Celestial and Ginger: Harry Potter Fic
Author: Bitterfig
Title: Celestial and Ginger
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters/Pairings: Horace Slughorn, Severus Snape, Luna Lovegood/Ginny Weasley
Summary: The follow up to Firebolt. Set during Deathly Hallows during the fall semester at Hogwarts. Slughorn discovers that Snape has enchanted Luna and Ginny into a fairy tale world. As reality begins to intrude on the girl’s dreamworld, Slughorn and Snape confront their own shared past.
Beta Reader: kethlenda
Word Count: 5161
Rating: R
Warnings: Adult themes. References to sexual abuse and murder. Extremely bad language from a 13 year old Snape.
Author’s Note: This story is the follow-up to Firebolt.
It is being used for the 100_women challenge prompt #047: Paint. My 100_women progress chart is here.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Any illegal acts taking place within that fiction are NOT condoned by the author. Depictions of any questionable, illegal, or potentially illegal activity in said fiction does not mean that I condone, promote, support, participate in, or approve of said activity. I grasp the distinction between fiction and reality and trust that readers will do the same. I do not profit from the fan fiction I write, and all rights to the characters remain firmly in the hands of their creator.
Celestial and Ginger
Their names were Celestial and Ginger.
They lived by a lake so vast it stretched out far past the horizon. Maybe it wasn’t a lake at all but a sea. Maybe it was an ocean. Celestial and Ginger between lived the on its shore in a crooked little house that seemed from the outside hardly more than a heap of stones. A heap of stones overgrown with wildflowers and weeds, though inside it was a proper house.
Ginger was a robust, freckled girl with bright orange hair. Celestial was blonde and pale. She had dreamy grey eyes and a bruise on one cheek. The bruise had always been there; neither girl could say where it came from. Of the two Ginger was the more cheerful and high spirited though Celestial was not so much sad as thoughtful.
So far as Ginger and Celestial could tell, they had always lived together in their house beside the lake. They had no memories of what came before. They did not remember being children, being six or eight, ten or twelve years old. As far as they knew they had always been what they were-- Celestial and Ginger, sixteen years old, living in the house by the lake.
They were happy there, living like birds on berries and seeds, sleeping each night in each others arms. Sometimes in the darkness of the forest they spotted a glimpse of a silver doe and they knew that they would always be safe while she watched over them.
*****
Horace Slughorn found Headmaster Snape in the potions lab, deeply absorbed in whatever he was working on and very much alone.
No surprise there. Except for the Dark Lord's occasional visits to Hogwarts, Severus Snape had been very much alone since becoming Headmaster of the school. There were rumors Snape had been responsible for Dumbledore’s death and although the Ministry of Magic had acquitted him most of the faculty (Slughorn included) believed him to be a murderer and were accordingly horrified and disgusted that he was running the school. As for the students, they were mostly just horrified. Of course there were the Carrows, and a handful of Slytherin students who would have been loyal to Snape if he hadn’t seemed to deliberately keeping himself distant from potential allies.
Perhaps he had learned from Albus Dumbledore’s death the perils of trust.
Still, Severus Snape could never be quite the monster he was to others in Slughorn’s eyes. And so (though he had never pretended to be brave) Slughorn stepped up to one of the most feared men in the Wizarding World.
“Severus," he began. “Pardon me, Headmaster Snape….”
“What do you want?” Snape demanded not bothering to look up from his work.
“Well, there’s a small matter that’s come to my attention. I do hope you’ll forgive me if I’m wrong but I thought there was a chance… that is I hoped we might discuss…”
“Spit it out, Slughorn.”
“It’s Luna Lovegood and the little Weasley girl.”
“Really,” Snape finally looked up. “Are they misbehaving again?”
“No, not at all. They’ve been perfect angels.” He giggled nervously. “That’s rather the problem.”
“And how is that a problem?”
“The problem is they’re gone.”
Snape seemed momentarily startled, caught off guard then he leveled his dark eyes relentlessly on Slughorn and spoke slowly and with great care.
“What do you mean they’re gone?” He asked. “I saw them at dinner just a few hours ago.”
Slughorn sighed grandly.
“Do stop pretending, Severus,” he said, quite forgetting himself. “You know as well as I do that wasn’t Ginny and Luna at dinner. Those are Dollengangers, shadow replicas of the girls. They’re very skillfully made but I was able to spot them and I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before Minerva notices and I’m sure you don’t want that.”
“I highly doubt Professor McGonagall spends as much time ogling sixteen year old girls as you do,” Snape muttered.
“Spare me your caustic wit, Severus. I’d like to keep this school from being divided any more than it already is. I don’t know what you’ve done with those girls, but you must bring them back before anyone else notices this… assuming they can be brought back.”
It hardly seemed possible for someone as pasty white as Severus Snape to grow paler, but he did.
“Assuming they can be brought back.” Snape repeated, baring his teeth with each word. “Is that what you think of me? That I’d murder the children I’ve been charged with the care of?”
“If I really believed that do you think I’d care if Minerva noticed? Do you think I’d have come here on my own? I value my life rather more than that. You were my student, Severus, my protégé. I know a bit about what you’ve been through,. I’d like to believe you’re not as cold-blooded as you seem to have become. I hope I’m not making a terrible mistake. Now please tell me what you’ve done with those girls.”
Snape gestured with his wand. The cauldron he had been working with, the mortar and pestle, the herbs and ingredients laid out all vanished into the air.
“Come with me then,” Snape ordered.
*****
Somewhere beyond the crooked stone house, the shores of the lake and the depths of the forest there was a world Celestial and Ginger knew nothing of. They did not touch the world and the world did not touch them, except in their fleeting contact with someone they called the Silent Man.
He came to see them from time to time, a pale, spindly man with dark hair and a tense, drawn face. From the first time he appeared, the girls understood that he belonged as much as they did and welcomed him accordingly. They invited him into their home, offered him fruit and tea.
He seemed grateful for their hospitality, though ill at ease in their company. He sat hunched in a corner and never ate or drank, only watched them as they chatted to each other, ate and went about their chores in the crooked stone house and its gardens. The next time he visited he found they had decorated his corner with dark flowers just as they decorated the rest of the house with white and golden blossoms for Celestial, orange and red for Ginger. After that he warmed to them a bit though he remained silent and shadowy.
“Who do you think he is?” Ginger asked. Celestial just shook her head.
“I don’t know.” She said.
Ginger searched her mind and found she had words for men through to her memory she’d never seen any man except the dark clad visitor.
“Do you think he’s our father, or our brother? Is he meant to be our husband?”
“I don’t think so,” Celestial said. “He doesn’t seem like any of those things. He’s something else. He’s sad, and all alone. He looks after us.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know. “
Ginger looked across the vast grey surface of the lake and though the wind that rose from it, stirring her long orange hair, was warm she felt a chill and her fingers closed around Celestial’s for reassurance.
“What is a father?” Ginger whispered. “What are brothers? Did I have them once? It almost feels as if I did once, but I’ve somehow misplaced them. How can that be though? There’s only ever been you and I. You and I. And him.”
*****
Horace Slughorn struggled to keep up as Snape led him along the ice slick trails surrounding the lake and finally off the trails entirely and through the trees and brush. Finally they came to a rough and desolate stretch of beach.
Standing on the open beach, Snape muttered an illegible phrase and where there had been nothing a crude stone shack appeared. Snape unlocked the door and as he opened it, Slughorn peered around him inside. The interior of the shack was quite different than the exterior. Inside was a clean, bright room furnished only by a simple chain in one corner and a bedstead on which Ginny Weasley and Luna Lovegood lay nestled together seemingly fast asleep.
“Are they all right?” Slughorn asked. He started towards the girls but Snape stopped him.
“Leave them be,” Snape snapped at him. “They’re fine. I’ve enchanted them. They’re happy enough and safer here than they are running about Hogwarts causing trouble.”
It was true, Slughorn was sure of that. They lay there, cheek to cheek, Ginny’s red hair and Luna’s blonde hair spread out on the pillows and they were beautiful. They were beautiful and they were at peace. Slughorn had a great love of beauty, of pleasure and comfort, languor and repose. He almost envied the girls in their enchanted sleep. He had to remind himself that it was wrong that they should remain languishing in dreams.
“Severus, you must release them.” Slughorn said. “I know they’ve made trouble for you but this is hardly the way to deal with them…”
“They’ve only made trouble for themselves and they’ll make more if left to their own devices,” Snape said. “I admit I initially enchanted them because they were interfering with me but I’ve kept them this way for their own good.”
“Surely it can’t be doing them any good to be hidden away dreaming like this…” Slughorn said but his protests were only half-hearted. They were so lovely there, so safe and cozy he would have liked to curl up alongside them and wake up when winter and the war were safely over. He didn’t believe his words and neither did Snape.
“You’d be hidden away yourself if you had a choice.” Snape said. “The last war was fought by children. Lily Evans was only twenty-one when she died. Regulus Black was scarcely eighteen. Need I go on?”
“You’re right my boy,” Slughorn giggled nervously. “Absolutely right but with young Master Potter so central to things I’m afraid there’s no way to keep this generation from getting involved. It’s quite out of your hands.”
“Potter can and will go to hell,” Snape muttered scowling deeply. “As for these girls, their safety is very much in my hands. I don’t need to tell you that these are dangerous times. Miss Weasley and Miss Lovegood have placed themselves at great risk with their reckless, willful and stupid behavior. If they keep it up they’re bound to be seriously damaged if not completely destroyed. Their parents aren’t going to do anything to control them so it falls to me as their Headmaster.”
“But Severus, you can’t keep them enchanted like this. It’s… it’s simply wrong.”
Snape shrugged. “Then it’s one more crime, one more sin among many. What difference does one more make?” Then he sank down into the chair in the corner and sat, shoulders slumped, his head in his hands. Seeing him like this it seemed to Slughorn that Severus Snape was still very much the angry, unhappy child he had been when he first came to Hogwarts twenty five years before, a scrawny, sullen little boy with an insatiable appetite for power. He had finally gained the power he sought but he was just as miserable and just as alone.
Tentatively, Slughorn laid a plump hand on Snape’s shoulder. It was bony and fragile, as if it would break to a touch. There had been a time when he might have made a difference to that tattered black crow of a boy. Instead he’d looked the other way, kept silent, pretended not to know the things he knew.
“Severus, my boy,” Slughorn said. Snape looked up at Slughorn, his black eyes flat, cold, devoid of light. He was as unlovable as a man as he had been as a boy and Slughorn found he wanted very much to take his hand away, to not be touching Severus Snape, but he fought the instinct. “I’m truly sorry that I didn’t protect you.”
*****
Sometimes when he came to see them the dark man brought gifts for Celestial and Ginger. Things that became precious to each of them. A flying broom and golden ball that Ginger loved, a set of paints that Celestial cherished.
Sweet and mild as she was, the things Celestial painted on the white washed walls of their little house were startling images of violence and desolation. She painted a dark cave in which burned a single candle. If you looked closely at the flame you would see it was a tiny image of Celestial herself. She painted a boy struck by lightning and a great snake consuming a silver doe.
“Why are you painting these horrible things?” Ginger asked shivering and gnawing on a bit of her hair.
“These are the things that are going to happen,” Celestial told her matter of factly.
“How do you know?”
“I see it in the water,” Celestial said. With her brush she stirred a murky dish of water mixed with paint. “We won’t be here much longer, in this house or this forest.”
“Will we still be together?”
“Yes. No.”
“Can’t you answer me straight?” Ginger demanded, her cheeks flushing in frustration.
“I’m sorry,” Celestial said. “I’m not doing a very good job of explaining. It comes into my mind quite clearly when I’m looking in the water but everything gets garbled when I try to tell. Soon we’ll be leaving, and we won’t remember. I think before we came here, we knew each other somewhere else, that you meant a great deal to me but I meant less to you.”
“That can’t be true, you’re special to me. The most special thing in the world.”
“But it seems like I’m the only thing in the world, doesn’t it.” Celestial said quizzically. “Perhaps there are things that matter to you more, out there.”
“There aren’t, there can’t be. There’s only ever been you and I. I won’t go somewhere where I don’t care for you. We’ll stay here, where we belong.”
Celestial stirred the water, gazing abstractly into it.
“I don’t believe we’ll have a choice when the time comes,” she said. “I think we were just dolls to him. I don’t believe it was ever about us at all, Ginny. I don’t think he understands who we are any more than we understand who he is.”
“And I don’t understand you. Who is he?
“The dark man, the doe, the Professor...” Celestial said. The words sang like an incantation. They seemed to come through her rather than from her. Ginger shivered.
“But isn’t he our friend? Doesn’t he protect us…”
“He protects us, but I think he imprisons us too.”
*****
“I’m sorry I didn’t protect you when you were a boy,” Slughorn said again. Snape jerked to his feet, shaking off Slughorn’s hand.
“Don’t bring that up,” he snapped. “That was long ago. It has nothing to do with anything.”
“It does. It has to do with you and what you’ve done to these girls.” He hesitated for a moment. “It has to do with me as well,” he added uncomfortably.
“Of course it does,” Snape said. “Why else would you show an interest?”
And for a long moment there was silence. Horace Slughorn had nothing to say in response to Snape’s bitter quip. He could not deny that he was selfish, that he had little use for things or people that did not gratify him in some way. He could not deny that from the beginning he’d had little use for Severus Snape.
The boy was promising at Potions and well in advance of his classmates when it came to hexes and curses. However he was not pleasant to look at or to talk to and his family had nothing to recommend them. Still, Slughorn’s duties as Potions Master and head of Slytherin brought him into fairly frequent contact with Snape and disinterested as he was it quickly became apparent that something was amiss with the boy.
There was some trouble immediately after he arrived at Hogwarts, he simply didn’t sleep. Only when he finally collapsed from physical exhaustion did Poppy Pomfrey manage to get him to confess that he’d been taking a potion of his own design to stay awake. The reason he’d resorted to this became clear within a few days. When he did sleep he had severe nightmares from which he woke screaming but at eleven he still wet the bed.
Professor Slughorn remembered all too well the first time he’d been called out to deal with this. Snape’s roommate, the youngest Rosier boy, had rung his room again and again, waking him from a sound sleep. Slughorn had been quite cross of course and entered the room the boys shared blustering and complaining, his usual manner of expressing dissatisfaction.
Slughorn was quite taken aback by the cringing terror with which Severus Snape greeted him. Slughorn had dealt with situations of this kind in the past; there were always students who had difficulty adjusting to being away from home for the first time. He’d fully expected embarrassment or even tears but the Snape boy was clearly prepared to be beaten to within an inch of his life.
It was an obvious hint that there was something very much amiss in Severus’ household. Still, at the time Professor Slughorn chose to ignore it. Really, it was none of his business and besides, it was quite possible he was mistaken. It wouldn’t do to be bringing false accusations against parents.
For the next two years. Slughorn managed to have as little as possible to do with the disturbed and disturbing child that was Severus Snape. However, when Snape was thirteen years old he found himself accompanying the boy to the Durmstrang Institute for an international potions competition.
The boy certainly deserved to be there. His innovation was quite breathtaking , especially for someone so young. Still, while Slughorn was just delighted with the prospect of having one of his students in the very prestigious competition, his spirits were somewhat dampened by the prospect of visiting the very uncomfortable Durmstrang Institute with the very uncomfortable Severus Snape.
It was every bit as bad as Slughorn had feared. The Durmstrang castle was cold and drafty with no place soft to sit down and certainly nowhere to find a nice cup of tea. As for Slughorn’s traveling companion, the boy was cold and scowly, and largely silent except for the occasional curt answer to a direct question. Most unpleasant. Worst of all they were provided with the most Spartan of accommodations, a shared room with little more in it than a pair of hard cots.
Still, Snape did admirably in the first round of competition and that night Slughorn discovered that Durmstrang wasn’t all about stoic endurance of self-imposed hardship. They did know how to throw a feast. Between the roaring fires, the tables heaped with game and the delectable spiced liquors Slughorn enjoyed himself immensely. Moreover, a few shots of the liquor did wonders for the personalities of the Durmstrang staff who went from being nearly as sociable as Severus to boisterously laughing, singing, dancing wildly and declaring undying affection and brotherhood to each other, Slughorn, and the attendant house elves.
It was very late when Slughorn finally left the feast and made his way back to the chilly, inhospitable room Snape had retreated to hours before. As he unsteadily entered the room, lighting his way with his wand, young Severus sat bolt upright on his cot.
“Oh dear, I seem to have woken my dear little genius.” Slughorn giggled. “And I was sure I was being quite as a mouse.” Then he saw the look on Snape’s face, that same cringing horror he’d seen two years before and ignored. This time, because drink tended to make him sentimental, Slughorn decided to try and show the boy a bit of kindness, perhaps cheer him up a little, lift his spirits for the competition the next day. He sat down on the cot and put his arm around Snape’s sharp, trembling little shoulders.
“There, there my boy,” he said. There’s nothing to be afraid of. I assure you I’m quite harmless.”
“Yes, sir,” the boy said flatly. His eyes were screwed tight shut.
“Dear me, you’re freezing cold. I did enjoy the feast but the conditions these people live under are ridiculous. It’s as cold inside as out and these blankets are pitiful. Not that you couldn’t use some flesh on you to keep the chill away.”
“Yes, sir.” His voice was trembling now and despite his tightly closed eyes somehow two trails of tears were running down his cheeks. Slughorn was quite taken aback.
“What on earth is wrong with you, young man?”
“Nothing sir, I only wish, I only wish you’d do it and be done with.”
“What on earth are you going on about?” Slughorn demanded, his good will towards the boy rapidly running out.
“Just don’t put it in me. Please. I’ll take care of it the other ways. You don’t need to put it in me.”
Slowly, slowly, Horace Slughorn’s somewhat addled brain began to make sense of what the boy was saying but before he could manage a response, Snape’s icy hand reached between his legs, eager to take care of him and have it done with.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Slughorn bellowed then he struck out blindly out of sheer instinctual terror, pulling Snape off of him and thrusting him away. Slughorn was a large man, and far stronger than he let on. Snape seemed to fly halfway across the room before he smashed against the floor with a sickening thud. For a moment he was very still, then began to softly whimper, clutching his arm. Slughorn flew to his side babbling a combination of apologies and accusations.
“Severus, my boy, are you all right? I certainly didn’t mean to hurt you but you can scarcely blame me. For God’s sake, what were you doing?” He asked.
“Keep your fucking hands off me,” Snape growled at him, backing away.
“Be reasonable, Severus. You must realize this was an accident, some sort of a misunderstanding. Please, let me look at your arm at least.”
Reluctantly, Snape let me come closer and Slughorn inspected the boy’s scrawny arm which was twisted at a peculiar angle.
“Oh dear, I’m afraid I may have broken it. I wonder if there’s a Hospital Wing in this horrible place or if you’re just expected to tough things out.”
“I’ll fix it myself,” Snape said fumbling for his wand. “I’ve done it before.” Finding his wand he began to mutter and chant. Only when he seemed finished did Slughorn (who was now feeling quite sober) dare to speak again.
“Severus, I must insist you tell me what’s going on. Why were you so frightened when I came in? Why were you crying and why did you grab me like that?”
The boy glowered up at him, his black eyes seeming to burn with rage and hatred.
“You smelled like he does,” Snape snarled. He seemed more like a feral animal than a human child. “You smelled like he does and you came to my bed like he does so I thought you wanted what he always wants.”
“You don’t mean… Severus, has someone been interfering with you? Who would do such a thing?”
“Who do you bloody think? All so daft, the whole fucking lot of you pretending everything’s pumpkin juice and lemon drops in your bloody fucking castle.”
“Severus, I hardly know what to say…”
“Then shut your fucking mouth for a change.”
“I… perhaps I can help you…” Slughorn stammered out. Snape’s vehemence frightened him but it seemed like the thing to say.
“You don’t want to help me. You don’t like even me. You’ve never invited me to your club even though I am best at potions in the whole fucking school.”
True, but still…
“Still,” Slughorn said. “This can’t go on. When we get back to Hogwarts I’ll speak to Dumbledore. He’ll see that something is done about this...”
“No. I won’t have Dumbledore know. I won’t be one of his special cases, his pathetic little misfits all grateful and groveling. I won’t have anyone knowing about this, feeling sorry for me because I’m so weak and helpless. I don’t want their fucking pity. All I want is the power to make this stop. I can’t use my wand. The Ministry would find out and send me away but there are other ways. You could help me if you really wanted to. I know there are potions that aren’t in the books. Potions that can kill someone and no one will ever know. You know how to make them. You could teach me.”
“Severus, I can’t do that.”
“I’ll find out myself. You know I will, but it’ll take time. I haven’t figured it out yet. It’ll take me at least another year; I’ll have to spend at least another summer holiday with him.”
“No, you can’t ask this of me, Severus. I won’t help you commit murder.” It was too much, too ugly and sordid and complicated. He just wanted it to go away and while that wasn’t an option for Severus Snape, it was for Horace Slughorn. “See here, it’s late and you’re hurt, you’re overexcited and you’re saying things you don’t mean…”
“I do mean it. You know I do. I mean every motherfucking word.”
“Severus, please, stop cursing. I am your teacher after all. You’ve said some alarming things tonight but I realize I’m partially to blame for allowing you to work yourself into such a state. I’ve let things get out of hand. I think it would be the best for the both of us if we pretended that tonight never happened, started fresh in the morning. A new page, a clean slate.”
“Fine,” Snape spat. “Fine with me. I’ll keep my mouth shut about you being a fucking cunt if you keep your mouth shut when I figure out how to make the potion.”
The following day, Snape performed abysmally in the second round of the completion and was eliminated early on. Though good sportsmanship dictated they stay on till the end of the competition, Slughorn and Snape left that afternoon and returned to Hogwarts.
During the summer between Snape’s sixth and seventh year, his father Tobias died abruptly of natural causes.
“Here you are, Severus,” Slughorn said. Snape did not look at him, only at the girls, red and gold, on the bed. Outside it was growing dark. “The first Slytherin headmaster since Phineas Black, not to mention a great favorite of the Dark Lord. You ought to be the crowning achievement of my career as an educator but I know that my greatest failure as both a teacher and as a man was what I did- or what I failed to do-for you.”
“I suppose you’re referring to our holiday in Durmstrang.” Snape said.
“I am,” Slughorn admitted.
“You should have shown me how to make that potion.” Snape said in a flat, dead voice never taking his eyes from the girls.
“Would you show one of your students?”
“Touché.”
“What I should have done was handle it properly, gotten you some help, seen you were taken out of that house for good. I can’t help thinking your life might have gone very differently if I had done the right thing that you might not have become a Death Eater if you hadn’t done what you did…”
“You mean if I hadn’t committed murder at sixteen?” Snape said bluntly. “I won’t spare your feelings and tell you it didn’t make a difference, it did. The Dark Lord might never have had me if it wasn’t for that. When I was first brought before him he looked into my mind. That memory pleased him more than anything else. He always felt akin to me after that. We’re a part of the same club, he and I, half-bloods who have killed their Muggle half. Not quite as prestigious as the Slug Club, but it’s gotten me this far.”
As always, Snape’s bitterness, his venom was nearly overwhelming. Slughorn wanted nothing more than to leave, to have nothing more to do with him but he forced himself to stand his ground, to say aloud the last thing he wanted to acknowledge.
“I’m considered a decent sort of chap, Severus, but I turned my back on you when you were my student. It was the easiest thing to do. You’ve at least tried to help these girls. I’m afraid you’ve bungled it royally, my boy, but it counts for a great deal that you’ve at least made the effort. It makes me think that despite everything you might just be a better man than I am.”
“Tell me Horace, who have you ever killed?” Snape asked. His voice was icy cold.
“You have your secrets, Severus. I can’t hope to understand you and I may be horribly wrong but I believe that despite what you say, right and wrong does matter to you and that you want to do right. You need to release these girls, Severus, and I trust that you will.”
For many minutes, there was only silence.
“That means something,” Snape finally said. “It shouldn’t, but it does. I’ll remove the enchantment from Miss Lovegood and Miss Weasley. There are certain things they’ll need to forget, but I will release them.”
“Thank you, Severus…”
“I would appreciate it if you left me to it.”
“Certainly, certainly, I’ll go now, Severus.”
As Slughorn pulled on his cloak, Snape stood and opened the door.
“And I think it would be best, for both of us, if we pretended that tonight never happened.” Snape said. It was meant to be a slap in the face and that’s exactly what it felt like to Horace Slughorn.
“I’m sorry, Severus, so sorry…”
“So sorry my life has come to this? Don’t pity me, Slughorn. I won’t have it. If anything happens to these girls, know that it’s on your head.”
“If anything should happen to them, or to you.” Slughorn reached out and grasped Snape’s spindly grey fingers in his plump hand. For a moment they stood in silence, past and future weighting equally upon them.
*****
The pictures Celestial had painted on the walls had turned to fears and memories. Ginger could remember having a father, and brothers. The lake no longer seemed so vast and the house by the lake was no longer so far from the world. In fact it seemed to be in the shadow of a castle, a place they needed to return to.
“Everything's falling apart,” Ginger said as they huddled together in their bed.
“Go to sleep.” Celestial whispered, stroking her flaming hair. “Maybe in the morning, things will make sense again.”
“What if I lose you?”
“You’ll find me again, someday.”