by Petra J Knox
Pop threw his head back and laughed. “I see you’re still talking to that imaginary friend of yours.” He shook his head and wiped his mouth. “Been a while since I’d seen you this worked up, talking to things that aren’t fucking real.”
“Don’t listen to him, kid. Come on.” Crocket kept pushing, pulling at me, but I lurched forward.
“What are you talking about?” Baffled, I watched as Pop sighed and pulled something out of his drawer.
He held it up. A hand mirror.
“Take a look. What do you see?” Pop asked, a hint of humor in his tone.
Confused, I looked from him to the mirror he held, then back again.
“What kind of game is this?” I whispered. All the while the music box played.
“Kid, come on—” Crocket pulled at me, and I raised my arm, trying to buck him off.
I looked in the mirror. I saw myself, naked. The neck of a bottle was in my hand. My arm was raised. But there was nobody holding me. No one standing behind me. It was just… me.
“See? He’s not real, Pinn.” Pop put the mirror away and shut the music box. “Now, let’s talk—”
The bottle slipped from my hands, crashing to the floor. I stumbled back on weak legs. Pop’s voice echoed in my head as pictures and pieces shattered like glass around me. A woman. A boy. Taken. A boat. An island. Pain. Darkness. A cage. Trapped. Forced. Forgetting.
I walked backwards until my back hit the glass door of Figaro’s. I turned around and opened the door. The little bell above me played an eerie warning. The sun was rising, casting everything in orange flame. The air was cool upon my naked skin. I ran down the street, past the shimmering buildings that looked like they were on fire. Past Mrs. Baker’s. I ran to the City of Lights. I ran for miles, my lungs burning, my leg muscles screaming.
I ran until I was only velocity.
At Blue’s bungalow, I climbed the tree, stood on the wall, and jumped. My hands caught her window ledge, and I pulled my body up, swinging my legs over until I stood before her bed. There she sat, in her peach satin robe that was open at the waist. Her hair, no longer blue but a white-blonde, was cut short in sharp lines around her face.
I fell to my knees and stared up at her. “Blue?”
She smiled and touched my cheeks with her soft, small hands. “You made it.”
My eyebrows raised in question. “What happened?”
“Everything’s going to be okay, Pinn. I want you to do something for me, though, okay?” She looked into my eyes and I felt every ounce of love inside those blue orbs.
I nodded, lost in her gaze.
“Pinn, I want you to breathe. Just… breathe.”
Confused, I opened my mouth, but she shook her head.
“Breathe, Pinn. Breathe.”
“Okay.” I expanded my chest and took a breath. Pain.
“Again,” she said.
I took another, my lungs burning. Then I coughed so hard I saw black spots.
Blue smiled. “Good. Now keep breathing. Just… breathe.”
I loved her so much. I wanted to tell her that, but I was coughing so damn hard.
I focused on her smile, anchoring myself to her, until everything went black.
And for the first time in my life, I finally knew what true freedom felt like.
It was love.
“Now wake up, sweet man,” she whispered.
I did.
Act II
15
This Masquerade We Play
Faith
“He’s awake,” the suddenly faraway voice said again over the phone, this time more slowly. “Faith, are you there?”
I stopped in my tracks in the middle of the hallway, having run out of my bedroom to find my damn phone. I had left it in the kitchen before heading up to bed an hour ago. Toys, dolls, crayons, and coloring books were scattered along the floor. It felt like years since I’d cleaned the house.
“Sorry, Crocket. Yeah, I’m here… He’s really awake? Does he…” I took a deep breath, trying to still my rapidly beating heart. “Does he remember anything? Is he talking?”
What I couldn’t bring myself to ask was, Is he going to make it?
I bit my thumb, my nerves frayed, too afraid to feel even an ounce of hope.
He was awake!
“He’s awake for now, yes, but still asleep. Real sleep, not coma induced. We’re making sure he can manage to breathe on his own. But I’m going to be honest with you, sweetheart, this isn’t a ‘snap your fingers and he’s better’ scenario. The injuries to his head and—”
“I know, I know. Just because I’m not a doctor like you, doesn’t make me stupid, Crockett,” I snapped at him.
Jesus, Faith. Bitch much?
I rubbed my forehead. “Shit. I’m sorry, this is all still…”
“I know, little sis. And it’s fine. This is real heavy stuff. Hell, if you were calm, I’d be worried.”
My brother and I were super close, had been ever since I was born. We had the same dad but different moms—his mom had left our dad, and several years later, Dad had met my mom. After a year of marriage, I came along. Crocket’s mother pretty much disappeared off the face of the earth, leaving everyone who loved her in disarray. I was biased, though. If not for her leaving, I wouldn’t have been born.
After a few moments of silence, he asked, “How are you really?”
That was the thing. The million-dollar question.
I didn’t really know.
Over the past five months, I’d gone from the grief of losing a baby, losing my spot as head scriptwriter at Mesmer Productions in LA, losing myself in a divorce, and now this, Kage’s accident. Loss had become my middle name.
As I held the phone against my ear and tried to form a coherent answer, I stared at the photographs on the wall.
It was late, around midnight, and the hallway was dark but for the streetlights shining through the sheers that hung from the floor to ceiling windows on the opposite wall. The photos were in black frames that contrasted so beautifully with the dove-gray paint, creating that relaxed yet modern feel that I had tried to capture when Kage and I had first moved in three years ago.
My eyes immediately went to our wedding photo. Seeing it reminded me suddenly that our wedding anniversary was a week from now, something that had totally slipped my mind. It would be five years since that day I walked down the aisle.
Our divorce wasn’t anywhere near final, so I wasn’t sure what next week would even mean. Did anniversaries just hang there once a year and wait for someone to acknowledge them?
“I don’t know, Crocket,” I told my big brother. “I hurt. I’m tired. I miss him. I want him to wake up, get better, walk out of that hospital room and be healthy.” I sighed, fighting the tears that were wanting to be released. But I was sick to death of crying.
If I cried anymore I was going to drown.
My brother waited for me to speak again, knowing I had more to say. I stared at the photograph, my gaze tracing Kage’s beautiful face, those lips, those magnificent eyes that always reminded me of twilight time. He looked happy standing beside his bride, in his black tux and bowtie.
I took a deep breath. “Pearl is still at Mom and Dad’s. I was too tired to deal with a tantrum tonight,” I tell him with a laugh, “So I let her stay another night.”
I looked at myself in the picture. Light blonde hair, almost white, pulled up in a chignon with baby’s breath and bluebells threaded through it. My wedding gown had cost a freakin’ fortune, but it had been so worth it. Edwardian, satin and lace, snow white. It hugged my figure like a glove in all the right places and flowed like a winter’s lake to the carpet of flowers at my feet.
“Has she stopped asking about Kage?” he asked softly.
I swallowed the lump down. “Yeah. Maybe once or twice a week now. Mostly before bath time.”
Kage was the one who always started Pearl’s bath. She’d squeal each time and run straight to the bathroom, her little three-year-old
hands and feet in constant motion. He’d wash her hair, then I’d come in and take over while Kage went back to his work room, where he’d work for another hour or two until it was story-time for Pearl.
But that was before. Before the mess, before the loss and tears and fights. Before, when days and nights were just so damn effortless and the possibilities of forever were as easy to imagine as the next breath.
“So…” I said, clearing my throat. “I need to change and then I’ll be up there. When’s your shift ending?”
“I have another hour, actually, but I’ll stay around for a bit, either way.”
“Okay. I’ll see you soon.”
“Alright, Fai—”
“Wait. Crocket?”
“Yeah?”
“He’s awake.”
He laughed. It sounded tired, but I heard the joy in it anyway. “Let’s just hope he stays that way. See you in a bit, Faith.”
“Okay. Bye.” I ended the call and put the phone in the pocket of my robe, my eyes still on the photo of me and Kage.
I still loved him. So damn much.
I had to believe he’d make it through this. With his memory intact, with full operation of his arms and legs. Breathing on his own. A full recovery. I had to believe it. Because if I didn’t, I didn’t think I’d ever be able to breathe right ever again.
Not without him.
I changed into a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and my tennis shoes. Then I remembered how freakin’ cold the hospital was, so I ran downstairs to the hall closet. My other jacket was at Mom’s. I had run right into some asshole on the way to the elevator earlier yesterday, leaving the hospital cafeteria with a massive to-go cup of coffee in my hand, my work bag in my other hand. So, of course, I spilled coffee all over myself when a man, out of nowhere, came barreling into me. The guy hadn’t even apologized.
I grabbed a pale-blue sweater off a hanger, quickly put it on, and shut the closet door. As I passed by Kage’s work room, I heard music, a light tinkering sound. The door was opened slightly, and I knew exactly who the culprit was.
Debating what to do, I finally decided to just take a deep breath and head inside to look for Geppetto.
I had been avoiding the room for weeks. In fact, the only time I’d been in it since the accident was when Kage had been here to pick up Pearl that last time. He had come in here to grab one of his many sketches. When Pearl had started getting antsy, and I had checked to see what was taking him so long.
The memory seems like a thousand years ago.
I had forgotten that Geppetto knew how to work these door handles, so I hadn’t remembered to lock it.
I flicked the switch on the wall, filling the room with soft, overhead lighting. The black furball was washing himself on top of the model table, his leg raised in the air and over his head. He looked like a black, fluffy turkey.
“Geppetto, you furry butt, you’re not supposed to be in here.” I tried to pretend I was in any other room. Tired not to look too closely at the things around me that showed how brilliant my husband was. How every item in this huge room was born from Kage’s beautiful mind.
I could smell him in here. Practically feel his eyes on me as I walked over to the middle of the big table to grab the damn cat. His scent—books, ink, acrylic paint, charcoal, and linseed oil—overwhelmed me for a moment and I almost staggered.
Just grab the cat and leave the room, Faith.
Geppetto stopped licking when he realized he was about to be captured. His tongue was sticking out, frozen in mid-lick. I looked at what he was lying on.
The little street that housed The Rabbit Hole and the Crystal Garden had been taken over by a giant cat that made me think of those old monster movies, where the giant creature stomped through the streets, destroying everything in its path.
I grabbed him, he complained with a meow, and I heard the music again. He had been covering the speaker that was hidden inside the table.
“Welcome to The City of Lights, welcome!” it sang, then the tinkling of a carnival song began again in another round.
After kissing him soundly on the neck, I walked back to the hallway and put Geppetto down, then closed the door on him, leaving me still in Kage’s work room.
I couldn’t remember where the controls to the model were, but I tried to find them anyway. I remembered Kage had them placed strategically in some kind of order around the sides. But the expanse of the whole model was immense—yards and yards of streets, miniatures trees, hotels and shops that made up Kage’s fictitious city.
I pressed various buttons on and off as I made a circuit around the display. Lights, songs, even steam from tiny grates on little cobblestone paths came to life as I looked in vain for that one welcoming track that Geppetto had triggered.
Finally, my finger found the right one, and the room went silent.
My gaze fell on a beautiful three-story carousel, its cream-colored surface gleaming with gilded streamers and glittering blue stars. I’d never seen it before. I leaned forward to get a better look. Each painted pony had saddles and bridles of rhinestones. The poles were intertwined strands of copper, etched with a tool to make them glitter. On the enamel canopy, I saw writing in light-blue, fancy script. Beautiful’s Carousel of Blue Stars.
I covered my mouth to hold back the sound of terrible pain that threatened to render me into pieces, tears falling down my eyes. It had finally hit me, catching up to me. Now, of all times. Here in this room that had become the source of so much emotion—his brilliance and outlet, my appreciation and inspiration, but ultimately the wedge that came between us.
The miscarriage was the beginning, the cause of that initial crack. And as each day passed where one of us tried to be stronger for the other and hold on to our separate pain and fear, instead of coming together, the poison had found a home, seeping through that crack and infecting everything good and real and true about us. A third party with one mission—to destroy what we had with one another.
So Kage had lost himself in his City, choosing denial, and I had wanted to end our marriage, choosing to run. Neither one of us willing to face our pain together head-on. We had cursed ourselves.
With my hand gripping the table for stability, I saw the folly of every single thing that had led me to this moment. I saw the man I loved more than life itself, on his knees, trying to survive. I saw myself, scared and alone, waiting for him, when all along he’d been right there in front of me.
I pushed myself away from the City of Lights and ran out of the room.
I grabbed my purse, my keys, and locked the door, all the while repeating over and over again in my mind those two precious words.
He’s awake.
16
Upon a Whisper
The halls were dim and quiet as I walked down to where the ICU waiting room was. I was still a wreck but had pulled myself together by the time I’d parked in the hospital’s garage. I had my overnight bag with me this time, hoping I’d be able to make some use of it now that there was a chance that Kage would be sent to a regular room. It had been waiting in the trunk of my car now for weeks.
There was no doubt that I’d not be spending the night with him from here until he was better. Whether or not things would return to where we’d left off the day before the accident, I couldn’t say, but right now I was still his wife and he was still my husband.
Mine.
I loved him. I had made a promise to him. And until he said otherwise, this was the course I was going to stay on.
Just coming to that determination made the weeks of torment ease a little inside my chest. I stood up straighter, my steps more certain, and anticipation of seeing him awake, any minute now, had me fully alert and onboard to tackle anything the world could throw at me.
For some strange reason, one that made absolutely no sense whatsoever, his waking up told me that he was trying. Somewhere inside him, some cell, something in his DNA, whatever the hell it was, was telling him that he still had something to live for. To f
ight for. To breathe for.
Whether it was for Pearl or me or his creations, the only thing that mattered was that he wasn’t going to give up.
I owed it to us as a family to not give up either.
I opened the door to the ICU’s family room and saw Crocket sitting in the back next to the side table with a lamp, reading a book. He was in his scrubs, white jacket on, inky black hair immaculately finger-combed in waves. My brother was a looker and he knew it, too.
When he heard me enter, he put down the book, then walked over, taking my bag and purse from me and setting them down on the floor. He opened his arms and I fell into them, letting them envelop me in a big hug.
“Hey, you.” He pulled away and looked down at me, then kissed me on the head.
“Hey.”
“You look much better than you did two nights ago when I last saw you.” He looked me over, assessing me in that way doctors do. “You ready?”
I took a deep breath and let it out. “Absolutely.”
He smiled. “Need me to go with you?”
“No, I’ll be okay. When will they have him in a regular room?”
He put his hand in his jacket pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. “Here’s his room number. They’ll be moving him in a few hours. I already called over there and told them you’d be coming down soon. I’ll take your bag down, but you take the purse.” He winked.
I nodded absently, rubbing my hands together. Even with the sweater on, I was freezing. “Thanks, Crock.”
“You’re welcome. Alright, go on and see him, kiddo. I’m going to crash for a few in his new room.”
I laughed at that as he grabbed my stuff and opened the door back out into the hall. The poor man never got any sleep. “See you in a bit, then.”
He kissed my head again, handed me my purse, and walked down to the elevators.
I had just been here in this exact same spot, standing at the ICU doors, only hours ago. There had been no change in Kage’s condition then. Just how it had been for the past few weeks. Days that bled into one. At first, I had spent my visits in pure terror and worry over him. Then talking to him. Telling him stories. Crying, praying. Eventually singing to him. But he wouldn’t wake up.