Chapter 4
Days continued passing quickly. The soon turned to weeks and weeks turned to months. Once a month, Ailith would insist that we travel. We didn't visit anyone in particular. Instead, we would wander around, searching for new memories. One time, Ailith brought back a puppet making kit. It gave me the creeps and brought back bad memories, but it made Ailith happy and soon we were both making puppets and bending them to our wills. I made a Sebastian and Pluto, both dog and man, and had him chase Sebastian around. It amused me, so the bad memories stayed away. Each day, we found something new to do, even doing laundry was less of a mundane task when Ailith helped. Not long after visiting Lizzy, I gave Ailith her own room. She painted it black with silver dots like stars. Then she filled it with things from her memories. From her sword, to her collection of journals, and even some strange helmet for an inhuman head, she had it all. She spent some days reading her journals and would sometimes tell stories from them about her previous lives. Never a dull moment in the Phantomhive manor.
December 14, I awoke to a slice of cake and a small box on the nightstand beside my bed. The cake was delicious. The box came with a card. "Happy 14th birthday, Ciel. Hope this makes you smile. Inside was a picture of me and Lizzy. Underneath was a letter, addressed to me and covered in scorch marks. I opened it. I could tell from the handwriting, it was from Lizzy.
Dear Ciel,
Happy Birthday! Today would be your fourteenth birthday here. Is it the same in heaven? Mother suggested I write this. She said that if I wrote it and burned it, it would reach you in heaven. I hope she's right. I miss you so much, but I know you must be happy. You've been so sad since your parents died, now you get to be with them. I could never take that away from you. Things here have changed, a lot. Prince Soma bought your manor and had it restored. He takes good care of it. He calls us to visit with him frequently. Your servants now serve him, except Sebastian. No one knows what happened to him. Did he die with you? Or is he alive, ashamed he couldn't save you. I hope neither is true and he just found another master. After all, Prince Soma already has Agni. He doesn't need a second butler. I wish I could know for sure if you are going to get this letter. It doesn't matter. I'll just have to believe you will. I miss you. I love you. Happy birthday.
With all my heart and love,
Lizzy
The letter leaves me feeling empty. I don't know how Ailith got it, but I'm glad she did. Now I know, Lizzy hasn't forgotten me yet. This is good news, even if it leaves me hollow feeling. I climb out of bed and slip on the bluest robe I have. I move down the hall to Ailith's room, finding a note on the door. "Meet me outside, I have a surprise for you." I can't help wondering 'What now?' It's cold outside, but my robe is warm. It must have snowed in the night, for a thick white blanket covered the ground. I pulled on my shoes and followed a pair of footprints into the white. I was almost upon the creature before I saw it. I only knew it was there due to its soft nickering and black eyes. "Beautiful, isn't she?" I jumped. I hadn't heard her approach."
"Is that what I think it is?"
"A unicorn. They like the snow. There are more." She gestured to a moving mass standing a few yards ahead of us.
"Is this your surprise."
"Yep. There aren't any horses here because they have souls. Unicorns are soulless creatures, thus, they ended up here when they died. You can have one today."
"I get, a pet, UNICORN?"
"Yep. Stand here for a minute. Here take this." She hands me a chunk of raw meat. "When one approaches you, feed it the meat. It will form a bond with you and you will become its eternal master." Then she pulled out a chunk of meat of her own. "Watch." She held the meat out and a hundred sets of eyes turned to face her. Of those hundred, three stepped away from the group to sniff at her. Of those three, only one approached her and allowed her to feed it her meat chunk. As soon as the meat was gone, the unicorn whinnied softly and brushed its long nose against the side of her face. She reached up and pet it gently. "Your turn."
I held out my meat chunk cautiously. Of the hundred, only one stepped away from the group. It approached me and sniffed at my outstretched hand. Suddenly, it turned and fled, calling the rest of the group to follow. "Rejected by a unicorn, that is a new low for me." I started to turn and walk away.
"Ciel, wait. Look." Ailith was pointing at a black shape, standing out against the snow. The shape started to approach me confidently. Ailith looked dumbstruck. I held out the meat and the dark unicorn took it without so much as a second thought. Up close, I could see its sharp white teeth. When it was done eating, it lowered its head, brushing it against my own. "Ciel, that's amazing."
"What is."
"The black unicorn is the male, and leader of the herd. And he chose you." The dark unicorn lifted its head and let loose a tremendous neigh. The other unicorns came back, and I was quickly enveloped in a sea of warm white bodies. When the sea receded, the dark unicorn was all that was left standing at my right hand. "What will you call him?" I took a moment o think it over.
"His name will be…" I smiled as the perfect name came to me, as if whispered by the horse himself, "Demon."
Ailith called her unicorn Marshmallow. We lead them to the manor where Ailith had two bridles waiting, minus the bit. "We won't need those, they will understand what we wish of them. Now, they will be completely obedient, but they are friends and should be treated as such, meaning, be kind to them."
"Ok, I get it."
"Good. The better you are to him, the stronger your bond will grow and the better he will be to you." Once the bridles were on, Ailith had us let them loose. "They should stay with their herd for the winter. Especially Demon. His herd needs its leader. They will come back in the spring and be with us from then on. Demon will leave his herd with a new leader when time comes."
"Ok. You know, they are not as girly as legend makes them seem. I never would have thought them carnivorous."
"As gentle as they were to people, humans were afraid of them. They were hunted to extinction. Then the stories of them begun to mock them. I doubt there is an end to human idiocy. " It took me a minute to process the insult.
"Hey! I'm human!"
"I don't mean anyone in particular. Just humans as a whole. There aren't enough smart people to outweigh the idiots in the world. That's all. Please take no offense. No insult was directed at you."
"Fine. You can insult anyone else. Except Elizabeth. She's off limits." No one is allowed to insult my Lizzy.
"Of course. I would never insult anyone you love," she paused, thinking, "on purpose." At this, she smiles, as if she has just told a joke. I scowl at her.
The rest of winter passed without incident. We kept ourselves amused in every way we could think of, including a snowball fight in which many of our neighbors got caught in the crossfire. Most that did ended up joining, and our armies grew. The battle lasted all day and those that joined, mostly other children, walked away freezing but smiling. Spring came and our unicorns came back to us. We began training them and I was surprised they needed very little, despite what Ailith had said. We mostly taught them to understand what we wished based on what we did. Little actions signaling this and that. Then Ailith taught me to ride. We used blankets instead of saddles because "They don't like them." It was strange, but nice, being so closely bonded to them. Of course, they were a little work to take care of, grooming and feeding. Ailith taught me how to clean their stable stalls by turning the memory of a dirty stall into that of a clean one. This was how we cleaned everything around the manor, leaving more leisure time to enjoy ourselves. Demon was a good pet. Loyal as Sebastian and more expressively caring. Days continued to fly by.
May 7th, Ailith insisted on traveling that day. She was solemn about it leaving me suspicious. Even more so when she refused to tell me where we where going.
"What are we doing? Where are you taking me?"
"You'll see." We were outside the gates and Ailith was grabbing my hand. The ground fell away, a sensation I had grown accustomed to. "Close your eyes."
"Why?"
"Just do it." I had learned better than to argue when she refused to explain herself, so I closed my eyes. I felt as she started walking, pulling me behind. She had forced me to wear a white robe today like hers. I would soon see why. "You must be quiet now, or else we'll disturb her. You can look." I opened my eyes. We were in a graveyard. A headstone had been placed where there couldn't possibly be a body. It was engraved 'Ciel Phantomhive- December 14 1875 to May 7 1889. "For you Ciel, this is the one day that will always sync up. The day you died." There was someone there. I could hear her crying as she kneeled in front of the stone, laying a bouquet of white roses in front of herself.
"Lizzy?" She whipped around.
"Ciel?" She saw me, I don't know how but she saw me. She rushed up to hug me. "Ciel!" I was caught in the hug of a bear, but she quickly let go of me. "Ciel? You are so cold. Why?" Ailith answered my question before I could ask.
"This day is when your memory is strongest. The stronger you memory is, the more you can manifest in this realm. Today, you can be seen and heard by those most closely connected to you. You can pretend to be a ghost, come to comfort her on this day.
"I'm sorry Lizzy. I'm just a ghost."
"But you are here and that is enough."
"Just for today. I'll have to return to the shuh, uh ehm, sorry. I'll have to return to heaven before long."
"That's okay. Today is enough."
"You should have five hours Ciel. I'll see you again when they are up." With this, Ailith disappeared.
"Five hours Lizzy, then my time is up. Until then, what do you wish to do, my lady." I gave a bow and Lizzy blushed. She was beautiful.
"Ooh, I know! You should come see the manor. Prince Soma fixed it all up nice, just like it used to be." I chuckled.
"I know Lizzy, you told me, remember?" She squealed.
"So you did get my letter! I could send more and you would get them!" I had to think of a lie, quick.
"Er, no. I only got your first one because a passing angel saw you write it and pulled it out of the fire to bring it to me. I'm sorry Lizzy, but it would likely never happen again."
"Oh." She looked downcast.
"But, hey! I'm here now. Let's do something fun while we can." To this, Lizzy smiled.
"Okay. What shall we do." I mulled this over for a minute as music began drifting from the church. A wedding most likely. This was music to dance to.
"Would the lady be so kind as to share with me this dance." I offered Lizzy my hand and she accepted it graciously.
"Of course, kind sir. I would love a dance." We danced and danced and danced as the music drifted on. We danced until…
"You there! Girl! What are you doing dancing alone in a graveyard? Are you a crazy person? Does someone need to take you to a doctor?" The most unsightly man had stopped by the fence and was staring at Lizzy.
"He can't see me Lizzy. I think we need to leave and find somewhere more private." The man had entered the graveyard and was walking towards Lizzy.
"Didn't you hear me? I asked what was going on here."
"Run Lizzy, get out of here. I'll be right behind you." She didn't hesitate. She darted past the man and out the gate. She was almost caught when the man made a grab for her, but I managed to pull on his sleeve, causing him to miss. Lizzy kept running and I followed. She was fast and I realized she had grown. Her legs were longer. Come to think of it, I had grown too. She knew the city well and it was not long before we lost the stranger behind us. We came to a halt in a nice park and found a sheltered area to hide in. We were both breathless and panting. Once we caught our breaths, we looked up at each other and laughed. It had been fun to get into mischief like a couple of little kids.
The area we had sheltered in was small. Three bushes against a rock wall. But it was sunny and warm and nice. Lizzy was pressed up against me. She was shivering from cold so I tried to push her off of me. "No. I like it right here." I couldn't fight her over something this trivial. Especially not today, when our time was so short. So I shrugged.
"Ok Lizzy. Whatever you like." She looked up at me.
"Ciel, why do you still wear the eye patch? Surely a ghost could have no injuries." Her fingertips lightly touched the fabric, then moved down to explore my face.
"I guess it has just become a part of who I am. I would feel strange without it. In truth, I never had any injury there. Just something I preferred to keep hidden, to keep the questions away."
"Can I see what is underneath it. Do you want to show me." The hope in her eyes was irresistible. So I reached up and untied the knot. The patch fell away and I opened the eye that held my mark. "Oh! Ciel, it's so pretty! But, it wasn't always like that."
"No, something happened that I'ld rather not remember. It changed me."
"Ok Ciel. You don't have to explain. It doesn't matter anyway." Her fingers had moved down and were now tracing my chest through my robe. "Why are you wearing a dress?"
"It's just what people wear in… in heaven" I had to remind myself not to say shadow realm. "Do you not like it?" She looked up at me. Her eyes were light and happy.
"Of course I do. It's so pretty. You're so pretty Ciel. You know that right?"
"And you are the most beautiful person I've ever seen. I've missed you Lizzy. I've found ways to keep busy, to keep happy, and I hope you are doing the same. But I still miss you."
"I've missed you to Ciel. I kept the rose. Mother and Father say it was a miracle. It grew new roots so we planted it. Now we have a whole bush of them. Father says they're so unique, when we get enough growing we can sell them. He says we'll make lots of money. I hope you don't mind. If you do I can stop him. I can do something. Maybe I could…" She had begun to blabber so I did the only thing I could to quiet her. I lifted her face and bent mine down, gently pressing my lips to hers. She was quiet instantly. I pulled back and smiled at her.
"They are yours Lizzy. Do with them whatever makes you happy." For a moment, Lizzy was stunned. Then she threw her arms around my neck. Hugging me tight. I put my arms around her, hugging back.
"I love you, Ciel. Always."
"I love you too, Lizzy. Forever." We spent the rest of our time hidden in the bushes. We talked and watched the clouds. The sun was beginning to set when Ailith showed up.
"It's time to go, Ciel, we mustn't spend to long here." I sighed.
"I'm sorry, Lizzy. It is time for me to go." Together we stood and Lizzy began to pout.
"Ok Ciel. I understand. Will…will you ever come back again."
"Next year. You can meet me again here next May 7th. Until then, Lizzy" I bent down and kissed her again. With no hesitation, she kissed me back.
"Until then, Ciel. I'll miss you." She turned around and pushed herself through the bushes. I turned to Ailith. She was watching me again. There was something in her eyes. Before I could figure out what it was, she blinked, and it was gone.
"Ok Ailith. I'm ready." And I was. It had been a long time since I had been happy just to spend time with Lizzy.
"Alright then. Did you enjoy yourself." As she said this, she took my hand.
"Yes. Thank you for forcing me to come here today." She smiled, but the strange emotion was back in her eyes. Once again, she blinked it away before I could read it.
"Good then. Let's go home." We were already back in the shadow realm, making our way between memories to the manor. Dinner that night was a silent affair. Something seemed to be troubling Ailith, but when questioned, she claimed to be fine. I was to wrapped up in my new memories to think much of it, but that emotion still lingered in her eyes, like clouds preparing to move in and unleash a storm. Later that night, as I was preparing for bed, it dawned on me what the emotion was. It was hopeless loss and despair.
