87. Passing
Isaac slid over as yet another passenger attempted to squeeze herself onto the train car seats. The first station after the tunnels passed back into Chrowall City was one of the most busy ones, situated right in the heart of downtown. It didn’t help that when Isaac had glanced at the clock to see how much time had passed while he was in the Underside, he’d realized it was the evening rush hour.
After spending so long in the Underside, it was strange to see so many people on the subway. They almost looked wrong, to him. The office workers lugging their briefcases he imagined as Solonell City residents carrying weapons instead. The rowdy group of teenagers in the corner of the train car he could mistake for a group of fey if he wasn’t paying attention. When a screen flashed in his peripheral vision, it took him a moment to remind himself that it wasn’t a sprite.
Isaac slid the tablet securely inside his jacket. His pockets felt heavy, as if he were a thief making off with stolen coins. Instead of the usual bouquet, Lilith had handed him a bag of seeds and said that they would take root wherever they were scattered. They certainly took up less space and weren’t as conspicuous, but there was a secretiveness to them that made part of him wish he’d just gotten a bouquet instead.
The train car lurched and his shoulder slammed into his neighbor, who appeared to be a college student around his own age. His head was ducked down, attention fixed on his phone, and he didn’t seem to notice or care about the collision. Isaac wondered what school he went to. He supposed it didn’t matter.
It came as a relief when the subway finally pulled up to the 104th street station. Carefully shoving through the crowd, Isaac stepped out the second the doors slid open and began hurrying down the road to 108th street.
He passed by the graveyard on the way. The familiar metal gates loomed straight and thin, appearing taller than they really were. They divided the interior of the graveyard into narrow slits and discontinuous pieces, just enough to slightly obscure what lay beyond. If someone was rushing, all they could make out would be grey blurs, grasses, and colorful blobs of flowers dotting the landscape.
Isaac slowed down his pace, but didn’t fully stop. He was going to visit on the anniversary, he resolved to himself. Mostly because if he went there right now, he couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t just dump the seeds and leave without another word. Same as usual. Another repeat.
Turning his head to face forward again, Isaac steeled himself and continued the trek home.
—
The days crept by both quickly and painfully slowly. After the constant action of the tournament, the silence of his grey apartment was uncanny. He’d accepted twice his usual number of orders against his better judgment, and the next few weeks were a nonstop mixture of baking, decorating, and deliveries.
Every morning he would wake up in his bed and stare up at his ceiling, half expecting to find himself in that old abandoned hut, or perhaps at Igor’s place. Then he’d catch the blue sky and city skyline in the window out of the corner of his eye and know for certain he was in Chrowall. He’d drag himself out of bed, walk over to the tablet, and see that he’d gotten no new messages or calls. Then he’d proceed to brush his teeth and get ready for the day.
Normally Isaac preferred to do all his baking and decorating at once. He’d bake all the cake tiers on one day, then on another day he’d frost the base coats, then on another day move onto more detailed decorations. Given the (admittedly excessive) number of orders, however, that wasn’t possible, and his days were a much more chaotic mess of trips between the oven and counter, whisking butter cream, and piping. To his surprise, he didn’t actually mind the lack of organization that much. It helped keep him focused.
The downside of working in the kitchen, however, was that the calendar was always in view. Every time he glanced up to grab another piping tip or to carry a cake to the fridge, he’d see the red circle flashing in the corner of his eye, the day creeping ever closer and closer.
Isaac turned away and kept working.
—
The family that had ordered the “insult to aesthetics cake,” as he liked to call it, called and ordered another cake. This time it was the younger sister requesting one for older sister’s birthday. The hideous monstrosity had apparently been popular enough for him to become the family’s go-to baker overnight, according to her. It was this cake that he was working on when he heard the muffled sound of jingling keys.
Isaac nearly dropped the piping tip, but he thankfully caught himself in time, or else he would’ve had to smooth out the butter cream again.
His first thought was that it was Fable, but he quickly dismissed the idea. The other Traveler certainly wasn’t above breaking and entering, but they were much more effective at it. They certainly didn’t need keys.
Frowning, Isaac wiped off his hands on a rag and crept over to the door. First he pressed his ear against the wood, and sure enough, he could hear a voice curse and mutter something on the other side. The jingling sound continued. Narrowing his eyes slightly, Isaac leaned over to peer through the peephole, which, foggy and warped as it was, still managed to do its job well enough.
He found not Fable on the other side, but the elderly woman who lived on the same floor, the one who’d spoken to him by the recycling bins what felt like so long ago. She was carrying a few grocery bags in one hand, her keys in the other, and seemed to be trying to (unsuccessfully) fit them into the keyhole. The woman sighed and shook her head at what must have been several failed attempts.
Stepping back, Isaac carefully swung the door open.
The woman was a good head shorter than him, even with her perfect posture, but the natural severity of her expression and features made her seem many times taller. Even then, she betrayed no shock at seeing Isaac, and her natural confidence made Isaac feel for a moment like he was the intruder here. He cleared his throat.
“I think you have the wrong room, Ma’am,” he said slowly. He was pretty sure she lived on the other end of the hallway.
The woman squinted at the small numbers printed on the door—which were quite small, to be fair—and then the ones engraved on her keys. “It would seem so,” she said curtly. She dropped her keys back into her purse and turned to leave without another word.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Wait!”
The woman’s head spun back around, and her frown was intense enough for Isaac to almost backtrack.
“What?” she said sharply.
“Wait a second.” Turning around, Isaac quickly ran back to the kitchen and stuffed a few of the cake pops he’d made the other day into a bag. One consequence of taking so many orders was that he had double the amount of scraps, and his little basket of cake pops was quickly growing in size despite him throwing extras in with all his orders.
“Take these,” he said, holding the bag out to the woman. She frowned down at it with suspicion, but accepted the offering. She immediately peered inside to inspect its contents, which Isaac could respect. The woman snorted and looked back up.
“Pawning off your extras, I see.” She shook her head, muttering something about “impudent young people” under her breath. Still, she didn’t return the bag and simply turned away to head down the hallway in that slow but steady walk of hers.
As he watched her retreating back, spurned on by a sudden impulse, Isaac called out, “Thank you!”
He winced slightly at how loud his voice sounded in the small hallway and cursed under his breath at his lack of volume control. The woman didn’t respond. Just as he was readying to step back into his apartment, however, he caught her raise a single hand in acknowledgment, though her head remained facing forward.
Smiling to himself, Isaac turned around and shut the door behind him.
—
He dreamed of Chrowall City at night, the cool wind whistling through shadowed buildings, sharp street lamps reflecting off glass windows and signboards. The road was always empty, a clear inky expanse, yet he could still hear the sound of honking horns and the murmuring of passersby as though they were present.
In the center of that still scenery, he saw a familiar figure hunched over, gripping his arm. The longer he stared, however, the more blue hair bled into brown, scales shifted to human skin, and Lloyd was the one kneeling on that quiet road. Isaac himself stood on the sidelines, watching, as the ground beneath them glowed gold and asphalt began to crack and decay and the sounds of the city gave way to a blaring siren.
When he woke up, he found himself staring up at his apartment’s grey ceiling, lying on his thin mattress. He turned his head, and the tablet screen was black and still.
Isaac dragged himself out of bed and went to the bathroom to get ready for the day.
—
The day arrived with no special fanfare.
Isaac woke up and stared out the window, but there was nothing noticeably different. It was a cloudy day, the sort that existed halfway between rain and clear skies and made it impossible to tell time apart. The forecast said it would stay like that the rest of the day, but he brought an umbrella with him just in case.
It was fairly warm outside, though the breeze left behind a faint chill wherever it passed. Isaac tugged his jacket closer. He stuffed a hand in one pocket. In his other, the bag of seeds felt heavy, rustling slightly with each step. His tablet was tucked away in an inner pocket on the opposite side, and the two weights balanced each other out as he made his way towards the graveyard.
He couldn’t tell if he reached his destination faster or slower than usual. The metal gates opened with a light screech, though the sound was softer than he remembered. Someone must have oiled the hinges since the last time he’d been there.
Inside the graveyard, Isaac took a few moments to scan his surroundings. A few figures strolled along the winding path, some were kneeled in front of gravestones, others chatted softly amongst themselves in small pairs and groups. Isaac frowned. There were more people there than he would’ve liked.
He shook his head and reminded himself to focus. It didn’t matter who else was there. And so, ducking his head down, he hurried forward, speed walking down the path until he reached a familiar, unassuming headstone sitting at the very back of the graveyard.
For a moment, Isaac simply stared at it, contemplating, eyes tracing the letters engraved in the stone. Finally, he pulled out the pouch of seeds and loosened the drawstring.
Nestled inside the cloth was an array of seeds of various sizes, shapes, and colors. Isaac couldn’t recognize any of them, though it did seem like an awfully large amount for such a small patch of earth. Still, Lilith had said to scatter them all, and he could always pluck any extras.
He took a deep breath and double checked that the other graveyard visitors were looking elsewhere, then carefully flipped over the bag and scattered the seeds in a swirling motion.
The wind blew just as he did so, pushing away some of the lighter seeds. The majority fell to the ground, however.
For a second, nothing happened. Isaac stared, waiting, and just when he was about to give up and go buy a bouquet himself, a faint golden gleam caught his eye.
The surface of the seeds shone faintly for a few brief seconds before the seeds sunk into the earth as easily as stones in water. Isaac’s eyes widened as little sprouts rose from the earth, rising in height, colors rapidly changing from light to deeper hues. Lush leaves extended like hands from the stems. Tight buds unwrapped their petals in spiraling, layered blossoms. Leaf tips curled and small vines climbed up the edge of the gray stone, framing the grave and leaving the name engraved into the headstone perfectly visible.
Isaac crouched down and felt around the root of one of the plants, finding it deeply embedded into the soft soil. Gone was the plain dullness and the aged, harsh edges of the headstone. The plants rejuvenated the area, made it appear at once ancient and yet also new.
The looping vines reminded Isaac a bit of the sketches Lloyd had drawn, he thought. He smiled slightly and glanced around, but either through luck or Lilith’s magic, no one else seemed to have noticed the display.
Another gust of wind blew past, rustling the new leaves and scattering a few stray petals into the air. They stuck out, bright and vibrant, against the sky. Isaac inhaled, and the air was crisp and full.
He studied the headstone, remembering when he’d first gone to buy it. It had been the cheapest one available, and it was instantly dwarfed by its neighbors. During the funeral, Isaac remembered staring at the headstone during one of Lloyd’s college friends’ eulogies and thinking about how utterly lacking it was. He didn’t remember what that friend, or any of the other ones, had said. He knew he wouldn’t have recognized anything they spoke of anyway.
Lloyd hadn’t left a will. Maybe he would’ve written one eventually, but their parents’ death was fresh enough, and he himself young enough, that it had probably never crossed his mind. Isaac thought it would’ve hurt less if there had been one, even if it cursed him out, even if it left him out entirely.
Carefully, Isaac sat down on the cool earth so that he was sitting directly in front of the headstone. The ground felt soft beneath his fingertips. The grave looked different from this angle, and the new garden surrounding it certainly attracted attention in ways it never had before. He noticed cracks and little patterns that he hadn’t, or hadn’t focused enough on, to see in the past. The way the letters were slanted slightly, the looping curve of the ‘y.’
Isaac closed his eyes, running through old memories, different words and phrases, in his mind. He’d spent the past week thinking nonstop of what to say and do, and yet, when he opened his eyes again, none of it seemed fitting.
His grip tightened, and he forced his muscles to relax.
Maybe he had always been too caught up in his own head. Maybe he was the one who’d imposed the dullness on this place. Because staring at it then, he couldn’t deny that the grave was beautiful.
Another gust of wind scattered more petals that drifted and danced in the air. Isaac inhaled, filling his lungs, and when the next wind whirled past, he opened his mouth and let his thoughts flow freely.