Chapter Eleven:

Light Hearted

~TLH~

"What is wrong with you?" Minerva crawled towards Artemis as he left the church, somehow made angry be the fact that she was still a spider.

Otherwise, all of the night's chaos had died down; the corpses had been sent back downstairs, Trouble had brought Holly back in her home and Opal's blood had been wiped off the floor. Artemis had been left nearly alone, forever lamenting between the two worlds. "You could have set us free and you gave up your only chance!" Frowned the black widow.

"And if I had gone through with it, I would have been just like Opal; a killer. I'd rather be forever trapped."

Minerva sighed, walking back into Artemis's chest. "Don't expect me to be nice with you for the next couple of days!"

"You live in my chest… It can't get any less nice, Minerva…"

The spider fought against the urge to make a bad heart joke to hurt him and show him that it could get worst.

But, even if she had said anything, the corpse had wandered off into his own mind, which was now empty of anyone but himself. It felt so strange to Artemis not to have Orion's constant voice bouncing around inside his skull.

~TLH~

Time can pass very quickly when it does no longer hold any bounds over one's being, but when it did, it was what could heal wounds and make people forget… That was what made Artemis hesitate over the decision he had taken… Would it hurt too much to make them recall?

The boy was standing at the front gate of the Fowl Manor, unsure if his plan was as good as it had been while developing in his mind.

Slowly, he walked up to the front door, gently knocking on the dark wood.

A sleepy-looking Angeline Fowl eventually showed up at the doorstep.

She opened the door and through the darkness, she swore she could have seen her dead son standing in front of her.

Her mouth opened, as if she was about to give a scream, but no sound escaped from her lips.

"Arty?" her voice finally cooperated, thought it had come out softly yet high-pitched.

Artemis stepped closer to her, allowing the lantern by the door to light up his figure. "Hello Mother."

Angeline gasped, seeing what her son had become… His skin had turned a pale shade of blue and was so thin that one could nearly see the bones underneath it. His shirt was open, revealing an empty chest, a small spider and two other wounds, not to mention that there was a deep hole in the skin of his hand.

Despite all of this – which somewhat proved the fact that Artemis was dead – Angeline took a step towards her son and hugged him tightly.

Thought he had very rarely let anyone get into psychical contact with him alive, dead, he was more than willing to accept a hug from his mother, feeling her warm skin against his cold one and the rhythmic rising and falling of her chest.

Still not trusting her voice enough to speak, Angeline simply led Artemis inside of the house and ran upstairs to go get her husband.

Artemis waited, taking in the details of his previous residence.

"Angeline, Artemis is not going to come back, he is dead…" Said Lord Fowl, his voice echoing from the second floor. "It is the fourth night you wake me up for the ghosts in your head." His voice was firm, but that was just an illusion to hide his sadness.

From the first floor, Artemis felt the need to say something in order for his father to believe in his presence. "Hello Father… Nice evening isn't it?"

Artemis Fowl senior nearly tripped in the stairs when he heard the voice. Maybe he was starting to have delusions too… He ran downstairs as fast as he could, ready to confront the mystery.

A pair of dull blue eyes met his. They were the same colour as his, yet did not bear half of their life. "Sorry I didn't come see you earlier I was…" began the young man.

"Artemis?" The father ran to his son, taking his shoulders between his hands as he looked into his eyes. "Artemis!"

"Yes… I know, I am… slight out of shape… Death tends to do that to a person," Artemis met his father's gaze.

"How can you be here if you died?" asked Artemis Senior.

"The woman who took my life, she casted a curse on me, forcing me to remain between the living and the dead."

"The woman who took your life?" Repeated Lord Fowl.

"We were told that you had been injured and killed by a wolf," Angeline joined the two men, her throat suddenly tightening.

"A lie. I was not killed by a wolf… It was all the work of Opal Koboi."

At least, that part made sense; it was Lady Koboi who had told them of how Artemis had died.

"Your wife killed you?" Angeline was slowly starting to put the puzzle pieces back together.

"Wife?" Artemis could not believe the extent of Opal's manipulation. "She stole the ring you gave me. She killed me and left me in the forest."

"But, she had the official wedding papers too…" Said a worried Angeline, realizing that her family had been lied to and robbed of a great deal of their money.

Artemis frowned. "How… Oh, she must have copied my signature… I met her after I… ran away… and she offered me a room at her Motel, if I had only understood her intention I –"

Angeline was now outraged. "Tomorrow morning, first thing, we shall inform the authorities and she will receive a suitable punishment for her acts!"

"There is no need for such a thing Mother, she has… Already faced her punishment," replied Artemis.

"Artemis," Angeline opened her arms wide and entrapped her son and husband into a hug.

The boy allowed himself to relax, resting his head against his mother's chest. "I am sorry I didn't listen to you, gave those girls a chance… My life could have been so different. I was stubborn…"

"No, Arty… We should have let you have a say…" A tear rolled on Angeline's cheek.

Artemis lifted his wounded hand, wiping the tear. It slowly ran down his slim finger. "The past can't be changed… I wasted my future…"

Artemis's mother cried for a long time before letting go the two men of her life.

Artemis stepped away. "I hope in time, you will forgive what I did," he said. "Now that you know what happened of me, I must leave."

"Why must you go?" Angeline took her son's wounded hand. "We just got you back."

"Mother, I can't stay here… I am dead. I don't belong here anymore," He took a step back, his hand still in his mothers, thinking that in fact; he did not belong anywhere. "You must let me go…"

Artemis Senior placed a hand on his son's shoulder. "We forgive you, but please pardon what we did to you too…"

"I have long since. Death gives such great room for thinking…" Artemis turned to the door.

"Goodbye, son," said Lord Fowl, not wanting to let the tears in his eyes win their battle.

Angeline kissed her boy's forehead and let go of his hand. "I love you."

Artemis's lips formed a true, genuine smile; he owed that to his parents. "Goodbye."

~TLH~

The next morning, everything had turned back to the way it was before. Well, everything but the concerned people, who had changed their perspective on life over the course of the last two days.

That morning, Holly's parents had decided to go visit the Roots in order to cancel Holly and Trouble's wedding. They had decided to finally give their adoptive daughter a break. The young girl truly needed some time on her own before being ready for marriage.

"No problem!" Had said Lord Julius when he heard of the cancelation. After what had happened, he was glad to let Holly's parents go back to their nouveaux-riches mansion. They still had another girl who would be willing to marry Trouble, a certain Lady Lilly Frond, a really pretty damsel whose parents were apparently descendants of royalty.

Lady Raine had not objected either… She was still under the shock of having hosted a killer, and worst, of having married their son to that killer in a moment of financial despair.

Soon enough, the town crier had new news to share with everyone. Through the window of the Roots's manor, Holly watched the man announce what had bloomed from her misadventure.

"Hear ye! Hear ye! Koboi and Kelp wedding already over! The corpses who had invaded the earth went back to where they came from, bringing Koboi with them," This was certainly the most entertaining and true news the crier had ever came upon. Holly almost smirked. If only that town crier knew what had happened to Lady Koboi… He would not be so pleased to talk about it, that was for sure. "Trouble Kelp to find a new bride to replace the other ones!" Continued the crier. "In other news, cases of four mysterious disappearances finally explained. Opal Koboi found guilty of the homicide of the four wealthy men, Briar Cudgeon, John Spiro, Giovanni Zito and Artemis Fowl, robbing them of their money afterwards. The woman is also suspected of having killed a butler and his sibling, whose names are yet to be told. She would also be linked with the disappearance of Lady Minerva Paradizo."

As the Roots and Holly's family were still talking with each other, Trouble walked to the main hall of the house, shaking his head as he went by the kitchen.

The hole in the wall had been patched up by a few pieces of wood, but there were still broken plates and glasses scattered on the floor.

Ignoring the state of the room, he went on. He knew where Holly would be…

"Still admiring the rifle, Miss Short?" He laughed softly, walking up to her.

"Please, in view of the circumstances, you can call me Holly," she replied, turning towards him. "Even though we are not to be married, we've been through enough misadventures not to be slightly familiar with one another."

"Seems like we were not meant for each other after all," said Trouble bittersweetly.

"I'm sorry, Trouble, I am sure that you will find the right person for you soon, but that person is not me. Perhaps it will be that girl your parents are speaking of." When she smiled at him, she still felt the phantom sensation of Artemis's cold lips on hers.

"My parents need money, so I guess that a wedding will come again and really soon for me," he frowned. He felt as if he had seen way to many weddings ending up in fiascoes.

"You know, I still feel extremely guilty for what happened… Everything I did caused those incidents to occur."

"Don't be that way... If all of those incidents would not have happened, a "psycopal" serial killer would still be on the loose, hunting her next victim."

And Artemis would still be lying out there in the woods without anybody knowing what happened to him, thought Holly.

A new voice rang from the small mezzanine of the second floor. "Speaking of psycopal," the butler number One climbed down the stairs with a big suitcase in his hands. "What should we do with her belongings?"

Her belongings? Holly's eyebrow went up. She knew that the idea she had in mind was very hypothetical, but there was still a small chance of it to work out… According to plan…