“Now let me see your leg,” the boy said. “Nasty hounds! But I’ll take care of you.” Daniel shivered with fright; though only a kit, he very well knew to trust not any creature, whether it be dog, or cat, or bird, or bear, or human, or even other fox. Every creature meant harm to every other, especially to defenseless ones! But he couldn’t escape, because his leg hurt too much, and head spun as if in a whirlpool. The boy’s face turned sad when he noticed Daniel shaking, and pet him, over his pointy ears and down his furry back. This felt so nice that Daniel forgot to be afraid, and quickly fell asleep.
I think the only story I've written which doesn't involve one character easing another to sleep is Danger Davie. That was my first story: a Halloween present for my cousins. As an aside, when I named Davie the computer tried (and is, this very moment, trying) to correct him to "Davy." My mother commented on this apparently unusual spelling, but I thought that was how the name was spelled. I'd become attached, and left it. Some time later I picked up a book I've long loved, Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped. The main character is David Balfour. Guess what Alan Breck calls him? Davie. Davie. Now I know where I got the name!
Want a friendship novel? Read Kidnapped. Or any assorted Sherlock. But you knew that.
Lise lay to his shoulder. “I don’t even want to be brave. I just want to stay here. I’m safe. I get tired, everywhere else.” She lay still, Ean blinking to preserve his face from re-streaking.
“You seem tired now.”
“Yes, and I can sleep. I can’t explain--but, but maybe you already understand. It's a different tired now, than before. I’m tired from walking and swimming, and because I’m too comfortable to stay awake. It's not like the other tired, the tired of being afraid. I can't sleep, when tired that way. But now I can sleep. I want to sleep.”
That must be the thing. You have to feel some sense of safety to fall asleep. Even if that safety comes only from stillness. You're being hunted, but now you've fallen to the ground and you're still. You can sleep.
I have to mention Caleb here. Doesn't it seem that when something's wrong, the first thing we lose is sleep? And all you want to do is sleep. Yet you only lie awake wishing for sleep. The dark is cool and still and safe. The dark is close and empty and lurking. A soothing hand across your eyes or a blindfold of terror.
My friend was sleeping. I had been. I lifted my cheek from where it lay against his head, which lay against my shoulder. Anna in the laps between us. A tiny, dark room. Hiding. Not safe, but together so that we had to sleep. I wished I still slept.
But I didn’t. I wrapped my arm about the friend sleeping soundly on me. He’d grown a little older. A little thinner, since last I saw him. Anna shivered a little. Held one of Caleb’s hands. Held one of mine. Wrapped her little body around the set they made. My friends had to sleep. I could stay waking, but must keep them asleep. One would not sleep again. One would never wake.
The closet closer. We were in the closet. Where Anna once pushed me through. But now the walls stifled. I heard noises. Voices. Hard, hard voices. And Caleb woke. Held the small girl as near as he could. Let me try to hold them both nearer. She seemed still asleep, but started to cry. Trapped in our nightmare.
Step. Step. Step. Not careful and quiet. Not timid and shoeless like those which saddened and comforted me if I woke in the middle of some cold night. Anna shook violently, now. Hush Baby. Sing. Too loud. Sing please.
The door flung open and we were blind. Not by light. The closet seemed dark until the real darkness came in. Saw only splotches. Heard only screams. Felt my friend fighting, fighting. Just like before. The fight he never won, that he fought more desperately because he knew he never could win.
A rip, a tear--my heart wrenched out by poisoned teeth. Never. Never. Something was never. Then the blackness again. Anna gone. Never, never, never Anna. Never Caleb. Never really Caleb. They took him, too.
There he was on the ground. I ran to him, knelt at his side--and he vanished. Again I found him. The scar. Not yet a scar. The skin of my friend’s neck flayed and bleeding and I couldn’t reach him. He didn’t move. Caleb! Caleb! I cried and cried again. They trampled him. A mob. Thousands upon thousands crushing my friend. Weren’t bothered to raise their shoes a little higher. Toes bruising his face. Heels catching strings of flesh. No sound came from him. His eyes rolled like dead things. I ran but came no closer. I ran but the mob thrust me back. I dropped beside and the feet and legs and dark and death and blood devoured him. My hand reached for his but fell numb. Fell like lead. Caleb! Hardly Caleb anymore. A shadow growing from the darkness and seizing him. Crawling up and over him toward the gushing wound. His child’s body convulsing and his eyes dead. Caleb! Squirming up and bearing its teeth. Caleb! Caleb! Caleb!Sleep is wonderful or horrible. If someone slept "okay," then he really didn't sleep at all. Real sleep is another world. Perhaps a silent one, but one all the same. Does not a happy dream keep your heart light all day? Does not a nightmare cast shadows in the sun?
Think I'll end with Afton and Kiva here. I love them so. I think I have to fall in love with my characters. If I didn't they'd have no shape.
“Afton,” I called softly, after opening my window. “Afton?”
“Here,” he said, pulling himself from the sky to hover before me. “Are you well?”
“Of course. Won’t you come in?”
He looked surprised.
“Oh. Are you not coming in?”
“I didn’t think so.”
“Then why are you out here? You should’ve gone back to wherever you sleep.”
“I don’t need much sleep. You don’t mind my standing by the window, do you?”
“No, but I’d rather you came in.”
“I’ll keep the cold out; you won’t even know this is open.”
“I can’t leave you outside all night.”
He glanced downward. “Would you believe me, if I told you I’ve never been in a house?”
“You’ve been in a bus.”
He smiled. “Only once, and for but a minute.”
I reached out and took both his hands, guiding him inside. He followed, rather warily.
“Not so bad,” I said. “Is it?”
“Shouldn’t be.” I guided him around the room: showed him where I hid journals in the closet, the space between the bed and bookshelf where I’d sit to read.
“What’s the matter, Afton?” I asked. “You’re holding my hand so tightly.”
His grip loosened. “I’m sorry. There’s something wrong in this house.”
“What?”
He shook his head. “My heart is racing, and I can’t calm it.”
I pressed his heart; it beat like boiling water. “Would you be easier outside?”
“I don’t like you in here; I must stay here with you.”
I sat on the bed and bid him sit beside me, then eased his head into my lap. Just that relaxed him some, though as my fingers moved across his neck the skin there squirmed a little.
“May I ask what you’re doing?” he said.
“Caring for you a bit.”
“Caring for--”
He stopped, because I began to rub his back as well as I knew how. It must have been well enough; in the moonlight his diamond eyes glinted. He shifted uneasily, looked shyly about the room as his human muscles tensed and complained and softened. After some minutes I found a spot that held him still and breathless as I rubbed deeper and deeper into it; then he melted. Melted into my hands with a single acute sigh.
“Kiva?” he said.
I giggled. “Yes?”
He smiled. “You’re laughing at me.”
“You whisper so soft; I nearly can’t hear you.”
“Forgive me, I...” He swallowed, bit his lip as my thumb sculpted a circle on his spine.
“What, Afton?”
A shiver ran through him, and he shook his head.
“What’s the matter?”
“The matter? Nothing at all is the matter.”
“You quivered.”
“You said my name. I love it when you say my name.”
I lay myself down at his back, still rubbing. “Afton? What were you going to ask me, Afton?"
He only sighed.
“Answer me, Afton.”
“It is nothing.”
“You meant to ask something.”
“No.”
“Afton.” Truly, each time I spoke his name he pressed closer into my palm. “Afton, please, please ask me.” He hesitated, and I set my ear against his mouth. “Tell me.”
He shivered again, then answered so that I felt and not heard him. “Kiva? Would you kiss me once more?”
I slid my hands up to his neck, kept them moving and kissed him on the mouth. When I let go he was asleep.
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