a/n: I intended this to be the last chapter, but it turned out twice as long as the others, so I decided to split it in half. Good news is that I'm posting both parts at the same time so you can still read it together. This is how I always planned for the story to end. I hope you like it. Enjoy!
Chapter 8 – Magic, Part I
Another white line on the brown wall. Soon we would run out of space. But I guessed we could always erase the crayon markings and start over. We could simply add them up to spell out four years, two months and eighteen days. That is how long we had lived in this box under Bella's bed. And that is how long we had been putting chalk lines on the cardboard walls every time the tiny ray of daylight reached between the cracks in the lid.
I was going stir crazy. Even Jared had run out of jokes about seven months ago. The only thing that could keep us entertained was a deck of cards, but I didn't enjoy playing anymore. Not only because those cards are surprisingly difficult to handle when you're just twice their size. Too many people cheated around here.
"Hey Eddie! What you doin'?" Seth asked as he walked over to my corner. It baffled me that he was still cheerful all the time.
"Nothing much," I responded. "Just sitting here. Same as always."
"You know, you really need to stop brooding every once in a while. There has to be something we can do." He looked around the box as if suddenly there would be a new form of entertainment in here. "We could... ask Carlisle and Esme if we can rearrange their body parts again..." When I didn't respond, he said: "Or we could dance."
"There's no music," I stated.
"We don't need music to dance. But if you insist we can ask Alice to sing us a song."
"No, thanks." I appreciated that Seth was trying to cheer me up, but I only felt like sitting alone in my corner to sulk. It was just one of those days.
"Alright. How 'bout… We give that old dollhouse of yours a new coat of paint."
"And how do you suggest we do that?"
"Simple. With the chalk of course!" He smiled from ear to ear as he nudged the white chalk closer to me with his hooves.
I couldn't help but laugh at his suggestion. It wasn't even a bad idea. Maybe it would brighten the place up a bit. "Fine. But you get to ask Rosalie for permission."
Rosalie had been inside the dollhouse almost the entire time we had been locked up in here. And she wasn't alone. It had played out like a classic patient and nurse story when she had repaired Emmett's arm that first day. They had fallen madly in love and there hadn't been a single moment where they weren't touching each other in some way. It got a little sickening for the rest of us. Eventually we had to exile them to the dollhouse. They haven't been out very often since.
Just as Seth turned around to find her, we heard footsteps in the room beyond our confinement.
"It's probably Renee again," Esme said from behind the pile of hats she was sorting for the thousandth time. Since Bella had moved to college about a month ago, Renee had been in the room a couple of times. We never knew what she was doing, but I suspected she just missed having her daughter around. This time however the footsteps were lighter. I would have recognized the specific walk everywhere.
The footsteps came closer and closer until I felt a thump against my back. Everything was silent for a few seconds before suddenly we were jostled as our box started moving. I fell sideways and landed with my head against the chalk. I coughed and a little puff of white dust swirled upwards.
"Quiet everyone! It's Bella," Sam yelled, coming to the same conclusion as I had. "I think she's opening the box!"
Could it be? Would we actually get out of this hell of boredom? I started to feel a little hope, but it quickly turned to fear as I thought of what she might do with us. She was practically an adult now. She could finally have decided to throw us away. Panic boiled inside me when I saw the sharp end of a pair of scissors cut through the tape that sealed the lid above us. Flashbacks appeared before my eyes of my arrival at the Swan family and how Charlie had cut me out of my Ken-doll packaging. I didn't like scissors. They were not a good sign.
Light pored in for the first time in over four years and I was blinded by it for a long moment. I felt a warm, soft hand close around me and I rose of the ground. A big gulp of fresh air pushed its way into my lungs while I tried not to move. It was a strange sensation to slip back into the inanimate toy-statue after so long.
"Ken! It's been forever since I've seen you!" Bella was shocked, but I felt an invisible weight lift of me at the sound of her voice. Her eyes traveled up and down as she looked me over and brushed some dust out of my hair. "What have you been up to?"
Not much, I thought. Obviously.
Bella stood up and I was raised high above the floor in her hand. She had really grown. Now that my eyes had adjusted to the light, I took a closer look at her. The roundness in her cheeks had diminished slightly. Her hair was longer and a darker shade of brown. She had applied mascara and she wore a college sweater over her dark jeans. She was no longer the girl I had known. Bella had grown into a beautiful young woman. It was difficult to keep the proud smile off my face as I came to this realization.
"I bet you haven't done as much as me," she joked. "Did you know I'm at college now? English major. I share a dorm room with Angela. It's fantastic there. You should see it."
Her smile faltered a little and her eyebrows knit together. "It's so strange talking to you again. I'm way too old to be doing this." She sat down on her bed and thought for a minute before continuing. "It feels familiar though. And who is really going to see you besides Angela? Oh, who cares? I'm just going to find you a space on my bookshelf. Pack your bags, Ken. You're going to college!"
What?! I was going to see where Bella lived now? I couldn't think of anything I would have wanted more in that moment. It would be a dream coming true. Definitely better than ending up in the trash.
"Bella, are you coming down for some birthday cake?" Renee shouted up from the bottom of the stairs. Was it her birthday today? We had lost track of actual dates pretty quickly in our box. I tried to calculate back, but it was impossible. I guessed it must be fairly close to that September 13 date though and I knew she would be turning 18 this year.
"Coming, mom!" Bella yelled back. She turned back to me and said a little softer: "Can you believe she actually baked a cake herself, just so I couldn't not come home and taste it. She really does miss me a lot. Well, at least it gives me the opportunity to do some laundry and move some more things over to the dorm. I need more reminders of home there and I think you would be perfect for that purpose. You were here for almost my entire childhood."
She got up again and turned for the door. She hesitated beside the footboard of her bed for a second and her face became a little red. It was like she was already embarrassed about what she was going to do next. "I've missed you these past years. You have no idea how much I've missed you. I love you."
Her head bowed slightly and she brought me closer to her. Her full, red lips puckered and then she placed a soft, quick kiss on my forehead.
I was stunned. Although I knew she'd loved her toys, she had never actually said it. And she had certainly never given me a kiss like that. It felt amazing. I wanted to shout back at her that I loved her too. That we all did. But she wouldn't be able to hear me of course. It was immensely frustrating to be a doll sometimes.
Bella let go of me and I waited for the impact of hitting the covers of her bed. But I never reached the soft and fluffy duvet. I wasn't falling.
I was floating!
How was that possible? In a reflex, I turned my head to look down, loosing all composure in front of a human. Sam would have been furious. I looked back at Bella and she eyed me with an expression just as incredulous as I felt. Slowly, she reached out her hand and waved it over my head. Then under my feet. But there were no wires holding me up. She jolted backwards suddenly and almost tripped before backing into her bookcase. Fear evident on her face. I looked down again to see what had scared her and soon discovered the cause.
Cracks were forming on my hands. They started small, but were growing longer and deeper fast. Now they were traveling up my arms and I felt the tearing begin inside my shoes as well. It didn't hurt exactly. It was more like a soft tickling sensation. But that didn't mean I liked what was happening.
It wasn't long before the pinky on my right hand was completely separated from the rest of my hand and the tiny piece of plastic fell away. I panicked. I couldn't understand it. Was I disintegrating? I had never heard of a toy decaying this fast. And I had certainly never seen anything similar to what was now occupying the space where my pinky had been. It wasn't exactly solid or a fluid. It was what I imagined pure energy must look like; white and emanating light. The strange thing was growing and when light started shining from the other cracks that now covered my whole body, I realized it must be coming from inside me, getting larger and larger until the plastic shell couldn't contain it anymore.
Bigger pieces began falling away from me and my shirt tore until it too fell to the bed and I was left bare-chested. The tickling sensation traveled up my neck and over my face. It reached my eyes and left me blinded but for the white light that was now all I could see. It surrounded me completely.
No, it wasn't surrounding me. It was me.
Soon, I couldn't feel any parts of my skin left. I consisted of only growing white light. There were no words to describe how it felt, until I became vaguely aware that I did have a body. I finally felt the sensation of landing on the comfortable bed, although something tiny and prickly was stabbing my thigh. A solid plank formed under what must be my knees. Or were my knees simply bending over the edge, my legs dangling down and my feet firmly planted on a furry carpet?
The light started to fade slowly and I gained sensation in my hands. They were lying on either side of me, softly brushing the fabric of the duvet. I knew instinctively that I could move again and lifted my arms up. I squinted through the light that was now only a soft glow and stared at the shapes before me.
Two hands with five perfect fingers. Two human hands!
I carefully bent one finger and then another. They could move in so many different directions! It was mesmerizing. I moved one hand to my head and felt soft hair dangling beside my ear. An ear that I could fold and bend! I felt along my forehead until I encountered my eyebrows. I blinked and my eyelashes tickled the inside of my palms. I touched my nose and my nostrils flared as I drew in a breath. My lips dented and gave way as I lightly pushed on them with my fingers.
Ow! What was pricking my leg? I shot up and wobbled, not used to standing on legs made of flesh, bones and muscle. I gripped the bedpost with one hand and rubbed my leg with the other. Small red dots and streaks appeared in my skin. I looked down and saw the tiny pieces of plastic on the bed that had poked me. The plastic that had been my body seconds earlier.
Reality slowly sunk in. I was no longer a doll. However strange and impossible it was, I had become human!