"A Strange Bond"
Note: TF brings up the subject of the journals, and Alpha invites him over. She summarizes what she's read so far, and TF takes a huge step forward in his recovery. Feels alert!
"Chapter 18: Letting Go"
March 10th
After letting the subject of the journals rest for two more days, Tooth Fairy grew impatient and called Alpha to see where she stood on the matter.
"Hey, Roy. You're up earlier than usual." It was eleven in the morning.
"Hey, Alpha. Yeah, I couldn't sleep. Listen, I was wondering if you're free to look at something." Tooth Fairy drummed his fingers on a small notebook he had bought the day before.
"Sure," Alpha sounded like she was rummaging around in her cabinets, possibly for an early lunch. "I'm at home, so you can just go ahead and bring it on over if ye want."
"Uhh..." Tooth Fairy licked his lips. "Actually, I can't. You have them."
The clattering of crockery instantly stopped. "...Oh."
Tooth Fairy sat on his new couch; the old one was long overdue to be replaced, and after absorbing a day's worth of fever sweat it was time. Remembering how patient she had been with him on many occasions, he didn't want to push her, but he also didn't want their mutual promise to be used in some kind of power play. Would she really put off reading them herself to keep him from reading them? He doubted it, but he already knew how protective she was of him, because he was just as protective of her. "We don't have to do it today. We don't even have to do it tomorrow, or the next day. But I do have some questions, if that's okay."
"Aye," Alpha found her voice again. "No, we can do it today. I just needed a break from them myself."
"Okay. You sure this is a good time?" He put his shoes on.
Alpha closed a cabinet and was heard running the water. "Today's good. I don't want to jinx myself, but things are slowing down again. Have ye eaten? Pearl dropped off some homemade bagels this morning."
Tooth Fairy brightened; he liked bagels. Knowing that they didn't really have much in the way of dairy products down there due to the lack of cows, he offered, "Cool, I'll bring the cream cheese."
"All right, I'll see ye in a bit."
Alpha didn't own a toaster, and she hoped he wouldn't mind cold bagels. The small chest of journals sat underneath her table, and her eyes kept straying in that direction as she waited for Tooth Fairy to show up. I wish I hadn't told him about them. I should have known that he'd never let it be. Hell, I wish we hadn't found these in the first place...
Someone knocked at the door while she was slicing the bagels, and she was privately glad that she had chosen to do it on a cutting board, rather than in her hand, because the way she jumped she probably would have cut herself. "It's open."
Tooth Fairy came in with a small tub of cream cheese, which he set down on the table as she came over to greet him. He also had a notebook and pen in his other hand, which he totally forgot about when she kissed him.
"What's the notebook for?" she asked.
"Huh? Oh! Tell ya later," He winked and put the notebook and pen down as well, and his attention was drawn to the chest, which was just visible from where he stood. His smile was quickly replaced by a look of surprise. "You brought them here? When?"
Alpha could see that he half suspected her of breaking her promise, and she reassured him. "Yesterday. I didn't read them. I just thought this would be more convenient. And more private, because I don't know how it's goin' tae go..."
He nodded, feeling guilty for having doubted her. "Oh. And you won't read them when I'm not here, right?" He still had to ask.
Again, Alpha shook her head. "You'll just have to trust me. I promised. If it means someone's safety, I will absolutely break a promise, but when I give my word I try to keep it."
Someone's safety. That could mean so many things. But he had no concrete reasons to disbelieve her. "Sorry, I didn't mean to imply anything..."
"No, I'd probably ask you the same thing if our positions were switched." Alpha smiled tiredly; she hadn't slept well, either. "But that's for later. How 'bout some breakfast?"
"Love some," he smiled, glad that he hadn't gone too far.
"I'm afraid I don't have a toaster..." Alpha plated their bagels and brought them over to the table. "I have apple butter, if you want some."
"Ooh, sure!"
They fixed their bagels to their liking, and Tooth Fairy tapped the cover of the notebook with his index finger. "So, I had an idea, if you wanna hear it."
"'Course I do. What's your idea?" Alpha leaned forward to hear.
"Well, first I gotta ask, did you write down any of what you read so far?" he asked, starting in on his bagel. The tart sweetness of the apple butter made for a nice contrast with the cream cheese, and even though he was already thinking that he would have to brush his teeth and wondering if she would think it was weird if he excused himself to do that, for now he was enjoying himself.
She swallowed a bite of her bagel and nodded, wiping her mouth. "Aye. Not that there was much worth writing down, aside from a few pointers here and there. We're keeping the currency system for now, such as it is. There's more resources to go around, now that The Founders aren't here to waste so much of it, so we're actually doing quite well in that respect. Mother Nature deserves a lot of the credit; our crops are doing better than they ever have before, so a lot of us are canning like mad. I have the notes I took in the chest, but they're on loose leaf paper. You can copy them down, if ye want."
Tooth Fairy shook his head. "Nahhh, why make extra work for ourselves? We can just stick what you have in the front cover and go from there, if that's okay. But as you probably guessed, I thought we could keep track of any useful information in here."
"That's a fine idea. We'll do that, then."
"Okay." He nodded. Then, hesitating, he lowered his voice. "Uh...have you written down any of the other stuff?"
Alpha put down her half-eaten bagel and had a sip of water. "No...I didn't see much point. It's not useful to The Hollow, and who would want tae read this tripe?"
"You mean besides us?" he polished off half of his bagel and started in on the other half.
"Right...Besides, it's not something I'm likely to forget anytime soon," Alpha had about a quarter of her bagel left, but she wasn't hungry anymore. "Ye want the rest?"
He shook his head. "No thanks, I'm fine with this. Trying to cut back. And you can keep the cream cheese, if you want. I have another container in my fridge."
"Are ye sure?"
"Yeah, save me the trouble of breakin' my back carrying it home." he grinned.
"Now you're just being cute," She laughed. He was able to carry at least one passenger halfway around the world without breaking a sweat. "Thanks."
"Uh-huh," he nodded, then got to his feet when she did and picked up his own plate when she reached for it. "Nah, I got it. Lemme help ya wash up."
"Always a gentleman."
He took her hand and kissed it, then waggled his eyebrows. "Not always."
"Fresh!" She pretended like she was going to slap his cheek, pulling it at the last second so that it was only a light pat, and they laughed as they got to work.
Alpha put the remainder of her bagel and the cream cheese in her tiny office fridge for later, and they took care of the dishes in short order; she washed them, and he dried them and put them away. Then she reluctantly focused on the reason he came. "I guess ye want to get started."
He brushed his hand along her back as he passed her, but he knew better than to pull out her chair for her. She liked it when he opened doors for her, but had seemed a little bit confused when he'd done that. Perhaps no one had ever done it for her before, and she hadn't known why he was doing it. Maybe it just wasn't done here. Either way, although she had thanked him at the time, he hadn't done it again. "Yeah, if that's okay."
Alpha nodded, moving her chair so that she was sitting beside him. "All right...I'm about half-way through the third one."
"How many are there altogether?"
"Thirteen."
He mildly raised his eyebrows and rested an arm on the table as he turned to face her fully. "That's...wonderfully creepy..."
"Well, welcome to The Hollow."
"Heh."
Alpha mirrored his posture and continued, "No doubt there'd have been more if Viola was consistent with her entries. There are large gaps, so who can say what happened in between? She also did a lot of patting herself on the back. Avery was bad enough, but he mostly just did as she told him."
"Uh-huh..." Tooth Fairy couldn't help but feel angry at the mention of their names, and the dull purple glow of his hands drew their eyes downwards. Simple annoyance never caused this reaction in a Fairy, or in someone who possessed Fairy magic for whatever reason; it was always provoked by seething anger, and was completely involuntary. "Uh...just ignore that, it's fine."
She didn't ignore it, but she didn't comment on it either. She reached her hand across the table and laid it on top of his, and as she continued to speak the glow slowly faded. "Well, you know about Halloween already. I told you about what they had us do and why. So...we're not revealing ourselves to the humans anymore. Well...not on purpose, anyway."
"You're not?" He was privately glad to hear that. Sometimes secrecy was best.
"No...too dangerous. For us, and for them." She took her hand back, and had a sip from her glass. "So...I'll just sum it all up, shall I?"
"Okay," Tooth Fairy began to play with his dental floss, slowly threading it between his finger and thumb over and over instead of winding it.
Alpha took a breath to steel herself and went down her mental checklist. "They got bored a lot. And when they got bored, they liked to mess with us. They had quite the rumor mill going early on. Pitting one friend against another...driving apart entire families if they were in the mood for a change. Mind you, I still haven't shown up in the journals yet, so I didn't witness any of what I read about. But it was still going on after I got here, at least with the newbies. I started warnin' newcomers when they arrived, and The Founders didn't like that."
"What did they do?" he asked gently.
"Nothin' to me," She looked away, and after a moment she continued, "I don't have any confirmation o' this, mind ye...but thinkin' back, the ones I gave a heads-up to were usually among those who disappeared on Halloween Night. There was always a snide little comment to me from one sibling or the other, and I thought they were just bein'...well, them. Now I think they sent 'em up to die, just tae punish me...and I just didn't put two and two together."
"Jeez..." he whispered, appalled. "Alpha, that wasn't your fault."
"Wasn't it?" She looked up at him.
"No..."
She wasn't convinced, but she didn't argue with him. She had another sip of water and went on. "They also wanted to keep the Vampire population from getting too large. Remember that crate of wooden stakes from the tape?"
Tooth Fairy could feel himself getting pale. "That explains why Robert was so upset when he found 'em..."
She nodded. "Several close friends of his have simply turned up missing. We don't know for sure what happened to them, but I think it's a pretty safe bet."
"Man...the poor guy..." Tooth Fairy shook his head. Robert was becoming more of a sympathetic figure to him by now, as annoying as he was.
"Do ye know what this place really was, other than a way to get back at Santa?" Alpha's own hands had begun to glow now, and when he shook his head, she told him. "The Hollow was a terrarium. We were the animals, and we were here for their amusement. This was a psychopath's playground, and we were the toys."
Tooth Fairy lowered his forehead to his hand, then rubbed his face. He knew this was painful for her to talk about. It was painful for him to hear it, but he listened anyway. This was what he had signed up for.
Alpha lightly touched his shoulder. "Roy? I'm sorry...Should I stop?"
He shook his head and lowered his hand. "I'm here to listen, remember?" Then, seeing that she was still skeptical, he nodded. "I can take it."
She sighed through her nose. "That was it, actually...It's all just more of the same."
Except for the beginning, He thought. He looked down at the chest, then back up at her. He was ready. "Can I see it now?"
"The first journal?" Alpha blinked; she hadn't expected him to ask that right then. Maybe at some point, but not so soon.
"I need to know what happened, Alpha. I have to know. Not just what I put together, but what happened."
Alpha put her foot on top of the chest in a preemptive move to keep him from opening it, something he noticed but didn't mention, and she tried one last time to shield him from it. "Listen, Roy...I know we made promise, and I mean to keep it. Just hear me out first."
He turned this over in his mind, and it seemed reasonable. "I'm listening."
Alpha reached out and took both his hands in hers, wanting to make sure he knew how serious this was. "As you probably guessed, the first journal starts with The Founders meeting your sister. Now, skipping ahead to what they did to her...I read through it, and when I got to the end of it I was sick. She described everything. From what they did to how it felt to them when they did it. And if you read that...I'm telling you...it's goin' tae set you way back. It won't bring ye peace. All it can do is hurt ye."
Tooth Fairy's mind flashed back to the vision he had the first time he touched one of the mushrooms in a Fairy Ring upon arrival, and a horrifying epiphany came to him. Had Brinna been showing him the moment of her death? Had she been trying to let him know that she was still there, and that she was still in pain?
"-all right? Roy? Roy!"
Alpha's voice filtered through the buzzing in his head, and he felt her hands take gentle hold of his face. He blinked a few times, coming back to reality, and he realized that he'd forgotten to breathe. "Yeah...no, I don't...I don't need to read that part."
He reached up and gently removed her hands, but kissed one of them so that she wouldn't get the wrong idea and think he was rejecting her comfort.
"No...you really don't."
Tooth Fairy took a deep breath and drank some water to steady himself. If he got this upset just from hearing the Reader's Digest version of his sister's death, sans the gory details, he knew he wouldn't be able to read through the rest of it. That didn't mean he didn't want to know, though, and he asked, "What about the stuff in between? Could you, uh...maybe, sum it up for me?"
"Aye, I can do that," Alpha nodded. "Well...The Hollow used to have an entrance on the surface, which The Founders later sealed. Before your sister met The Founders, this used to be her secret place to go when she wanted to be on her own."
"She never even told me she had a place like that..." he murmured, feeling rather hurt by that.
"We all have our secrets," Alpha told him, fingering the old locket around her neck. "I'm sure you probably had a few secrets from her."
"I can't think of any," he shook his head. "but I guess it doesn't matter now. Go on..."
Alpha took a moment to make sure she had the details straight in her mind. "All right...Now, at the meeting, the one where The Founders were sentenced, Viola lied to you."
That piqued his interest. "What about?"
Alpha took his hand and gave it a squeeze. "That bit where she said your sister told them you only cared about yourself. Brinna never said that. Viola just wanted to hurt you."
His breath whooshed out of his lungs as if she had punched him in the stomach, but a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, and he didn't realize he was squeezing her hand too hard until her forehead creased and she said in a strained voice, "Easy, luv. I know I've got another, but..."
"Oh, sorry," he kissed her knuckles and willed his heart to slow down. "Sorry, I'm okay. What else?"
Alpha kept her grip on his hand, as he hadn't released hers and seemed to need this, and she resumed her account of Brinna's story. "She met them on the road one day, months after they were denied employment in Santa's workshop. Asked them what their trouble was. And they fed her some sob story about having nowhere to go. So, she showed them her place. And when they saw it, they decided that they wanted it, and that they could turn this place into...well, you know that part already."
He nodded, a little misty now, but doing well so far. "That's something she'd do...She was always bringing home stray cats, injured baby birds...Used to drive our parents crazy..."
"Aye..." Alpha whispered. "You all right?"
He bobbed his head once, but his lips tightened. This was something he needed, but it was still hard for him to swallow, and when he couldn't find his voice he nodded again, urging her to finish the story.
"Well...you came up in conversation, and...this next part might be harder for ye than the rest," She warned him, then when he nodded to show his consent she brought the story to a close. "Brinna told them about her brother...the one she had wronged. Her words, not mine. She told them that she was waiting here for your anger to pass. She had been here for about a month, just biding her time, and she thought...maybe...it was time to try to speak with you again. She was going to leave. And she told them this...and they didn't like it. They had her blessing to stay here, but...they wanted more. And when she turned to leave...that's when it happened, luv."
Tooth Fairy closed his eyes, and a tear fell from each one to stain the front of his vest. He felt Alpha's hands cradle his face, and he blindly pulled her into a hug. "I need one of these..."
Alpha gathered him close and kissed the side of his head. "I've got ye...And I think that's enough for today. I'm sorry..."
"I'm not. It was bad enough, knowing where our fight ended up..." He sighed, feeling the guilt and bitterness drain out of him. "...but I thought she hated me. And I never got to say goodbye. I never got to say 'I'm sorry'...to take it all back, everything I said, but...we would have made up. We would have been all right. If it just wasn't for them. But that was them...not me..."
Alpha smiled, cheering him on in her head. This was what he needed to do. "Then say it."
"Say what?"
"You know."
He thought about it. He thought long and hard. And then it clicked, and he was sobbing. "It...it w-wasn't...It wasn't my fault!"
"That's right..." Alpha rocked him as he had done for her, "That's right, luv...It wasn't your fault. Let it out, it's all right..."
So, he did.
His sister had forgiven him. And, finally, he could forgive himself.
Note: Okay, I honestly did not plan for TF to cry at the end of this chapter! But it's more relief than grief this time around. Given the info he was getting, I just couldn't find a way to swing it where he ended up all stoic. I approached his reaction several different ways that didn't involve him crying, but they just didn't feel organic to me. Alpha's getting the sucker punch next chapter, and then they come to a decision. Hope you enjoyed it!