Chapter 8
A lump of wood, and beside it, arranged neatly on his bed, a collection of carving tools.
"Whenever someone creates something with all of their heart, that creation is given a soul."
He wasn't an artisan. He had never tried making anything, not like this. He knew how it was done though. Baron could remember sitting on the shelf and watching his maker turn his hand to other things – gifts, commissions, every day pieces to sell in the shop. The gentleman cat swallowed, took off his hat and coat, and stared at the block for a while before he finally picked up a mallet and chisel.
"I don't know what I'm doing," he whispered to himself. "But I've got to try. I need Haru."
Wood chips fell away, a tick form started to take shape, but it wasn't Haru. It was rough, mostly formless, he would have to go deeper into the wood before he found the woman he was trying to bring back from the dead.
Easter Saturday, he worked at that wood until he couldn't see straight. He curled up around the base of the statue, unfinished, and cried himself to sleep, crying all the more as he remembered that she didn't want him to cry.
When he woke, aching and tired to the sound of the very earliest birdsong, it was still dark outside. He got up anyway; he needed Haru – her face, her smile, he way of knowing exactly what to say just when it needed to be said.
He must have worked on the wood as he slept; it was more finished than he remembered. It still wasn't done, but it was getting closer. He chose a finer chisel and summoned the already painful memory of Haru's smiling face. He had to bring her back, before the memories hurt so much that he started to wish that he had never even met the girl.
"I couldn't, and wouldn't, ask you to change either – being a human can be so ridiculously painful sometimes, not to mention hard."
He knew now. He had spent a day in the human world, and the pain he felt was sufficient to drown out all the happy memories he had.
Baron sniffed and fought the tears, for her sake, as he started to sand her smooth. Then the paint. He looked down at her beautiful, light form, and longed for her braid to be soft, her eyes to be lit with that inner glow, and that smile to be more than just his carving. The sun went down, and he cried himself to sleep again. If she didn't wake, he didn't know what he would do – he wouldn't be able to live with the sight of her, forever frozen as wood, any more than he thought he would be able to survive long with the knowledge that she was truly dead.
She mustn't be dead.