A small knock at my door. Unmistakable.

“I’ll be out for dinner in a second Kate, just finishing up my planning” The first day back after winter break was tomorrow and I wanted to have my daily schedule established before I started getting homework piled. I also needed to figure out time to work more, get and pay for supplies, and plan out my itinerary for London.

Even if it doesn’t happen, it’s still fun to plan. I argued, continuing my ongoing mental battle against the cynical disbelief that plagued my mind since Mom and Kate had gotten me that gift.

Another knock.

“Yeah, Kate I heard you, I’ll be right up”. Had she not heard me? I knew her hearing worked fine, too fine sometimes. Many people, mom included, underestimated how much she saw and heard because she was so quiet. It used to be that her stutter kept her from speaking up, now though, she had gone completely quiet.

I hope that new therapist is making progress. She had been seeing a speech therapist off and on for a few years after it became clear the stutter wasn’t a phase. But when she had stopped talking altogether, the visits had increased. She had gone to a few different ones that specialized in selective mutism until clicking with her current one.

A third set of knocks.

“Kate?” I finally got up and answered the door. “What is it..” Kate’s small figure rushed into my arms and hugged me fiercely, her arms clasped around my stomach and her head buried in my chest.

“Whoa, whoa, what happened? Are you okay?” I rested my arms around her as her body shook against mine. When no answer came, I shut the door behind and walked us over to sit on the edge of my bed. She resisted for a moment, but I was eventually able to pry her hands from around me and sit her down so I could look at her. She had been crying.

“Kate. What’s wrong” I rested my hand on her shoulder, my schedules and fears for the semester momentarily forgotten as I beheld her shimmering, bloodshot eyes. She sniffled a few times, but no sound escaped her lips as she sat there looking down at the floor. I asked her again what was wrong but she remained silent. We sat there for a time as she continued to sniffle but still refused to answer me despite my occasional proddings. So I changed tactics, time to ask her about something else.

I had noticed something was different about her when we sat down, but took a closer look now to confirm. Yes, I was correct. Her brown pixie-cut hair, which was already short enough to almost match my similarly short-cut brown hair, looked to have gotten even shorter.

“Kate?” I asked slowly, “have you been cutting your hair again?”, her small form stopped shuddering for a second as she froze in place. “Mom’s gonna kill you when she finds out”, she sniffed loudly, her nose crinkling up as she did.

“I must say, you are getting better though, as long as you style it up she might not even notice” This finally broke through. Kate and her hair. I chuckled inwardly. Her hands rose and made a series of gestures, slower than she usually signed for my benefit. Still though, it took me a second to piece the signs into the concepts they represented. I laughed when I finally understood the meaning.

“Yeah, I suppose shorter cuts is a smarter way of doing it. These are definitely shorter than your last attempts. I still think Mom might notice unless you style it a bit” I pulled at the shorter sections, comparing them to the parts she hadn’t cut yet. “Yeah, you’re right, you did only take a bit off. It looks pretty good honestly.” She smiled broadly, not as broad as she used to, but better than recent years.

“You know if you cut it any shorter, you could give yourself a mohawk. That might look good” I said, now pulling at the centre sections of her hair to visualize my suggestion. My hands were promptly swatted away, and her broad smile was replaced with a scowl.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding. Genuinely, it looks really good. I’m excited to see how good you get as you keep practicing. Maybe I’ll let you cut my hair before I leave.”

At this her eyes raised in excitement, but then immediately dropped. Ah, that’s what’s bugging her.

“So, you’re not too excited about me going to London?” There was a moment of panic now in her eyes and she frantically began to sign.

No, I want you to go. It was my idea. I want you to go.

“Okay okay.” I chuckled softly. “So if you want me to go, and you’re happy with your hair cut, then what’s eating you?” I signed along now. I really needed the practice and the therapist had said she would talk more if she felt like she was being accepted, regardless of her form of communication.

She took a moment.

“Come on Katie, you can tell me.” Indignation masked her face. She hated being called Katie and I usually respected that wish. Unless I was trying to get on her nerves, or get her out of her shell. Since this was the latter, I attempted to mollify her with a wavy hand gesture under my chin. “Come on Katie, you can tell Brother Pig.” I accompanied my gestures with a few snorts to emphasize how much of a pig I was.

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Her anger broke and she made the same symbol for me. Then signed further.

“Fine, but I’ll only speak to Brother Pig. Brother Will is being a jerk.” Fair enough, I earned that one. I kept my hand under my chin, waving my fingers up and down and periodically snorting and chuffing, which elicited a broad smile and a few soundless laughs from her, which took the form of closed eyes and bouncing shoulders. I considered tickling her, but dared not. I had finally gotten her this far, tickling her and potentially making her actually laugh would undue all of it. So I contented myself with the joy I was bringing and waited for her to finally tell me what was going on.

After her laughing stopped, she signed. “I want you to go. But I’m afraid”

“What are you afraid of?”

“What if you stay away or don’t come back?”

“Why would I stay away? Of course I’m coming back Kate”

“Dad didn’t”

…..Rage. Betrayal. Anger….

I took a breath and buried these emotions. Now was not the time. “That was different Kate.”

“Why?”

“You know why.”

“Maybe you’ll decide to stay away as well, maybe..”

“I’m not him! I’d never do that?”

“How do you know?”

“I just won’t.”

“Can you tell me how you know?”

Because I wasn’t a coward. I wasn’t going to take the easy way out. Because I actually gave a shit about my family. Because I could never do that to anyone. Because I hated him so much that I didn’t want to do anything he did. I wanted to have nothing in common with him.

“I just know, Kate,” was all I said.

“Why won’t you tell me? Why won’t you talk about it?”

“You first.” I regretted it immediately. It was a dumb thing to say. Kate took a minute to respond after that, organizing her thoughts.

“I want to.” This was new. “But..I can’t”. That wasn’t. Whenever asked, Kate simply said she couldn’t talk because she couldn’t. It was incredibly frustrating, but getting frustrated about it only made her lock down even more, to the point that she wouldn’t even sign.

I cleared my throat and sat up straight, Kate’s mutism wasn’t what we were talking about.

“Kate. I promise I’m coming back, no matter what. I promise to always come back, no matter how far away I am, even if we’re a world apart, I’m coming back.” “World” was a new one, and I had to spell it, but otherwise I signed as I spoke. “Da..” I couldn’t say it, he lost that title when he left. “He can’t come back, he made his choice, but I’m not him. I’ve made my choice as well, and my choice is to be here whenever I can, and race back when I’m away.”

Kate’s eyes were watery but solemn as she asked, “you promise?”.

I put one hand under my chin and signed the rest with the other, “Brother Pig promises”. Her arms wrapped around me again, and she cried softly for a few seconds. I thought I heard actual sobs, but I may have imagined it.

As I held my little sister I glanced over at my planner and schedule notes. It probably won’t happen anyway, Kate. And if it does? If it does? If it does then it will be over before she knows it, and I’ll be home again. As much as I might wish to go on adventures and see the world, I couldn’t. Even if this happened, it was a one-off. I knew it.

It would be years before I could afford to do any kind of trip again, not only had that asshole left us alone, he had left us with debt. The fact Mom had managed to keep this amount aside was nothing short of a miracle. But, miracles only happen once. This would be my one shot at an adventure, and it would be over before I knew it.

So don’t worry Kate. I meant what I said.

For better or worse.

I’m not going anywhere.

—--

Adez pressed forward. In a land without light Adez fought against the inhospitable environment and nightmarish residents. It mattered not what Adez faced; Adez’s progress was unyielding.

So close. Adez’s journey, an impossible endeavor, was almost at its end. Adez’s titanic zeal had seen Adez through everything. From the completely mundane worlds to lands that defied imagination. When Adez had faced the false gods, it was their empty faith, not Adez’s, that hade been found wanting. Adez had not been surprised. Adez’s master was eternal, and the gods had only served themselves.

The beings of this land, an amalgamation of cosmic horrors and evolutionary nightmares had largely left Adez alone. For their part, they had had the surreal experience of finding a being even stranger than them. They had stared on from the above, from the below, and from all around as Adez: First Among the Unbeings and Wielder of the Empty Mantle, strode past their twisting and chaotic roosts, nests, caves, and dens.

Adez cared not for their gazes, Adez had faced them before. All that mattered to Adez was the purpose, the purpose that Adez had taken from master.

Adez’s master was eternal and planned eternally, they had grown used to an eternity of torment. But not Adez. Adez could not bear it.

So close. Soon. Soon Adez could end master’s torment.

Emptiness. A concept that could not be mistaken for anything else. This being was a void in a land of nearly-complete existence.

And they were getting closer and closer to its core.

Far away, beyond the nebulaic mountains and the Endless Ocean a horrifying creature with innumerable heads observed.

Oo-shi, known as EverWatcher, had 500 of her heads observing Adez’s descent. She-Who-Saw-All had watched his journey as the decades had turned into centuries. She hadn’t noticed him at first because of his composition. Or rather his lack of composition.

“Emptiness” she mused. For if Adez was anything, it was the lack of the thing. She-whose-gaze-pierced-the-horizon was familiar with the concept. Unlike the others of her homeland, she could see beyond its shores. She could see beyond to the islands that floated adrift in seas of nothingness, only the feeble strings of attraction keeping them connected.

A few of her hands looked to the Islands of the Gods, the first islands she had seen due to their proximity to each other and to her home. To think the Godkings and GodQueens had such a glaring weakness. To be defeated so soundly. Truly remarkable. Could no one stop this Empty Unbeing?

Oo-shi had guessed at Adez’s ultimate goal over the years, but now that the Unbeing had gotten this far and still continued deeper, she needed to guess no longer. If Adez sought the depths, there was only one thing they could be after. Should she intervene? Perhaps, but it was not her place nor her purpose.

Furthermore, Balance had not been upset, to act would be to upset Balance.

She returned to her eternal vigil. The 500 heads trained on Adez were reduced to only 50, the remainder looking beyond the endless shores, past the impassable horizon, to the islands beyond. She took in the compact Archipelagos of the Gods, the close groupings of the Fluxal, the loose isles of the Ethereal, and finally, the scattered rocks of the Material, with such vast separation between each harbor that she once again wondered at their ability to stay connected.

There was always more to see. More mysteries to solve. If they were all to be erased soon, she wished to take in as much as she could before there was nothing left to watch.