Chapter 8: Glass Heart
Vivi burst forward from her bed, frantically grabbing her bedsheets in a flurry of gasping breaths as she cried out Arthur's name. Her eyes flicked about the room in heightened awareness in search for danger, but as she found none, she released her grip and relaxed her posture as best as she could. The night around her was silent, as though a bedsheet had been thrown over the sleeping children of the motel, and nothing stirred save her and the dog. She sighed tiredly: for the first time in a long time, the girl had dreamed, and for the first time ever, she had witnessed before her the most realistic nightmare, the most vivid horror that her eyes could ever handle. Even as Mystery nosed his way into her arms, she was shaking violently.
He would never, would he?
She swung her feet over the side of the bed, dressed only in a tank top and boxers, shivering as she did so. It wasn't that cold outside, but right now she was freezing. Everything she had seen...how could it feel so real? Dangling over the edge, feeling metal against her neck, the hopelessness of suffocation and death; that couldn't have just been a terror of the night.
Especially when it was Arthur.
She looked around for something to keep her warm. All of the clothes and toiletries of the Mystery Skulls was kept in her mostly empty room, filling a small corner with duffel bags. A year after the fondly dubbed Corn Maze Massacres, the Mystery Skulls had gotten quite a bit of business-even now, they had three jobs queued up-and so they were able to rent a bit of a nicer, more commendable motel. Vivi's first priority had been a hot shower and a good heater, but Lewis and Arthur had agreed on checking safety over anything: if they were going to continue letting Vivi sleep alone, she would need that extra bit of protection so that they could all sleep easier, if a bit cold.
Right now, she really wished they didn't let her sleep alone.
She began rummaging through the piles of clothes, hers and Arthur's and Lewis' all mixed together spanning three bags. All she needed was something warm, her sweater would be nice, maybe a long sleeve shirt...it didn't matter, so long as she felt coddled.
The girl rose with her prize, a gigantic, pinkish-purple sweater made of what felt like alpaca wool. As she rubbed the fabric between her fingers, she could feel the warmness emanating off of it like a campfire. This would work.
When she pulled it on, the scent of spices and cooking hit her nose, mingled slightly with a touch of cologne. In the darkness, she couldn't see the color, but when she lifted it to cover her head it was more than clear that it wasn't hers at all. Reaching clear down to her knees and making the chubby girl look like a toddler, it was plain to see that this was Lewis' sweater.
For some reason, that made her want to wear it even more.
Warmer now, Vivi went to go lay back down in her bed, but something stopped her before she could reach it. The sheets looked hostile and unwelcoming while the bed itself was made of stone, the comforter less of a comfort and more of an insult. She couldn't go back to that, and even is she did, sleep wouldn't claim her while her heart was racing like it was.
Vivi paced the room angrily, trying to warm her freezing feet as they padded quickly back and forth with uncertain purpose. They had a job tomorrow, and she needed to be alert for a possible werewolf hunt! At this rate, she'd fall asleep while speaking to the client. Frustrated, she lifted the sweater to cover her face with a silent scream, and was once again met by the warmth and comfort of Lewis.
That gave her an idea.
She grabbed the key to both her and the boys' room, opening the door with Mystery hot on her heels. Uncertainly, she unlocked the door to their sleeping quarters, poking her head in cautiously while the dog rushed in, hurrying over the the foot of Arthur's bed. It was darker than her room without the streetlights outside the window, but she felt ten times calmer within.
The sounds of sleeping whirled around the room like a spell, noises that she had memorized as a song of comfort and company. Both snored softly from their separate beds, stuck in a rest like death. She had to wonder, as she always did, what dreams her boys had? It didn't matter, but to her, she felt she must know what gave them such a peaceful and happy expression, such a wonderfully relaxed night. Breathing shallow, she approached Lewis carefully.
Now she had grown uncertain. Part of her didn't want to wake him up from such a beautiful silence, but she needed him right now. A tuft of his purple hair, un-gelled and straying from his pompadour, covered his nose and quivered lightly as he snored a soft lullaby. Her heart warmed, and though she felt it rude, Vivi lifted her hand to his shoulder and gave him the lightest of shakes.
Those gorgeous pink eyes fluttered open with the tenderness of butterflies, kissing his cheeks with gentle wings. They looked up at her with at first unrivalled joy and affection, but soon were replaced with fear and protective curiosity. Lewis sat up, gripping Vivi's shoulders and looking behind her and out the motel room door.
"Is everything okay, V? Did someone try to come into your room?" He asked, looking just about ready to beat up the first thing that came into his line of sight, "I hate putting you alone in motel rooms, but I'm glad we chose this one over the cheaper rooms down the street; they may have gotten in otherwise. Are you okay?"
She looked down shyly at her feet, grabbing her arm in one hand as she replied back, still shaking from her vision, "I had a nightmare. Could you...could you hold me until I fall asleep?" she whispered, her voice so quiet it could've been a breath of wind through the sleeping town.
Lewis' eyes softened at that simple question, looking at her with warm eyes and releasing her shoulders a little bit. He stood up, and she saw in the younger boy the big brother he had spent his whole life being. How many times had Lewis been woken up to scare away the monsters in his baby sisters' closet, or to be the night light and blanket they needed when it grew dark?
They left Mystery with Arthur, entering Vivi's room and locking both locks just to be safe. She pulled down the sweater to cover her boxers completely, realizing she was still wearing his clothes. As Lewis got into the queen size bed and opened the sheets for her to join him, she stopped to apologize.
"I...is it okay if I wear this, just for tonight?"
He glanced at the sweater, smiling tiredly as he recognized it to be his own, "Of course."
By the looks of it, Lewis was still too asleep to fully understand what was happening. He wrapped her in his arms, blanket and all, falling back to sleep almost immediately with his lips pressed gently to her forehead in an unfinished kiss. She wondered if he even knew it was Vivi, or if he had been transported back home to Perla and Marisol. As she pressed her head into his chest and pulled her arms and legs up to curl into a ball, Vivi didn't really care: the bed was warmer, the night brighter, and she was feeling tired again.
Something hit her forehead from around the neck of her giant teddy bear, suspended in front of her eyes with the glistening of glass and the outline of a heart. She reached forward, grabbing the locket in both hands as though it were paper thin. With a light click, it sprung open to reveal a poorly cut photo resting between the two halves. Her smile spread from cheek to cheek, wide and open with her hands grasping Lewis'. His eye was closed in a wink, but the other was open to stare at her adoringly with his fingers cupping her face, a picture taken just a few days ago at a photobooth in a mall.
Never had Vivi smiled as big as she smiled just then, knowing that he held her so close to him, just above his exposed heart within the glass locket. She had expected his family to be smiling from within, but what met her eyes felt so very special knowing that, out of all his loved ones, Lewis chose her.
She could feel her heart beating rapidly in her chest, a rabbit spooked by the prospect of such closeness. Her thoughts sprinted back to Arthur, asleep and alone in his own bed, and she wondered why she hadn't gone to her best friend of eleven years for comfort. As the past few months had unfolded, Arthur had expressed that he was feeling left out in many different ways, and her mind stretched to an accusation he had shouted at her in a flurry of frustration and lost hope.
"He's replacing me. You're letting Lewis replace me."
Vivi smiled now, looking up at the lightly sleeping Lewis. Arthur had been wrong, Lewis could never in a million years replace him. To her, Lewis had filled a spot in her heart that Arthur had never even been a candidate for, a place she felt he would never see. While Arthur was her best friend for so many years and someone she held and revered as a savior of sorts, Lewis was the keeper of the heart she had so often sought to give away.
She closed her eyes for good, beaming like a child. If she could stay like this for the rest of her life, Vivi would've given up anything. Cradled in the arms of the one who held her heart so gently, she wished and prayed and hoped that someday she might be able to hold his between her open palms.
Arthur had been a lonely child. This we know as all the Mystery skulls had been lonely, but Arthur in particular had no one before Vivi. If you could accumulate negative friends, he could have made an army of those he lacked. Instead, they made an army against him.
He had been bullied, beat up, teased, made fun of. Every black eye and every bruise was more than just an imperfection upon the skin, it was a dent in his fragile soul, a nick in the glass of his true self. Vivi had kissed his imperfections into beautiful art, brought out his strong points and tried to crush those haunting weaknesses that kept him awake every night, but there was something she could never quite shake off of him, the most important part of his soul that everyone but her could see.
Arthur was still lonely.
Two people had penetrated the ice that surrounded him, one of the most obnoxious pink and the other of a brilliant blue, but he could feel himself falling away from them with every passing day. Lewis had told him that he loved Vivi, and after eleven years with her, even the socially inept Arthur could tell that she felt the same. As they grew closer together, the only two he truly loved left him behind to watch in pain. What a horrible way to find that you are not needed.
It began with the increasing amount of jobs they received. Arthur only partook in half of them, staying behind to watch the car and play video games when they didn't need him. At first, this was fine with him, but every time the two came back with stories to tell and hauntings to discuss, Arthur was forced to keep his mouth shut and his eyes on the road. He knew nothing of the supernatural, and even less of how to keep friends.
When they weren't talking of jobs, it was even worse. Lewis had recently gotten his hands on a box filled with books that his grandma left for him, all annotated and filled with what to him was the most interesting side notes, what was to Arthur the ramblings of a crazy old lady. Each book they read together, each new fact they fell upon, the further Arthur fell behind.
Even at night, Arthur was no longer included in the group while sleeping. When he was younger, he always joked around about how clingy Vivi had become and how weird her snuggling with anything and everything was. At sleepovers, she would fall asleep on the floor of Arthur's bedroom, always waking up to find herself in his bed. In the van, even, she'd curl up in her blanket only to rise with the two boys-plus dog-wrapped in her arms. At first, such closeness made Arthur uncomfortable, but as she slowly began to leave his side of the blankets untouched, he wished he had never teased her or said anything at all. Maybe then she would've called on Arthur to comfort her last night instead of leaving him to wake up alone.
When they left the Saturday after their thrilling werewolf hunt, Leis drove with Vivi and Mystery in the front with him, assuming Arthur would just fall asleep like he usually did. This time, though, he stayed awake as best he could. There was a hope within him that Vivi, the one he placed all his trust in, would remember that which she had so clearly forgotten.
Lewis peered over at the book in her hands, "Which one is that?"
She didn't even lift her eyes she was so immersed in the text, pupils flashing quickly back and forth as she wrote notes down in her notepad, "The one filled with curses, rituals, and spells. This one here is about ghost solidification, I thought we might need it some day."
He looked back at the road, "High-control ghosts have solid forms, though. The only ones we could use that on are low-control, and why would we want them to have a physical form to wreak havoc with?"
Vivi shook her head, smiling wide as she flipped back in her notebook, "Well, you see, we may have been wrong with our assumption of a ghost's life cycle. In one of your grandma's books, she explained that instead of beginning as a low-control ghost then gaining control as time goes by, they instead follow an arc, see," she gestured towards a very detailed graph, "to put it simply, they begin with little to no control, but then they gain a large amount through their first few years. Different ghosts gain different amounts of control over different periods of time, but once they reach their personal likit, they lose it all."
Lewis exhaled in excitement, "So that's why some of the older haunts are the craziest?"
She bobbed her head in response, "Same goes for the new ones. They both have the same control over their energy, or lack thereof."
Arthur pulled out his 3DS, but the battery wasn't charged and he was out of luck. Had she really forgotten their Friday meal after so many years? Lewis and Vivi were still jabbering on about the same thing they always talked about, and Arthur couldn't sleep with all this anxiety filling his veins.
He leaned his head on the back of the chair up front, where Mystery was sitting. Vivi had scooted over to the seat closest to Lewis, showing him the pictures and diagrams as the boy's eyes flicked back and forth between the road and her notes. In most cases, Arthur would scold him for looking away, but he really had no energy whatsoever.
Neither of them needed him now that they had each other. Vivi knew well enough how to take care of the van, and even if right now he hated him, Arthur trusted Lewis to take care of her and prevent the girl from going too far in the name of her supernatural passion. Even Mystery did more for the team than he did! This wasn't the life Arthur wanted, and in that instant, he knew that he should probably move on.
Uncle Lance had called him yesterday, restating his offer. If Arthur came back home, he would inherit his uncle's baby, the Kingsmen Mechanics shop. With that shop, he could make more than a comfortable living: the Blecher family had a gift with metal, and were known around the state for good and honest work. Maybe Arthur could settle down with a few projects, make his mother happy, get off the road. Vivi and Lewis wouldn't even notice he was gone.
He looked away, disheartened by his own thoughts. As he began observing the trees flashing by their window, he could hear in Vivi's voice the smile she shared with Lewis, watching as Mystery joined along with a grin of his own from the corner of his eye.
How nice, a big happy family of smiling idiots. Arthur felt like he had to puke.
As Lewis looked down at Vivi, the girl saw something outside that caught her attention, "Oh, Lewis, we just have to stop and check that out! Did you see how spooky that cave looked? It was just calling out our names."
Arthur swung around to look out the opposite window as they flashed by an eerie black cave seeping some sort of green gas, "I don't think that's a good idea. It even has a sign with a skull and crossbones, Vivi, that's never a good sign."
Lewis nodded, "We have another job to get to, and it looked pretty, I don't know, deadly?" Arthur could feel Vivi's frown from the backseat, "We're here to solve mysteries, not get ourselves killed."
"Oh, come on, where's the fun in sticking to the schedule? We got two days to travel two hours, and we've faced things a lot scarier than a big cave. Please, Lulu?"
That nickname was his weakness, and Lewis slowed down to pull a very jerky U-turn, "Alright, but the moment it gets too weird, we're turning right around and running. I don't want to be caught in a situation I can't carry Arthur out of." he teased, glancing back at the ginger as the car came to a stop.
"Oh no. I'm not going in there, I have a worse feeling about this cave than anything ever, and that's saying something."
Lewis hopped out of the car, opening the back to let Arthur out as he offered a hand to his best friend, "Come on, Art. I'm sure everything will be just fine."