((So this was written for one of the First Aid challenges over at Camp Potter. But look at me, posting it weeks later.
I'm terrible with deadlines. I did finish this one on May 31st. So. Better late than never, yes? Ha. I tried.
The mandatory prompts were: TREMBLE, IN THE SHADOWS, FRAGILE. ))
It starts with an almost mocking caress, barely there, closer to warm than cold. It's an unfamiliar-feeling rain, because he always forgets it can be like this; so for all it's gentleness, it makes him wary. Perhaps part of him already knows not to trust. Barty tugs at his robes, huffing in frustration when tugging does nothing. These are his pretend robes, old hand-me-downs from relatives he can never remember the names of. He could get lost in the robes, for how over-sized they are. He keeps stumbling, tripping on the garment he refuses to take off. This is what big boys wear. Big boys get to leave home and have adventures and learn proper magic.
He will go to the Big Castle, but not tonight. Tonight he is too small. I'm glad it's so far off, I don't know what I will do without my little one. My baby, his mother likes to say in hushed tones, when she thinks he is distracted with his little daydreams and games of make-believe. Barty is not a baby, he is four-years-old.
He finds himself sniffling, baby or not, when the rain turns wicked. It makes his hair droop into his eyes and cling to his head. It turns the ground beneath him into something that seems intent on pulling him in by his feet. The earth, now thick sloshes of mud, is only letting Barty sink into it. He grunts with the effort of taking just one step. He's soaked through; teeth chattering, fingers turning stiff and useless. He fights to get out of the rain-heavy robes now, but he can't. He only manages to splash-land in a whimpering heap into a growing puddle.
He lets himself cry, little hiccuping sobs, because there is no one here to see it. His father isn't there to give him a disappointed glare or worse. Sometimes, like this time, Barty wishes he still was a baby.
He hasn't learned to sneer yet, he hasn't learned to laugh at these little jokes the universe offers to only a special few. He's fragile, like the special things in his father's office, the things his mother tells him he can't touch. They don't seem like much to him, he doesn't understand why he can't just take a closer look.
There is a rumble in the sky, and Barty wonders if the sky is hungry. He wonders if it has an appetite for boys who don't listen to their mothers. If he's lucky, he thinks, maybe the sky will spit him back out. Perhaps the sky doesn't like the taste of boys who aren't good. He squeezes his eyes shut, thinking loudly of all the bad things he has done. He hopes the sky can hear him; he doesn't want to be eaten. The voice in his head isn't his own, it's his father's voice. It keeps getting louder and louder, surely loud enough for the sky to hear.
He whimpers, curling in on himself. The sky doesn't stop growling at him. If anything, it seems louder. His eyes screwed tight, fuzzy unrecognizable colors and shapes dancing behind his eyelids, just for him, he fears the sky is coming nearer. He isn't ready for the tear of lightning across the sky, it startles him into opening his eyes. His father's voice retreats abruptly.
Everything is, just for a moment, illuminated. Barty doesn't see how the storm is getting forceful enough for the trees to bow their heads. He doesn't see his mother and father arguing at the mouth of the woods; his mother pleading with Bartemius to let her help find little Barty, to get out him out from between his child-sized rock and hard place. He doesn't see that they are drenched, that they have probably been out here just as long as he has. He doesn't see the earthworms wriggling up into the night. What catches the boy's eye are the shadows.
If he believed in luck, he'd count his stars, because his eyes happen upon a particular spill of shadows. The stars are blotted out, buried in the heavens; whisked away before he had the chance to start counting them. He knows luck is just a fanciful thing, so he crawls. He crawls, as though he had never learned to walk, into the shadows.
Here in the shadows, he is safe. The sky can't see. It won't see. It will not search for him, he knows, because no one likes to peer into the dark. It is no warmer, no less of a storm threatening to swallow him whole. The fear, though, is no longer prickling inside him.
He can't fool anyone yet. He hasn't learned which end of his box of tricks goes up. He is still a boy; lost like the special things his mother gave him, the things his father took away as punishment. They were just little things, hardly much at all, Barty doesn't understand why he wasn't allowed to keep them. Tears run hot down his cheeks, quickly cooling as they meet the drip-drops of rainwater leaking from his hair. He is mourning the loss of the special toys, as only a four-year-old can.
He tries to force down the crying. He wants to keep the tears inside, because there are hiccups ripping through his body. They hurt. He doesn't have time, because through the slits of nearly-closed eyes he can see his father's figure coming. His mother's worried cries can be heard from somewhere uncomfortably distant.
"Mother! Mother, please! Don't let him!" He screams out, throat going raw with just the handful of words. He knows this is where he needs to be, in the shadows. He chokes on some hiccups as his father pulls the boy up by his hair.
He can't explain. He hasn't learned everything yet, but he knows that his father is angry. The man's face is twisted with it. Barty doesn't know much, but he knows what that face means. He knows his mother can't save him, knows that 'meaning well' doesn't go far at all. He knows it hurts. The shadows won't take all the hurt away, but he won't be afraid. He knows where he is safe. He shuts his eyes, as his father pulls him along by rain-soaked hair, pretending he can't see anything because he is in shadows. Barty makes a promise to the shadows, promises he will never leave them.