into the crowd. He held open his ledger book and glanced down. All that was left was the request for a sacred heart—no name, nothing else. He wrote “silly girl” in the entry and hoped it was enough.

  Chapter Thirteen

  DRYDEN COULD barely form coherent thoughts as he headed out past midnight. His feet guided him, taking him down the pathway where he had walked in his mind so often he knew it better than his own body. As he approached the willow tree, he scanned the area. He saw no fox, no small girl, and nothing out of the ordinary. The moon hung low in the sky, but it was now a sliver of what it had been. Time was passing, things were changing, and even spring could not last forever.

  Dryden leaned against the tree. He waited and waited, nearly giving up before he saw the common color of a fox’s tail. It waltzed by in the tall grass, off the path, and then sprung in front of him.

  “Emmons?” Dryden called. His heart beat wildly. He couldn’t contain his excitement, his worry, or need. He bent down to stare the fox in its eyes and saw the blue shimmering ones staring back. “Emmons. You silly fox.”

  Emmons shook out of the fox’s body easily. The fur morphed into bare skin, and Emmons emerged naked and unafraid.

  “Dryden….” Emmons walked toward him and threw his arms around him. They hugged longer than Dryden ever thought possible. Each time Emmons said his name over and over, it was like waking up from the same dream but finding out it had all been real.

  “Emmons,” Dryden finally said back. His voice was shaky, and his eyes were full of happy tears. “I’ve missed you so much.”

  When they pulled away from the hug, Emmons ran his fingers down Dryden’s chin. He touched the scar, lingering over it, before his lips met Dryden’s in a kiss. Dryden opened his mouth right away, needing to taste Emmons after so long. His hands went up and down his back, over his ass, almost forgetting that he was naked.

  “You fool,” Dryden said, pulling away with a smile on his lips. “You must be freezing.”

  “I’m getting used to it. Why wouldn’t I want to walk around naked, though, especially when I can as a free man?”

  “Free?” Dryden
asked. It should have been an obvious statement; they were both clearly past the ring of daisies in the woods. Dryden scanned Emmons’s body up and down, lingered a little bit too long on his crotch, before meeting his eyes again. “What do you mean free?”

  “I can change at will now. I don’t always have to be named to do so. I just… change. I think long and hard and….” Emmons suddenly dropped away and became the fox again. He jumped around at Dryden’s feet, then morphed back into his human body. “See?”

  “I do!” Dryden cried out, his eyes lingering on the small shade of pubic hair that met with Emmons’s chest hair. Emmons followed Dryden’s glance and laughed.

  “Yes, I’m still naked when I transform. Obviously. I haven’t quite figured out how I can morph into animals and get the whole clothing thing right. People, though, that’s a little different. Easier, really.”

  “Like that little girl,” Dryden said, shoving Emmons playfully. “I don’t know what you were doing there.”

  “No one ever suspects a little girl,” Emmons teased. His face grew serious as he squeezed Dryden’s fingers in his own. “And I needed to see if you were okay before I could do anything else.”

  “I am… I was. But you.” Dryden moved his hands over Emmons’s arms. He let out an exasperated cry at Emmons’s chilled skin and then took his jacket off for him. “Cover up, will you?”

  “If you wish.”

  As Emmons tied the jacket around his waist, covering up what was most important, he continued to stare at Dryden. Dryden grinned back, biting his lip.