How many bad things are allowed to happen in one, short life? Pitch stood there in the corner of Cally's room and watched as Tyler climbed in through the window in the middle of the night. Cally was fast asleep and had long since stopped fearing such intrusions in her room. Pitch tried to move to help her as Tyler approached her bed. The boy was grown now, more muscle than not, shaggy hair and an angry face. Life had not been kind to the boy.
"Do you want to go through this again, boy?" Pitch demanded taking a step forward. Tyler didn't look up when he spoke. Pitch took another step and found that he couldn't move any closer. Pitch looked down at his waist and found a thick, white, chain encompassed him. Pitch pulled at it but it didn't budge. "What is this?" Pitch demanded. The crescent moon outside whispered something Pitch didn't want to hear. "Why does this have to happen?" Pitch demanded. Cally was awake now, staring up at Tyler as he covered her mouth with his hand. Pitch could feel Cally's fear like a knife in his chest as he drew an arrow across his bow. Suddenly there were those odd white chains holding his hands back. The bow and arrow fell as his hands were drawn against him.
"You have ruined my life!" Tyler snarled at Cally who was trapped beneath him. "You've been haunting me! You and that THING…" Cally pushed at him, trying to get him off of herself. Pitch roared in anger because there was nothing he could do but watch. Tyler shook Cally and her head went back and forth against her pillows. When Cally made to scream, Tyler took a pillow and pressed it against her face. Cally tried, but she couldn't pry his hands off of her and her fingers clawed uselessly against the pillow.
"SHUT UP!" He said pressing harder. "Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!"
Tyler didn't stop taking his anger out on Cally. Not even when she stopped fighting. Not even when she went limp. Not even when Tyler removed the pillow and shook her again and her head just flopped on her neck.
When Tyler realized what he had done, he lifted her against the headboard to get a better look at her. When her eyes stayed closed he shook her hard against the wood and there was a dull thud as her skull connected with the sharp edge, he slowly stood from Cally and stared.
Pitch screamed at Tyler and at Cally and at the Man in the Moon. He screamed because it wasn't fair that this had happened to her. It wasn't fair that it had happened to him.
"Cally?" Tyler whispered into the dark. "Oh god…Cally?" He touched her shoulder.
"Don't you dare touch her!" Pitch roared at the boy's deaf ears. The boy didn't deserve to touch her. Once Tyler realized what he had done he hurried to leave. As soon as the filth had fled, the chains around Pitch dissolved into the moonlight cast across the floor.
Pitch just looked at Cally's limp form from his place in her shadows. He couldn't believe that she was…
"Cally," Pitch said walking over to her bed. She didn't stir when he approached. He reached out and touched her cheek, really touched it. She didn't wake up, or smile, or look at him. Her eyes were closed as if she were asleep. Pitch sat at the edge of her bed and put his head in his hands. What was he going to do now?
As if as an answer, the moonlight that shone in through Cally's open window seemed to bend. It bent up and onto her bed, encasing her in its soft, silvery light. Pitch stood and watched in awe as her hair, once brown and copper and dark, seemed to absorb the moonlight and turned as silver as the glow. Her skin became almost translucent as the glimmer seeped into her. Pitch stood back as her chest seemed to fill with the light.
Suddenly the light was gone except for a dull glow that clung to Cally's skin and hair. Her chest rose and fell again, as if she were truly asleep. Pitch looked out at the moon and then back at the girl, suddenly so much more than a girl, as she slowly breathed in and out.
"Cally?" Pitch ventured as he stepped closer again. Her eyes opened slowly, but they opened. She looked at him with wide, bright eyes the color of moonlight and a smile stole across her face.
"Pitch?" She said eyes as wide as the moon outside her window. "Oh my…" She smiled wider. "It's really you!" Cally sat up on her knees in excitement.
"You can see me now." Pitch said simply, not sure if she understood or knew what had happened here tonight. Cally laughed and her hair curled in silvery delight.
"You have shark teeth!" She giggled. Pitch frowned at her. "And spiky hair!" She bounced in her delight. "And wonderful eyes!" She stood next to him then, wondering at how tall he was.
"Cally," Pitch tried to interject.
"I can't believe I can actually see you!" She spun around in a happy little circle and her hair curled tighter and bounced around her head in a bright silvery halo.
"Cally…" Pitch tried again.
"You're so much taller than I thought." She looked him up and down. "Can I touch you?" She wondered reaching out. Her hands connected with his very solid chest and she all but cried out in her joy as she threw her arms around him. Pitch was taken aback at the contact, unsure of what to do. Cally looked up at him, concerned.
"I'm sorry." She said stepping back, her hair falling down to shoulder length waves. Her eyes watched his face. They were as bright and as round as the full moon, still watching from the window.
"Cally, do you remember what happened?" Pitch asked waving his hand obscurely at her bed behind her. She looked at the bed and tipped her head chasing the memory.
"Sort of?" She asked looking back at Pitch. "Aren't you happy that I can see you?" She asked, changing the subject.
"You need to remember." Pitch said and Cally turned from him again and stared at her bed, her hair long, silver, and kinked in anger.
"I…" She waited for a moment. "I don't think I want to remember." Her anger smoothed out as she watched the bed sheets and noticed the blood. She raised a hand to the back of her head and examined her pale fingers in the moonlight. They showed no sign of injury, but somehow she knew there had been something there before.
Cally turned her face to the window then and quickly moved so that she stood on the ledge. Pitch knew that look, the moon had something to say to her.
"Can you hear him?" She asked over her shoulder, her hair waved in wonder and floated out around her as if she were suspended in water or time.
"I can." Pitch said simply.
"He says I'm…" She frowned and her hair drooped slightly. "He says I died." Cally turned to Pitch again. "I died didn't I?" Pitch could only nod. Cally turned her face back to the Man in the Moon.
"He says that we can't stay here. That I need to find the Pole?" Cally said and then she frowned.
"What?" Pitch asked. He hadn't heard the last comment.
"He said I'm his daughter?" Cally said curiously. "Daughter of the moon's soul." She looked at her hands, which were faintly glowing in the light. "Do you believe in such a thing?" Cally asked, perplexed. Pitch stepped up next to her.
"I do now." He put his arm around her waist and Cally smiled as he took them away from her room, her old life, and the terrible thing that had happened.
Tonight a life had ended, and a new one had begun.