by Amanda Jay
"I was young, but even I knew that he would never go through with it. Even though they took my mother. We are taught, from a young age, that a single life, no matter how dear to us, is not as important as the lives of many. That is what your people will never understand about us. It's why I'm here today. It's why my father never killed those children."
"Then who did?" Kaelyn asked but Ezra wished she didn't. He was in the stream again, reaching for Rosie's pigtail but unable to grasp it in his muddy fingers, his lungs aching, bursting for air.
"The explosion was planted by the King himself. My father was taken from our home, drugged, and left near the wreckage. Plans of the attack were planted in our house. I was hiding but I saw. I saw everything."
FELIX
Felix had always believed in monsters. It was something that Ioana, the housekeeper, had told him once, when he wouldn’t sit still for his lessons. Felix couldn’t help it-- the discipline one needed to practice arithmetic was something that Felix simply did not possess. He far preferred his books and writing and poetry instead.
But Ioana was not very sympathetic. It was understandable, Felix always thought in hindsight. After all, no one, not even the housekeeper was exempt from Ezra’s stern rules and occasional bouts of anger.
"You had better behave yourself, young man," she had said, her voice rigid and her double chin quivering. Although to call it a double chin struck Felix as being rather gentle, as he could count far more than just two soft rolls of fat on the older woman’s neck. They always shook gently as she spoke, like a mound of light pink pudding, grotesque, but fascinating. Felix always had a harder time focusing when Ioana was around. His attention was dragged back to reality, however, by what she said next.
"Unless you concentrate and study hard, the Shadow Man will come for you." Her voice was hushed, her eyes wide. She played her role well.
Felix had tried to remain nonchalant. He wasn't too old to believe in monsters, but he was old enough to know that cowardice, no matter how warranted, should never be displayed.
So he forced his voice to remain neutral as he asked, "the Shadow Man? Who’s that?"
Felix had already known that he wouldn’t like the answer.
"Aye," Ioana continued, her eyes shining now that she finally had his attention. "The Shadow Man hides under the beds of naughty little children. Especially those who don't concentrate on their lessons. If you’ve been a bad little boy, he'll grab you by the ankles and take you with him to the Shadow World, he will. Aye, no one ever escapes the Shadow World."
Her face was close to Felix’s by now. Felix gulped softly, hoping she wasn’t able to hear his heart hammering away inside his chest.
"You’re lying," he insisted even though his voice shook. He buried his head back into his algebra and buried the shadow man at the back of his mind. But that hadn’t stopped him from taking a running leap the next time he had to get into bed. He had carefully tucked the covers over his feet. No Shadow Man was going to get a hold of his ankles if he could help it.
The rest of the night was not so easy. Every shadow cast on his wall was the monster reaching for him. Every sound was a warning that Felix would soon be on his way to the Shadow World. It was the longest night of his life. Only when the sun was about to rise did he finally drifted off into a restless, nightmare riddled sleep.
Of course, that was when he was a child. It wasn't the nights that scared him anymore. Not as much as the mornings did. Felix was sound asleep when he was woken by loud shouting and a crash. He kept his eyes closed for a few minutes, hoping, praying that it would stop. It never did. His heart sank. For Felix, there was possibly no worse feeling in the world than waking up to one of his parents’ arguments. It was the perfect way to ruin a brand new day.
He only closed his eyes for a few minutes though. He tiptoed out of his room and down the corridor to his father’s office. He knew from experience that this was where most of the fighting happened.
Most children would stay away from their arguing parents, would have stayed in bed with a pillow over their heads, waiting for the shouting to die down. Not Felix. He always lurked in the corridor, listening to what happened. He couldn’t help himself. It was always better to know what was going on, no matter how painful, than to be left alone in the dark, both hoping and not hoping that this argument would be the last.
"I can't believe you would see her! After all these years haven't you learned?" his mother was sobbing.
"You have no idea what's going on Kaelyn. It's not what you think. Twin Faced God be damned, I'm fed up of having to justify every single..." His father's voice was different when they fought. It was the only time he seemed to have some sort of life in him.
"You took our son once, and look what happened! You destroyed us!"
"It wasn’t your son, Kaelyn." His voice was low and dangerous.
"Yes it was. What you did… Don’t you understand? What you did to her was as good as doing it to me. All your calculations and you couldn’t even figure that out. You did this to me. Do you hear me? It was you."
"I've done a lot of wrong, Kaelyn, but don't you ever dare say I did anything to you. You did all this to yourself. You think I like living like this? With you drowning yourself in wine and wallowing in self-pity? I'm trying to fix this! You have to get out of my hair so that I can fix this!"
"You can't fix anything, you worthless excuse of a man. If only you hadn't been such a coward in the first place..."
Felix edged in closer, careful not be seen. The door to the office was left ajar, and he tried to peer around it. There had been a pause in the yelling, a slight break that had led him to believe that maybe they had stopped for now. Called a time-out, at least for the moment.
Then, CRASH! Felix ducked just in time. A clutter of scientific instruments, books, pens and Bearoux knows what else came cascading out the open door. Some slid over the floor, some flew out and slammed against the opposite wall. Felix saw it all as if in slow motion-- a wave, gently crashing against the shore.
Someone must have flung over a table, he thought to himself. He could just picture it, his father tearing out his hair, red-faced with rage. His mother, wide eyed, afraid of him but resenting him enough to muster all her strength in order to fight back.
Felix sighed. This was his life for as far back as he could remember it. He would have given anything to make it stop, he thought back, guiltily. Slowly, he had unfrozen himself. Careful not to step on any shards of glass, he crept back up the corridor and snuck back into his bed. No running leaps anymore. No more Shadow Men. He buried himself deep within the covers, trying to calm himself, telling himself that it will be okay. He lay in bed, thinking of what Ioana had once said. Yes, she was right. Monsters did truly exist. They just didn’t live under his bed.
EZRA
Kaelyn was worryingly quiet the whole walk back to her flat and Ezra would usually have been concerned, except that he was struggling to make sense of the Chyranian's story himself.
After the initial shock wore off, Xuntak had gone into detail about the facts he knew to be true-- that yes, even though he himself had questioned it over and over, it was definitely the King who came that night. He had seen him with his own eyes. It was definitely not anyone else. That the announcement the King made when they publicly executed both his parents was false. That the people were willing to believe it because of the deep-rooted hate against the Chyranians. That there was no proof. No proof that could ever prove that his father was innocent, except Xuntak's word. And he was lucky to have his word. He was lucky to have anything at all, especially his life. After his father was taken he hid himself in a box in his closet. Xuntak had stayed, shivering in fear, in that box for three days, and finally, fearing for his life, emerged and managed to stow away on a ship that took him back to his home in the Savage Isles.
"Although it was never home to me," he had said, the first real sadness showing through on his face. "I had never known it, except in stories. My people weren't my people. They
didn't want me. It was just the same as being back in Mliss. And it only got worse when everyone else started arriving. Ship loads of injured, defeated Chyranians, once again forced to live outside the main village. Called traitors for abandoning our island in the first place."
By the time Hans had finally come back and grunted that they should leave, Ezra's head was swimming. He never never felt so absolutely disgusted in his whole life. Given the company he kept, it was understood that Bearoux the Black was the best of leaders. But to think that their King, their very own leader who Ezra had always been taught to follow, was capable of such atrocities, well, it was almost too much for Ezra's farm-boy mind to handle.
"I have to move Xuntak and soon." Onyx had said while they were making their way back home. "I don't think it's safe to keep him there much longer."
"Where would you move him to?" Ezra asked.
"I have an idea. Let's see if it works out. I'll let you know if I need your help."
"Onyx, what are we going to do about this? About him? If what he is saying is true…”
"Of course it's true," Onyx interrupted, firmly. "The Chyranians, they aren't like us. They don't lie. Not if their life depended on it. Try it the next time. It's a bit overwhelming at first, actually."
Ezra did not reply. There was a part of him that almost wanted to shut down from the burden of this new information. But there was a part of him that did want to know, just the same. The part that couldn't turn a blind eye when he knew something wasn't right.
"You have a plan though? We are going to help him?"
Onyx narrowed her eyes slightly.
"I wouldn't have brought him here without a plan, Ezra. I'm just smoothing over a few details, but let's meet and discuss everything soon."
Kaelyn walked on ahead while Ezra and Onyx spoke, her lips pursed in the way Ezra could tell she was upset. She didn't slow down, not even when Onyx parted ways with them, until she reached home, and sat down on the small chaise without taking her coat off.
"Sweetheart, are you okay?" Ezra ventured, finally.
She sat still, not meeting his eyes.
"Sweetheart?"
"Oh, don't you sweetheart me! Not after tonight. Absolutely no regard! You both have lost your minds!" she finally exploded.
"I don't understand," he attempted cautiously. "I thought you wanted to know what Onyx was talking about?"
"Oh Onyx! You meet her just once and suddenly everything she says is like the doctrine to you, isn't it? I should have known better..."
She stood up then and started storming around the flat noisily, banging open cabinets in the kitchen, and dumping dishes in the sink.
Ezra was thoroughly confused.
He went over to her while she stood at the sink and wrapped his arms around her.
"I'm sorry," he said softly, even though he wasn't entirely sure what he was apologising for. "I wasn't mindlessly following what she said. I just didn't know what tonight was about and it all caught me off guard, okay?"
She turned around and looked up at him, her face still hard.
"Ezra, the penalty for bringing a Chyranian in to Mliss is death. What if we were to get caught? She's crazy for doing this."
"She may be crazy all right. But what else was she to do? How could anyone know what she knows and not do something about it?"
"So you think I'm a coward, is that it? I'm a coward for wanting to not be executed?" The edge was back in her voice.
"I never said that! Look, I'm just saying, that story was the most unbelievable thing I've ever heard. And Xuntak? Could you ever imagine what he must have gone through? To be hidden in a box for three days?" The cupboard at the farm sprang back into his mind suddenly and he shivered.
Kaelyn noticed. She softened a little as she took his hand and led him back to the chaise.
"It's not right, Kay," he tried again, forcing his voice to remain calm. "What happened to him. What happened to all of them. How can we know something like this and not do anything about it? That would make us monsters as well, wouldn't it? I mean, I know it's dangerous but I'm not wrong, am I?"
"You're not wrong. You're not. Oh Twin Gods be damned, when did you become so noble?"
"I mean, isn't that what you keep fighting for? All those protests and things? If I were to be completely honest, I thought you would have been the first person to want to do something about this."
Kaelyn smiled a little, averting her eyes to the floor.
"It is, I suppose. You're right. I just... I couldn't bear it, you know?" she almost whispered. "If something were to happen to you. That was all that was going through my mind. What if we got caught and they took you away from me?"
"No one will ever take me away from you!" Even Ezra was surprised by the conviction in his voice. But the moment he spoke those words, he knew them to be true. He had spent his whole life searching for what she could give him in a single smile. He would be crazy to even think about letting that go.
But at the same time, he knew he had to do what was right. How else could he be worthy of someone like her?
And as he looked into her eyes, he knew she understood that too.
"Just promise me that you will be safe. And we won't let this come between us?"
Ezra took her face in his hands and kissed her deeply.
"I promise," he said, pulling away slightly. "I promise I will be safe, and that I'll keep us safe. I need you to promise me something also?"
Kaelyn looked up at him expectantly.
"Promise me that you'll always love me. That you will never leave me?"
She smiled at that.
"Of course, silly."
"Will you marry me then?" The words escaped Ezra's lips before he even thought about it. But they were out now and he didn't want to take them back.
Kaelyn's smile didn't leave her face.
"Of course," she said, without missing a beat.
"Really?" Ezra wasn't expecting her to answer so easily.
She raised her eyebrows at that.
"You didn't want me to agree?"
"No, no, of course I wanted you to! I'm just... Oh my!" His heart was racing now as he pulled her close to him and kissed her again, his hands tangling in her hair. She just giggled and kissed him back, but as he held her, he could feel her heart pounding just as fast as his.
FELIX
His whole life, Felix had never had a friend. He had company-- between Ioana the housekeeper, and Bayou the gardener with the cleft palate, there was always someone to talk to whenever Kaelyn withdrew into herself. But he never had anyone that he could play with, or go to the market with, or have an adventure with like the children in his books always seemed to.
He had always assumed that the children in books were simply works of fiction and that his solitary life was quite normal. After all, his parents never seemed to have friends either. Perhaps this was the way that things were meant to be?
But on the extremely rare occasion that their doorbell did ring, Felix's heart would beat just a little faster and he would rush over to the small landing that overlooked the front hallway and peer over. Who knew when some sort of adventure would come knocking on his door?
It was always a fishmonger, or a door-to-door salesman, or someone as equally mundane. So the one time it wasn't etched itself very clearly in to Felix's memory.
She looked almost ethereal. Her skin was almost translucent and her silky black hair slid like liquid down her back. Her cape was black too and she wore black gloves that Felix thought was rather strange given what a warm day it was.
The doorbell was rung quickly and the door was opened even before it stopped ringing. And even though he didn't notice it the time, so taken was Felix by this exotic creature, it was Ezra himself that opened the door. This should have been the first sign that someone strange was going on but Felix simply hid on the landing, staring at the woman instead.
"You shouldn't have rung. What if she saw you?" Ezra said urgently, his voice low.
"I don't know if we should be doing this Ezra. I told you the last time." She spoke the words like they were a part of a song, melodic and deep.
"I can't very well tell her just yet, can I? Can you imagine her reaction?"
"You'll need to come clean with her soon, you know. She might end up costing us. Again."
So this woman has been here before? How strange, Felix thought to himself, leaning forwards as much as he dared. Does that mean that contrary to his understanding, his father did have friends? And why was he keeping it a secret?
"Let's just get started, Ezra." And they made their way to Ezra's office. Felix tried hovering around near the door until they came out again but he couldn't get Ioana off his back. He couldn't keep asking her for five more minutes and finally relented and went to his study room to finish off his lessons.
He did keep an eye out for the lady in the weeks to come but it wasn't for long, because soon something far more important happened.
OF REARRANGEMENT
People don’t change, not really. They just have a habit of rearranging themselves. Just like every page you read is a different combination of the same 26 letters put together differently, telling a different story each time.
You see we all break sometimes. And then we put ourselves together, but this time we tell a different story. We put our most fragile bits deeper within ourselves, to steel ourselves from future hurt. These fragile parts are usually the good ones-- love, happiness, kindness. They don’t disappear, they just hide away. The mean, wicked bits, the ones we like to pretend we don't have, they were always there, lurking in the shadows. Except now we use it as a sort of armour.
I think this is why people are the way they are. That it is not that they are purposefully cruel, but that they have rearranged themselves now, and hidden their kindness and goodness and weaknesses deep inside. That we all have to dig just a little deeper to find it. That it is all just self-defense, really.