39. A week

Beverly belonged to breaths, threads of life, connected in this infinity cycle of borrowed inhales and shared exhales.

She was a snowdrop wafting in the breeze. Winter, daylight, cold and rain.

What else could she become?

We have nothing but time.

Beverly's melody needed to be slow. Her musical taste would change, her skills be whetted, her movements become more versatile. Such shifts required peace, and time, and practice.

Her life songs had carried a motif of blazing brusqueness. Brutal greed. Patience was a privilege she'd always been deprived of.

In death, things were quite different.

Though much remained the same.

It was arduous to find peace in this regained solitude. In the first hours, the first days, perhaps it wasn't.

For Beverly Penn had taken Peter's words with her. It was sweeter than that, in her heart. Now that they were both fragments of the same mosaic, and webbed by the same thread, and bound to the same star.

She liked to think that his taste, his promises, his every drop of life in this land of death, was now embroidered into the ever-changing shape of her soul.

And in the beginning days, this had soothed her pain.

But in a short while, loneliness became loneliness, and the reality of it was all that Beverly could acknowledge. The respective roles both she and Peter had now fully accepted. Until the moment came when he could fly with her. Not through her. With her.

Until then…

To be, not one with him, but a piece of him.

Not his equal, but his essence.

My life, he called her, always. Even now, when such a word had been spent, its value reduced to nostalgia.

To be his life, his sheer existence…

Beverly had craved power in her life and now she had so much that she couldn't help but worry that it would corrupt her.

Fear is not regret.

No. Enough.

Her worry would only sink her. Render Peter Lake's promise worthless. His efforts superfluous. Pearly Soames was in New York and he couldn't discover her, he couldn't know of her involvement.

She wouldn't fail him, like she hadn't failed her.

She'd bourne a broken body for years, watched her own light flicker before her eyes, the fire igniting and quelling and resurfacing. Who had possessed the power behind her own life? Whose breath had she inhaled?

Perhaps that was why her mother was now the fire. Perhaps the universe had offered her a clue, in its flexible wisdom.

Nothing happens that isn't supposed to.

Cecil and Peter had arranged themselves within the shadows of New York, crannies and corners and optical tricks.

For the first days, they sat beside a small bakery on the outskirts of the city, every morning, at first light, and linger there, and Cecil would lay his bunnet on the snow, and they'd wait for a gift to bring one of them back into the light.

That wouldn't do, Beverly knew. Her eyelids heaved. Her hands shook.

This practice would only result in a trip, a chase. A clattering fence.

Peter's horror-struck face…

Why this horror? What would cause it? How would she prevent it, in air, and thought, and sunlight?

Feel me as I feel you.

Beverly saw the path ahead. There was much to walk till then, and she would find a fork in the road. She would light a gentler shortcut.

Her music sheets needed to be rearranged. Her crickets given larger cages, their locks simplified. Her ghostly pianist fingers trembled.

I feel your peace.

Peter Lake was calm, during the early excursions. He clutched Cecil's knee in reassurance. A quiet promise, unfulfilled, waiting. He turned his face to the sky and let the sun wash over his skin. His eyes fluttered shut. It began to snow, very lightly.

Do you feel my dizziness? This city is so large. I took too long to properly see it. Not only see, but feel. The rumble of trains. The smoke. The ice. The old, the young. The past, the future. Am I even here, still? Am I not… the city, as I hover this weightlessly within it?

Beverly was compelled to find entertainment during her lonely flight. A distraction from the silence, the senses she'd forsaken in a body that had now fizzled into stardust. She discovered a simple delight in the mere study of how people breathed, and what that implied.

With strangers, this game was wonderful, for it broadened her possible solutions into infinity. Unless they'd somehow find themselves bound to her some day, she would know nothing of them.

The thin. The shocks, the mysteries, the discoveries.

The thick. The frustration, the labor, the amusement.

The quick. The running, the excitement, the overwhelming desire to either laugh or cry.

The slow. The concentration. The regain of gravity. The attempt to stay calm.

Such life… How alive the world was…

Beverly Penn was dead and yet she could feel every ounce of vitality, every drop of warm blood spilled in this place. Her senses were gone. In their place stayed her thoughts. Her thoughts never ended. Her observations kept on growing.

For her family, this game of guesses offered no such pleasure. But it did help.

A week went by since she became the sunlight. And on Twelfth Night, little Willa had an argument with the governess.

"Miss, you need to go to bed-"

"Look at the sky!"

"I see it, yes, but-"

"Where is she? Where is my sister?"

"Willa-"

"Tell me where she is!"

"Oh, sweet girl-"

"Don't you dare repeat that she's gone forever, that is a lie! She- She promised me-"

"I'm very sorry, miss… I am, truly…"

"Where's her star? How else could she-"

I do have a star, my sweet girl. It's just unlit. So the monsters won't find me. So they won't find Peter, either.

Beverly's voice was a gust of wind, a sharpening of the cold.

A creaking grunt of disapproval from the vast ocean that Beverly Penn was now traversing, and its many sunken ships, its metallic heart.

Peter, you need to tell me how to play with the hearts of machines, too…

Willa's white face shone with tears as she pressed it to the glassy frost of the windowsill. The governess brought her tired old fingers to her lips.

"Willa, honey," she whispered calmly.

The thin. The slow.

The misery. The lies. American nurses breathed like this.

"Beverly suffered… a very long time… And now, wherever she is-"

"No… No…"

"-she's not in pain, or in doubt… She's probably happier than ever…"

No. I'm not. Pain takes many forms. It translates to the language of life and death alike.

"As for… mm, as for him-"

"Peter," Willa muttered.

"Peter. Yes… He's a man of the world… He'll be alright…"

"He's dead. I know he is."

The governess's eyes, shining in the dark, widening in shock. "Willa-"

"And he's got no star to rest within… He's got no home… N- Neither does Beverly…"

"You don't know that."

"Look at the sky," Willa murmured sharply, whimpering.

Her frail, tiny body limped slowly against the window. She closed her eyes.

Beverly was the halo of moonglow on her dark set of curls. The glistening of her tears.

The governess stared in silence. The shadows of the room draped thickly upon her shoulders. Her work-hardened gaze lowered to the floor.

"I don't know of the world your sister now inhabits," she said softly. "Neither do I know if such a world exists to begin with… I do know this, though… This… Your sister was… a lovely young lady… She took her own risks, she feared nothing. She saw the best in everyone, even…" A pause.

Even in thieves. Yes. I know.

Then: "She existed. Let that guide you. Not some star in the sky."

"Leave," Willa murmured.

The governess stayed, watching the child.

"Please leave," Willa repeated. "The world I inhabit is riddled with ghosts… Dad, you… A white horse… A princess bed… There is no other place, no second world you must believe in… There is this… This is real… There is one sky… and… Beverly is not in it…"

"You're very young, miss…"

"Beverly wasn't. She was the wisest person I knew. She had the clearest eyes in the universe… She knew what she saw… Most of us struggle to even take a peek at all that surrounds us… But she… she…"

Willa hugged herself, bringing her knees close to her chest.

"Where are they?" she whined. She sobbed gently. "I just want them to be okay… I- I want them to be together, so that neither he n- nor- nor her will ever feel as alone as I do… As alone as they both felt… Oh god… please… where are their stars…?"

The governess stared, and stared, and Beverly glew upon her dark clothes and dry skin from the crystalized night, the glass, the ice.

Comfort her. Touch her. Tell her that everything will be alright in the end.

She stood so still. Tears were forming in her eyes. Her mouth was trembling.

"Go to sleep, miss Willa," she whispered. "We'll talk in the morning."

O Come, O Come…

Peter Lake once asked her if the prayers were every answered.

… Emmanuel.

Beverly had once found delight in the uncertainty. She didn't anymore.

Author's Note: To anyone who is here today, thank you for reading.

So, it's quite late at night for me while I finish this chapter - 2:23 AM, to be precise - so I will shorten my Note this time around to a mere reiteration of gratitude and a couple necessary details.

I have wanted to give Willa and the governess an interaction like this for a long time so I'm glad I finally did - plus, I am slowly-but-surely working toward making the governess softer, but I didn't want to go too far this chapter, so as to not be uncharacteristic or rushed.

I loved writing Beverly's diversion in deciphering people's ways of breathing. I feel very proud of that :3 Every time I toy around with her new spirit state I feel a dose of serotonin and pride, I'm glad I can make it work...

I feel like I ought to add this, as well, cause it's honestly helped me write this chapter a lot. Tonight I came across a short horror film on Youtube, starring the lovely Jessica Brown-Findlay (the actress who plays Beverly, as you may already know), who portrays a vampiric young woman having some intimacy with a young man. In this short, called "Aftertaste" (I recommend you watch it), she masterfully displays the conflicting vulnerability and intensity that courses through her brain, as well as her juxtaposed desire to both supress her "monstrous" urges and yield completely to them.

I can't deny that watching Jessica in that short, and seeing her performance there, with so many conflicting emotions being shown just through her eyes, gave me a boost of necessary energy and enlightenment to write this chapter completely - I literally wrote it all in these last 2 hours, I definitely planned it but the chapter itself, I wrote tonight, right after finishing watching that short. It also reminded me that I need to check out more of Jessica's work cause she's such a force and a brilliant woman, and my respect for her in neverending, and unlike with Colin, I haven't properly explored all that there is to see within her spectrum of work. So I'll look into that - plus, it helps me write from Beverly's perspective as well, to see the actress who plays her display emotion and conflict in such varied ways :3

So... yes. This is all my commentary for tonight. I'm sure that when I re-read this chapter tomorrow I will find typos, I hope I don't but I fear I might, given the late hours and the speedy pace at which I drafted this chapter all out, so I'll leave the editing for the morning.

Here's your hug, and my thanks, once again, for coming this far. Thank you for giving my work a look. I put a lot of heart into it, a lot of gentleness and care and love, so... I appreciate it with every piece of my soul. Thank you. *hug*