A/N: A short chapter this week for you guys, hope you enjoy it anyway, let me know what you think.
I think (again, knock on wood) my kidney stones have passed. It has been difficult to write while I've been dealing with that, I nearly did not update this week, but as this chapter is as short as it is, I'm hoping that I will be able to move forward with writing and hopefully not wish I could edit something here, lol.
"You're not really used to it, are you?"
"No, and I don't think I'm very good at it."
Chapter Thirty: Beginners
The painful anniversaries were supposed to be done passing now.
They had crawled their way through the previous year, through holidays, birthdays, what was supposed to be the start of her junior year of college.
Bill had been hoping that once they got through that first year, that things would get just a bit easier.
It was never going to truly be easy, he knew that. He was only hoping for the reminders to come with less of a sting now.
But now he was sitting in his home office, staring at a copy of the funeral program that he had forgotten about in his desk drawer. Exactly one year earlier, he had buried his daughter.
He tried to set the program aside, to go back to looking for the highlighter he had been trying to find. The highlighter was orange, bright, and when he tried to use it, it was dry.
He had been meaning to buy a new pack of highlighters (or steal one from the supply closet at the office) for ages now.
His eyes found the program again.
Would Rowan have approved of the funeral they put on for her? It wasn't as though they had ever discussed last wishes with her. She was only twenty years old.
He and Dot, both in their fifties, had barely thought of their own funerals at this point. It was Rowan's death that led to them purchasing their own plots in the cemetery, the next two to the right of Rowan's, an exceedingly uncomfortable purchase.
Burying her in Burgess seemed like a good idea at the time, and maybe it still was. Bill had never cared much for visiting cemeteries, certain that if the deceased had some sort of immortal spirit, they wouldn't spend all their time there. But maybe it would have been nice to have somewhere to visit without taking a lengthy road trip.
Then again, perhaps not. He had been avoiding Rowan's room, not even glancing at the door if he could help it. He likely wouldn't be much better with a grave.
Every couple of weeks Dot would suggest going through just one box of Rowan's things. Each time Bill would say that he still wasn't ready.
Maybe there was a highlighter in Rowan's desk drawer. Surely that wouldn't be too bad, just sorting through a drawer. It wasn't as final as going through the boxes of her belongings, it wouldn't give him the same sickening confirmation that she didn't need them anymore like selling her car had.
It was worth a shot.
Bill got up from his chair and Linda, who had been curled up on his feet beneath the desk, whined in protest.
"I'll be right back, Linda," Bill said. Rather than wait for him, the dog stood up, stretched, and followed him.
He opened the door and flipped the light switch, frowning at the sight of all the boxes. He would have to move the one full of dolls to properly go through the desk drawer. Linda followed him inside, her nails clicking on the hardwood.
As Bill went to grab the box, he paused, eying it curiously.
The boxes were all covered in a layer of dust. This one had been disturbed, with obvious marks from hands.
"Dot must have started with the dolls and changed her mind," Bill mumbled to himself, shaking his head slightly. He picked up the box and set it aside.
The desk, too, had marks in the dust as though someone had set something on the surface and opened the drawer. Dot must have been going through a few things, he supposed. It was odd that she had started without him.
Opening the drawer, he found a pink highlighter almost immediately. Uncapping it, he brushed the felt tip against the back of his hand and found that it was still functional.
Bill closed the drawer and set the box back in place.
That wasn't so hard.
Maybe at some point they could go through at least one box.
But not today. Her absence already felt particularly loud.
"Come on, Linda," Bill said, and the dog walked past him to the hall.
He turned off the light and closed the door.
The cabin, once more, was quiet. It was not empty, however.
Rowan and Jack sat on the floor before the fire, cross-legged, facing each other. Rowan's hands were in Jack's and she was staring at them with furrowed brow as the boy watched her.
This had been going on for quite a while at this point.
Green… green… green…
If Jack was getting any of this, he wasn't saying.
Come on! Green! Greeeeeeen!
Rowan tried to picture energy flowing from her heart and through her arms and hands, into his, as Erato had advised.
Green. Green! Green. G-R-E-E-N!
She should have asked Urania and Polyhymnia if they had any pointers, any different perspectives that might get something to click with this.
Green, green, green, emerald, chartreuse, sage.
Earlier, she had started feeling like maybe she could figure out inspiring, if she had been able to mostly get a grasp on landing. Surely flying was harder than inspiring, right?
Green. Grass. Limes. Leaves. Granny Smith Apples. Spinach. Green!
Still, Jack said nothing, waiting for inspiration that just was not coming.
GREEN! GREEN, GODDAMN IT!
Rowan was so bad at this. This was the fifth color they had tried. They had tried eight different numbers. Every time, it was long, long silences and then finally Jack would say something that might only be vaguely related to what she had been hoping to get across.
Greengreengreengreengreengreengreengreen—!
She was an utter failure, the complete worst, an embarrassment. She pictured Calliope rolling her eyes, Melpomene cackling, Clio looking away and pretending that Rowan just wasn't there.
"I'm suddenly wondering when the last time I had a salad was," Jack said. "That's… is that anything?"
"I was thinking of the color green, green things," Rowan said, wanting this to be a sign that she may have inspired him at least a little bit but feeling doubtful she was that lucky.
"Okay, that probably is something, then," Jack said. Rowan grunted, unconvinced, taking back her hands so that she might grip at her hair in frustration. "Maybe we should take a break."
"I suck at this," she said.
"You've been a Muse for a week," Jack said. "You're new at this. And you spent hours at flying lessons today, that's a lot."
"I just keep thinking about how I'm not getting this and it feels like I'll never get it and—"
"You're new at this," Jack said again. Rowan only frowned.
She knew he was right. Of course, he was right. It made complete sense that she wouldn't find this as easy to do as the Muses who had been doing this for centuries, some for millennia.
Still, she wanted to shrink away, to declare that she would never get this and it wasn't worth trying any more.
But this wasn't something she could ignore. There was no, "it's fine, I'm never going to use this anyway," like there had been when she had struggled with trigonometry.
She could either practice this until she figured it out or wait for her health to decline like it had when the Shadow People had attacked her. She would be left waiting and wondering how long she could exist like that before dying for a second time.
Rowan was still trying to figure out how to deal with dying the first time.
"It's just embarrassing," Rowan finally said, her voice more of a mumble than proper speech, embarrassed to even admit to embarrassment. "It feels like everything with magic, I just keep falling on my face."
"Yeah, that's how 'suddenly being able to do magic' works," Jack said.
She felt herself relax at least slightly at this phrasing, at the implication that this was what happened to all new immortals.
It wasn't as though she had met any of them, had seen firsthand anyone else struggling.
Jack pulled himself to his feet. "Do you want to do something we're both bad at?"
Rowan furrowed her brow, still seated on the floor. "Uh… maybe?"
Jack did not elaborate, having walked over to the records set beside the record player. After a few short moments of pulling a record from its sleeve, gently placing it on the player and fiddling with the controls, there was a faint sound of crackling before the song began properly.
Rowan was sure she had heard it before, but wasn't quite sure where. It seemed like something that her grandparents would listen to.
Jack turned back her way, offering a hand to help her back on to her feet. She took it, sure she knew what he meant now.
She set one hand to his shoulder, he held the other out to the side, and they began to sway around the small space.
Jack had been right, neither of them were very good at this, that had been made clear when they had gone to the ball and the Muse of Dance herself laughed at them and tried in vain to help. Their footsteps weren't quite in sync the way they should be, they both kept checking their feet as they went.
But Jack lifted their arms high and spun her around before pulling her close again, and their lack of rhythm really didn't seem to matter.
It was just fun.
He smiled at her, and she mirrored the gesture.
Rowan had sketched his smile so many times, fixated and daydreaming. It really was one of his best features, for she had never found herself melting at the sight of a smile before meeting him. No one else could reassure her with a look like he could.
It seemed almost too easy, a clumsy dance improving her mood this much, her eyes locked with his rather than staring down at their hands and waiting for something to happen.
Rowan was lifted from the ground, and she was about to comment that Jack was getting ambitious with the dance moves before realizing it was not actually him lifting her.
Her fingers tightened around his hand, but she didn't float haphazardly toward the ceiling, instead hovering just a few inches above the ground, still mostly upright. She caught Jack's eye and smiled again, this time sheepish over her current position but at least not in a state of panic.
She lifted their hands into the air, this time spinning him about, each of them laughing slightly before she let go. She pulled her arms and legs in close, and allowed herself to land again.
None of her landings had been all that graceful and this one was no exception. She felt herself falling forward, focusing so much on not locking her knees that she lost her balance.
Rowan's hands found Jack's shoulders, his hands found her waist. Another laugh.
"Always ready to catch me," Rowan said.
"You happen to fall down a lot around me," Jack said, and soon they were swaying again, the record having moved on to the next song.
She wanted to kiss him. His eyes were so blue and his smile so kind. She missed the way frost would branch across her skin, the way her teeth would grow cold the more they kissed.
Their faces were only a few inches apart, it would be so easy to press her lips to his as the voice from the record player crooned.
She held back.
This was such a nice moment. Jack had found a way to calm her nerves, to make her laugh when she needed it. They were having a good time.
If she tried to kiss him and felt that odd disconnect again, that all went away. She would have to face yet again that this body was not the one she had spent twenty years in.
She pulled herself in closer, a consolation prize, and tried not to think of all the times they had kissed like it was easy.
"I don't think we're that bad at this," Rowan said after another song's worth of holding him close and swaying vaguely to the beat with him.
"We could be worse," Jack agreed. "Terpsichore's probably still gonna want to give us proper lessons at some point."
"Maybe at some point," Rowan said. The notion of learning something from the Muses just for the fun of it felt strange. The lessons earlier with Urania and Polyhymnia were strictly because Rowan needed a better grasp on flying.
No one was going to get hurt if she and Jack never learned to dance properly. At least, Rowan hoped not.
They continued turning about the room before something caught Rowan's eye. Over Jack's shoulder was a view of one of the windows, which wasn't particularly remarkable on its own.
But there was something stuck to the glass, lodged into the frame. How long had it been there?
"What's that?" Rowan said, nodding her head to the window. Jack turned to look over, raising a brow.
"I dunno," he said, letting go of her waist. She released her grip on his shoulders and he headed for the front door, grabbing for his staff before stepping outside.
Rowan stepped closer to the window and watched him grab for what she could now clearly see was a folded-up note. He opened and read it before stepping back inside.
"Bunny wants to meet with me tomorrow morning," Jack said with a slight sigh, closing the door and setting his staff against the wall again. "Probably for more 'therapy.'"
Rowan glanced over his shoulder to read the note.
"Vegemite?" she asked.
"A code name," Jack said. "We all got one for Christmas Eve, I'm surprised he used it."
"What was yours?" Rowan asked.
"Show Pony," Jack said. Rowan snorted. "Anyway, I can ditch this."
"What, the therapy? You should go," Rowan said. "I'm just gonna be doing more flying stuff tomorrow anyway."
"Are you sure you don't want to ditch that?" Jack said, seeming like he was switching strategies. "Come with me to the Warren? I think you'd like it there."
Rowan remembered Jack mentioning this to her before, and she had shrugged it off because Bunny had not made it a secret that he didn't think Rowan and Jack should be dating.
But Bunny had disapproved because Rowan was mortal. Did that mean he was fine with them being together now? He had never treated Rowan badly or anything, so the fact that he had been polite the last time she had seen him gave her no hints.
"I would like to see it at some point, but if you're going for therapy, then you should be able to talk about anything you need to, even me," Rowan said. "If you're worried about leaving me alone with the Muses, I can handle being around Urania and Polyhymnia for a while."
She would, of course, rather spend the day with Jack. Things had gone fine with Urania and Polyhymnia today, but any ease Rowan had felt had largely been because Jack had been there. She still trusted him more than any of the rest of the immortals.
But Urania and Polyhymnia weren't among the worst options when it came to being alone with the Muses. Rowan wasn't as comfortable with them as she was with Erato or Terpsichore and Euterpe, but they had been respectful today. She could surely get through another day with them, as long as she wasn't caught in pitch darkness again.
But there was no reason for that to happen again. Urania had already showed them what the room could do. Rowan tried to remember that, to reason with her unreasonable panic before it could cloud her judgment too much.
Jack deserved to have his therapy session, and she could certainly handle herself while he did that.
"Right, yeah, I just… yeah, I know you're uncomfortable," Jack said vaguely, frowning. "And I mean, I don't tell Bunny bad things about you"
"I didn't think you did," Rowan said. "But I mean, I love my parents and I still had stuff about them I had to work through with the counselor. And I kind of liked that it was time I didn't have to worry about anyone's feelings but mine, and you should get that, too."
"Mm," Jack said.
"You're not really used to it, are you?" Rowan said.
"No, and I don't think I'm very good at it," Jack said through a sigh.
"Wow, you know, someone told me not that long ago that I wasn't bad at something, I was just new at it," Rowan said. Jack rolled his eyes, though managed a smile through the gesture.
"Has it been a bad experience, or...?" Rowan asked.
"I mean, I don't exactly like talking about everything that makes me feel bad," Jack said.
"But do you feel like you have some kind of clarity after?" said Rowan. "Does it feel better to say it than to obsess over it?"
Jack sighed, and with great reluctance said, "Yeah, I guess."
"Then it seems like it's probably worth it," Rowan said, offering him what she hoped was an encouraging smile. "You go ahead to visit Bunny tomorrow, and I'll go… try to get a better grasp on flying. We'll meet up after."
"Sure," Jack said, nodding, not quite making eye contact.
"You okay?" Rowan asked. "Is there some other reason you don't want to go?"
"No, no, it's just not being used to talking about my feelings and all that," Jack said, waving her concern away before finally pocketing the note. "It's just awkward."
"I know. It'll get easier," Rowan said. "And to clarify, just because I'm encouraging you to talk to Bunny doesn't mean you can't talk to me, too. I mean, it's not like I haven't cried on your shoulder more times than I can count."
"Thanks," Jack said.
Once again, she wanted to kiss him, to show him some reassurance. It seemed there was a whole vocabulary of things that could be conveyed by a kiss, a vocabulary not currently available to her unless she wanted to risk everything feeling wrong.
She slid her arms around him instead, hoping that would suffice. Jack leaned his head against hers, releasing a held breath as he held on to her in return.
"I missed you," he said, more of a mumble than a real statement. Guilt tugged at her heart at the reminder that she hadn't been there to talk to him for a year.
She could feel his pulse, faster than it had been when they had been dancing.
Rowan wanted to tell him that she had missed him, too. It felt appropriate to return the sentiment, as though it was just the next natural part of the conversation.
She had missed him whenever he left her side, certainly. But she felt like she had only ever spent a few hours away from the boy. It wasn't the same as what he was talking about.
She had gone somewhere after her death, to some afterlife. Surely when she was there, she had missed him. She couldn't imagine a scenario where she didn't miss him or her other loved ones that were still alive.
Rowan wanted so much to remember that other place.
"I love you," she said, hoping that it would suffice.