Three Halloween drabbles ...
A/N: So I've got half of them finished, and I know I'm going to miss my Halloween deadline on the rest, but they should be posted very, very shortly -- I promise! As for the three below, Happy Halloween angela_weber , mollivanders and lenina20!
--
All she sees is green, at the end.
I'll save you, he says (maybe only thinks she hears him), brands her with the words, rapid and shallow and if the lie weren't there already it is then.
I wish --, she says, syllables staccatoed by a cough that won't stop, something (blood) thick in her throat, drenches the words in a finality they don't need. I wish we'd met at Oxford.
He laughs through a sob -- me too -- cradles her closer; she can almost imagine navigating first everythings, his hand snaking through hers between library stacks, a kiss they'll never share.
(The tree above will mark her grave.)
--
It's funny -- growing up, he was never scared of ghosts.
Never had his mother check under the bed, never saw monsters in the corners of his room.
He's still not -- even after everything -- but after Charlotte there's shadows that weren't there before, whispers while he paces the barracks (swears he hears her voice); can't help but feel haunted, feel like there's something just bordering his vision, the faintest impression of fingers around his wrist.
And it's funny, the memory that always grabs him is another goodbye, their first; Charlotte at the shore, and he can almost hear her again, a sadness in the whispered sound --
-- nothing's forever.
--
A silly tradition, is what she tells Daniel when he asks to do it, scoffs at the idea with a tight expression that's becoming more practiced every day, his eyes downcast, the pumpkin in his hands sagging.
(Charles had told her the legend, when they'd been young -- she'd found him carving one in their camp, his knife working through soft, orange flesh, the pulpy seeds until a rough face emerged; it's a Jack-o'-Lantern, he'd explained, smiling that infuriating smile when he knew something she didn't, a man doomed to wander the earth forever.)
She changes her mind the next day; their lantern glows bright like a pathway home.
--
All she sees is green, at the end.
I'll save you, he says (maybe only thinks she hears him), brands her with the words, rapid and shallow and if the lie weren't there already it is then.
I wish --, she says, syllables staccatoed by a cough that won't stop, something (blood) thick in her throat, drenches the words in a finality they don't need. I wish we'd met at Oxford.
He laughs through a sob -- me too -- cradles her closer; she can almost imagine navigating first everythings, his hand snaking through hers between library stacks, a kiss they'll never share.
(The tree above will mark her grave.)
--
It's funny -- growing up, he was never scared of ghosts.
Never had his mother check under the bed, never saw monsters in the corners of his room.
He's still not -- even after everything -- but after Charlotte there's shadows that weren't there before, whispers while he paces the barracks (swears he hears her voice); can't help but feel haunted, feel like there's something just bordering his vision, the faintest impression of fingers around his wrist.
And it's funny, the memory that always grabs him is another goodbye, their first; Charlotte at the shore, and he can almost hear her again, a sadness in the whispered sound --
-- nothing's forever.
--
A silly tradition, is what she tells Daniel when he asks to do it, scoffs at the idea with a tight expression that's becoming more practiced every day, his eyes downcast, the pumpkin in his hands sagging.
(Charles had told her the legend, when they'd been young -- she'd found him carving one in their camp, his knife working through soft, orange flesh, the pulpy seeds until a rough face emerged; it's a Jack-o'-Lantern, he'd explained, smiling that infuriating smile when he knew something she didn't, a man doomed to wander the earth forever.)
She changes her mind the next day; their lantern glows bright like a pathway home.