part 3 of "How Not to Spend Eternity" - parts 1 & 2 posted as "Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep"
Post-Season 2 series. "Sebastian - now a butler forever. Ciel - now a demon. They're stuck with an arrangement neither of them are happy with, but they'll just have to make the best of it... or fail miserably."
1/ prologue
"All children, except one, grow up."
In the soft diffuse light of that late afternoon, Ciel Phantomhive opened the book, with all its dog-eared pages pressed by small fingers, and he let the cadence of that familiar story fill the spaces around him; the tall, narrow window over that metal-framed bed on which he sat curled up, his feet tucked under himself in the small space.
"They soon know that they will grow up," he continued, glancing as he spoke, as though that other person might be waiting to meet his eyes, "and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs. Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, 'Oh, why can't you remain like this for ever!' This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two," Ciel continued, with the slightest smile at the absurdity. "Two is the beginning of the end."
His voice trailed off into thoughtfulness, and he lowered the book to his lap, and stared for a long time at the girl on the bed, her soft brown hair brushed to her shoulders and her colourful patterned dress. "What do you think of that, Julie? Is it really as early as two? Or is it as Travers suggested, and earlier still? Might the learning of human language itself be what separates that species from its kin among the world, and leads you out of that garden for ever?"
She did not answer, for her fast and quick-beating heart had been stilled, and her gently smiling face, still rosy with life, was as much an illusion as that she had merely lain down to sleep. All children grow up, Ciel thought, but not all of them make it through that long and winding path to the other side. And she had not.
The padparadscha sapphire, such a rarity with its small and teardrop-shaped cut, was held to the bright thin silver of the ring by the finest filigree, a light and shining pink with the hint of orange. Only sapphires could hold the souls of the deceased for any time without breaking or letting that fragile spark free, and in that gentle stone, he could feel the soft warmth and aroma unclouded by mortal flesh.
He brought it to his lips, only scenting the very edges of that elusive strain, and felt a sigh from the tightness inside his throat. The book he held with one hand, awkwardly, as he pushed himself around the still body, at last curling up in the crook of her arm. He closed his eyes.
"Tomorrow," he said, "it will all be different. I promise."
.
.
.
Notes:
(1) "All children, except one, grow up..." As you might have guessed, this is the beginning of Peter Pan.
(2) "As Travers suggested" - here, Ciel is referring to P.L. (Pamela Lyndon) Travers, author of the Mary Poppins series.