A/N: Hello again! Based on feedback I've been getting, I am very pleased that I've gotten people invested in Erato and North, because honestly, they snuck up on me, too. Unfortunately those two are not in this chapter but they will be back soon. Let me know what you think of this one, it's another one I had to rework a lot while I was taking my long break.
It occurred to him that he could spend the rest of eternity coming up with new questions to ask the death spirits.
Chapter Twenty-Two: Coping Mechanisms
Autumn was approaching.
The plants were still the vibrant green from summer, but it was cooling down and the children had been back in school for a few weeks now. Coffee shops were displaying creative chalk signs promoting autumn flavors, and temporary Halloween stores were beginning to appear.
It was still too early for snow in Burgess.
No, Jack couldn't get away with snow for another month, at least.
That didn't stop him from sending twirling frost across the roof tiles of the Bennett's house. He was killing time, as though he hadn't already put off talking to Jamie for weeks.
He had helped Euterpe and Terpsichore move into their rooms at Mt. Parnassus. They each had a bedroom, and more importantly, large spaces for a studio for each of them. Terpsichore needed help installing mirrors. Euterpe needed a hand moving speakers, monitors, and instruments. Jack had volunteered for each task without hesitation.
He sat in on meetings with mythical beings, meetings he had been skipping out on since they started. He spoke with the Headless Horseman. He accompanied Euterpe on a late night to talk with Pascuala.
Thalia begged him to talk to Anansi with her, too nervous to talk to any of the tricksters by herself. After nearly being tricked into running a month's worth of errands for the spidery man, Anansi reluctantly agreed not to speak of, think of, or dream of making a deal with Pitch. But only if Thalia promised to get Arachne to make him the grand silken robes (one for each day of the week!) he had been wanting for centuries and Jack promised to provide ice for his drinks each day.
Jack negotiated this down to providing ice for Anansi's next gathering and asking Arachne to make him a dressing gown, in exchange for Anansi not making any kind of deal, agreement, compromise, pact, contract, trade, or transaction with Pitch or anyone working on Pitch's behalf. He could talk, dream, or think about it all he wanted.
Any task the Muses needed help with, Jack was suddenly very, very available.
The physical tasks, the negotiations, it all kept him from thinking about Jamie's letter.
Dear Jack,
I'm sorry about what I said to you after Rowan died.
I miss both of you. Bunny thinks we should talk. Can we do that?
Sincerely,
Jamie Bennett
This letter, not unlike the Guardians' reaction to every terrible thing Jack had done in his past with Melpomene, left him baffled.
He had been avoiding the other Guardians, too.
Bunny talking to Jamie for him, Sandy's silent affirmations, Tooth's comforting touch, North insisting again that he would be there if Jack needed anything, all the kindness, it was too much. It was that odd feeling again, that feeling of being handed an instrument that he'd never seen and being expected to play. What was he supposed to do with it all?
In the past, he would have dealt with the letter immediately. But "one more day," turned into a week, then two, then a month.
The Muses had no more tasks for him, all of their focus now on Artemis, who had been much too quiet since the wedding. Jack tried to track down and speak to some other legends on his own, some longshots on a list.
The magical, sly coyote he tracked down in the desert paid him no mind, uninterested in his affairs or that of the boogie man.
Johnny Appleseed heard him out, but insisted that he wouldn't be on Pitch's radar.
Baba Yaga, who seemed to think Jack was precious and actually pinched his cheek when he arrived, told him to let the Muses know that she was still on Artemis' side.
He was running out of options.
So here he was, tracing frost patterns on the roof and watching the sun begin to sink past the horizon.
Maybe he had already waited too long. Maybe there had been but a brief moment when Jamie was starting to believe in him again and then Jack had failed to show up.
Jack couldn't stop thinking about the last time they had spoken, how a grieving and accusatory Jamie had turned away from him, how Jack had attempted to reach out a hand that only passed through the boy. That terrible, terrible feeling of realization.
Belief was a tricky thing, and Jamie had been let down in such a massive way, how did a child get over that?
"Count of three," Jack sighed, glancing at the edge of the roof. "One. Two. Three."
He didn't budge.
This was getting ridiculous.
He had fought how many dark creatures in the past year alone? And he was afraid to knock on a window to see if a child could see him.
One thing at a time. First, he should stand up. That didn't sound so bad, right?
Carefully, for the roof wasn't exactly level, he rose to his feet, balancing with little effort.
Success! Now came the next step, which was… everything else.
Great.
Jack took a deep breath, as though preparing to walk the plank. He counted again.
"One. Two. Three."
He stepped forward, dropping down and landing softly outside of Jamie's window. He had closed his eyes partway down.
His fingers grazed the glass, hot to the touch from the still-technically-summer sun. Instinctively, frost branched out from his fingertips, melting rather quickly.
He opened one eye, slightly. Jamie was at his desk, paying his window no mind as he halfheartedly drew random shapes on a piece of paper.
Jack dared open both eyes.
This was it. Either he knocked and Jamie could hear and see him, or he knocked and nothing would happen.
Jack shook his wrist a few times, trying to eliminate the trembling. He tapped his knuckles to the glass, almost too gently to be heard at all.
Jamie looked up.
Jack swallowed.
For a moment they just watched one another on either side of the window. It seemed that neither of them had really thought about what they would do at this point or how it would feel. Jack's posture had straightened, his strained expression relaxing only slightly with the knowledge that Jamie could see him.
Jamie stood and approached the window. Once it was opened, Jack hesitated.
"Can I come in?" Jack said, his voice soft.
Jamie nodded.
Jack stepped inside, pushing the window closed behind him. He sat at the sill, propping his staff against the ground and bracing himself. Frost began to climb up the staff from his tight grasp. Jamie sat at the corner of his bed, hands on his knees.
Silence. Nervous glances.
Jamie bit his lip. Rowan used to do the same when she was unsure what to say.
Jack wasn't even sure that he had ever really thought about her biting her lip nervously before, but the body language was just the same, and jolted a memory. The same brown eyes cast to the floor.
"I, um. I got your letter," Jack said. "I wasn't sure if, uh, if you'd be able to see me."
Jamie opened his mouth to speak and immediately closed it, glancing away.
Silence again. Jack could hear the low hum of the vacuum cleaner downstairs.
This wasn't going great. But it also wasn't necessarily going badly, so that was, perhaps, a small victory.
"Jamie, I, um," Jack started before hearing the boy sniffle, his face still turned away. Brow furrowed, Jack got to his feet and grabbed the box of tissues from the desk. He walked over to Jamie and set the box down next to him.
"Thanks," Jamie said, his voice cracking as he took a tissue. Jack nodded in acknowledgement.
Jack sat at the foot of the bed, staring at Jamie's desk rather than at him. Perhaps this would be easier if they didn't have to look at each other. Like the Catholics did when they were confessing.
Jack didn't want to see the tears in Jamie's eyes. His own tear ducts had been too trigger-happy lately.
Jamie blew his nose and took a deep breath.
"I'm sorry," he said softly. "For what I said after Rowan… after she died."
Jack swallowed. "You don't have to be. I'm sorry that I couldn't—"
"Bunny said you did everything you could," Jamie said.
Jack's chest ached at the idea of Bunny defending him over this. "When was he here?"
"The night I sent the letter. He said we should talk. B-but it makes me so sad to talk about her," Jamie said, choking slightly on a sob.
Jack wondered what it was that made Bunny talk to Jamie. Had he seen right through Jack's act at the wedding, perhaps? Was it a combination of things?
"It makes me sad, too," Jack said. "I'm not really used to having someone to talk to. I miss talking to her."
He hadn't expected his eyes to well up just by saying that out loud.
It was a very simple statement. An obvious one. Of course, he missed her. He knew that.
He wasn't sure that he had ever said it out loud, however. There was something about saying the exact words.
"So do I," Jamie said, his voice small. "I miss her stories. And it feels silly to miss stories, but… but I miss them."
Jack blinked rapidly and took a deep breath. "It's not silly."
"I didn't realize how many she didn't finish," Jamie said. "She left me that whole box and I'll never know how most of them end."
Jack's brow furrowed and he finally turned back to Jamie, who was still watching the window. It was hard to forget Rowan, terrified and fixated on the idea of her own death, making arrangements.
"Jamie, that's… that's why she wanted you to have them."
"Huh?" Jamie said, wiping at his eyes and turning to face Jack as well.
Jack frowned. "She told me that if anything happened, that I needed to make sure that you got her stories. Because you loved them like she did, and you would finish them."
"What?" Jamie shook his head. "No! No, I can't finish them, they're hers! I'll mess them up!"
Jack instinctively set a hand to Jamie's shoulder, and found himself staring a moment when he realized that he could.
He shook himself out of it.
"No, you won't," Jack said.
"How do you know?" Jamie said.
Both of them had eyes wet with tears, throats sore from sobs that had been carefully hidden away.
"Because Rowan wouldn't let just anyone have her stories. She didn't even let me look at her notes, that was one of our first fights," Jack said, managing to smile slightly.
That notebook was still in his cabin, still tucked beneath his pillow, still unopened.
"But how do I know what to write?" Jamie said.
"You'll find, um, inspiration," Jack said, remembering that he and Rowan had kept everything about the Muses a secret from Jamie. It was too complicated.
"And if I don't?"
"You will," Jack said. "Maybe not now. But it'll come. Right now it's hard because you've got the morbs."
"The what?" Jamie said, actually managing a laugh.
"I'm old, okay? It's old slang. It means you're in a state of melancholy. You know. Depressed, gloomy, dramatic."
"Who said I was being dramatic?" Jamie said.
So, maybe Jack was projecting a little.
"Fine. Depressed, gloomy, in a non-dramatic way," Jack said. "It's hard to do what you love when you're like that."
Jamie nodded. "How do you… stop having the morbs?"
Jack blinked. How did one recover from a case of the morbs?
Since Rowan's death, Jack had tried:
- Not sleeping
- Distracting himself with home improvement
- Faking happiness
- Agonizing over once simple things, like having a conversation with people he actually liked
- Sleeping too much
- Not crying under any circumstances
- Seeking answers from death deities
- Avoiding everyone
- Distracting himself with wedding decorations
- Kissing his ex-girlfriend (who happened to be the personification of tragedy)
- Crying at the slightest suggestion
- Distracting himself with someone else's home improvement
Not only had none of that really worked, but it would be completely inappropriate to suggest most of it to Jamie.
Jack racked his mind for something, anything he could provide the boy as advice. He was over three hundred years old, surely he had picked up something.
"It's talking again, isn't it?" Jamie said. Clearly Jack had been quiet for much too long. "Every time I feel bad, everyone says I have to talk about it. I still feel bad after I talk about it."
"As bad as you did before?" Jack asked.
"Um…" Jamie's brow furrowed, as though he hadn't considered that. "I don't know."
"I think the idea is that you talk about it until it stops hurting to talk about it," Jack said. "Sometimes I talk to my friend, Euterpe, about Rowan. Some things are still hard to talk about. But some things are easier."
It occurred to Jack that this was the first time he had actually referred to Euterpe as his friend. It felt odd to call any of the Muses his friend, and he had gotten very used to the notion that none of them liked him or wanted him around. But that's what she was, wasn't she? A friend?
"Euterpe? Isn't that like, part of your guts?" Jamie asked.
Jack furrowed his brow as he tried to figure out what Jamie meant. Part of your guts?
"Wait, are you thinking of a uterus?" Jack said, managing a laughed.
"Maybe. What's a uterus?"
Jack had to laugh again, this time with slight nerves. Why did that organ have to be the one that Euterpe's name sort of sounded like? "Well, uh, when someone is pregnant, that's where the baby grows."
"Oh," Jamie said, cheeks turning slightly pink at the idea of any baby-growing explanation. "Is, uh, is your friend a Guardian?"
"No, she's a musical spirit. She helps people write songs," Jack said, happy for the subject change but still purposefully holding back a full explanation of the Muses. "We all met properly at the New Year's Eve Ball. So, she at least knew Rowan a little bit."
"And you guys just… talk?" Jamie asked, as though the whole thing was far too simple and there had to be a catch.
"We don't always talk about Rowan," Jack said. "A lot of the time I don't feel up to it, and Euterpe doesn't force it."
Jamie nodded.
Jack wished he had something better to tell Jamie.
"Um. Okay. So, I had an art class over the summer," Jamie said. "And the first day I had to leave the classroom, because I just got so sad that—sorry."
Jamie had stopped to wipe at his eyes again. Jack's brow furrowed at the idea that talking about an art class caused this reaction so quickly.
"It's okay," Jack said.
"I got sad. Because Rowan won't—she won't ever show me art stuff again. And I forgot some of the stuff she did teach me," Jamie explained. "And I wanted to quit the class."
"Did you?"
"No. My mom's been worried. A-and she thought the class would help me. And I—I didn't want to disappoint her," Jamie said, staring hard at the ground as the tears continued.
"Were you sad about Rowan the whole time?" Jack asked.
"The first few times. It… I guess it got easier," Jamie said. "But I still kept thinking that she would have been a better teacher."
"Rowan was still a student too, you know," Jack pointed out.
"It felt like she knew everything a—about it," Jamie said, grabbing another tissue. "I guess that's silly to think."
"She was really good at what she did," Jack nodded, managing to smile softly at memories of hovering over her shoulder as she sketched. She always shooed him away eventually, insisting she couldn't work with him watching her like that. But there had been a handful of times he had been allowed to watch for much longer, perhaps because she was so engrossed in her work that she hadn't realized he was watching. "And she had a lot of professors she was still learning from. Rowan wasn't your only shot at learning about art, if that's something you care about."
They sat in silence for a moment, as Jamie blew his nose, wiped his eyes, and contemplated what Jack said.
"Do you think she's sad? That she can't draw anymore?"
It seemed like something only a child would ask about the afterlife. Jack certainly hadn't considered it when he spoke with Barron Samedi. Were there hobbies in the afterlife? Could Rowan be drawing still, drawing pictures the living would never see?
It occurred to him that he could spend the rest of eternity coming up with new questions to ask the death spirits.
They would probably not appreciate that.
"She's not sad," Jack said. "I know that much."
"How?"
"I spoke to one of the death spirits—"
"Aren't they bad?"
"No. Death comes for everyone. It's neutral," Jack said. He felt awkward explaining the concept to a child, unsure if Jamie's experiences with death were enough to appreciate the nuance. "They don't cause anyone's death. They just go back and forth between this life and the afterlife. I went to one and asked about Rowan, if they had seen her and how she was doing."
"And she's not sad?" Jamie said.
Jack forced a smile, hoping to show Jamie some comfort and hide his own bitterness. "She's happy. She worries about everyone still here. But she's happy. They said most people there are."
Jamie nodded. "So it's nice there?"
"Apparently so nice you'd never want to leave," Jack said.
"That… actually makes me feel a lot better," Jamie said. "That she's not sad. And that my dad's probably not sad."
"Good," Jack said, wishing that he felt the same. Jamie was far more virtuous than Jack, this seemed clear. "I'm glad it helped."
"So, the talking thing actually does kind of work, huh?"
Jack kept his same, forced smile, still not feeling great himself. "Sure does."
"Thanks," Jamie said. "I'm glad we're friends again."
"Yeah?" Jack said, realizing he was surprised at Jamie actually confirming that he considered Jack a friend once more. Jack had assumed he would have to be on his best behavior to earn that title again, and here it was, just handed right back. "I am too."
At least, he should be glad.
Shouldn't he have to work harder to make this up to Jamie?
He could feel himself beginning to sink into the same spiral that he found himself in whenever he started thinking too much about the kindness the Guardians were showing him. Why were they doing that? Why were they being kind? Why did they forgive him? Why did they insist he did nothing wrong? Why didn't this add up?
"Are you okay?" Jamie asked and Jack realized his smile had faltered.
"Yeah. Yeah, it's just been a hard year," Jack said. "And I wasn't expecting you to ever be able to see me or talk to me again."
"I never really stopped believing," Jamie said. "I guess I was just so sad that I didn't want to see you. But you didn't do anything wrong."
Jack wanted to say that it didn't feel that way, but supposed that trying to convince your first believer that you actually were, in many indirect ways, responsible for his cousin's death was a bad idea.
So instead, he pulled himself to his feet and said, "I understand why you felt that way."
"I thought maybe you were mad, and that's why you didn't answer my letter right away," Jamie said.
Jack frowned. He had hoped that the time he had taken to respond wouldn't come up. "I wasn't mad. I was, um, afraid I would show up and make things worse. Or I wouldn't know what to say."
"Well, I don't think you made things worse. And I'm glad we talked like Bunny said," Jamie said. "But it is kind of… annoying, I guess. That he was right."
"It's always annoying when Bunny's right, and more people should say it," Jack agreed, happy to latch on something that wasn't Jamie's kind sentiments about him. It still felt so undeserved.
This visit, while nowhere near as dramatic as revealing his history with Melpomene, had exhausted him just the same.
Was his age showing or something?
"Anyway," said Jack, "I um… I should get going."
"Oh. Uh, okay. You'll be around for winter again, though, right?" Jamie asked. "The guys were wondering."
"Yeah, absolutely," Jack said as he opened the window. Making plans for winter felt so normal. As though things were okay. "See you around, Jamie."
Jamie approached Jack before he could properly step atop the windowsill and pulled Jack into a hug. Much like the first time, Jack was surprised.
Jamie had gotten taller. How had Jack missed that before?
He gently hugged the boy back and forced a smile again when Jamie let him go.
"Bye, Jack," said Jamie. "Thanks for coming to see me."
Jack simply nodded, pulling open the window and flying off, allowing his smile to falter once he was out of the boy's line of vision.
Once again, things had gone as well as Jack could have hoped for them to go.
Once again, he was shown kindness.
Once again, he was utterly, utterly confused.