16. To touch an invisible face

So this is where you've been, all this time…

His back had been to the window. The sunlight, milk-like, drenching his shoulders, his neck. Dripping down the coarseness of his hair, the sharp strands of darkness cast upon his eyes.

Beverly had sat upon the bed in her traveling attire, pale blues and periwinkles, her cream-colored sleeves. She'd asked about his time in the attic of Grand Central Station.

She'd been greedier then. Well… perhaps this particular greed had never completely abandoned her. The greed for his words. She loved to talk to him. To look at him when he talked back.

It's cold up here…

Peter had kept his descriptions vague. He spoke less in pictures, and more in sounds. The silence he lived with.

I don't like the silence.

Science. Gravity. Poetry. The fear of collapse.

A dread she shared with him.

I don't like the isolation it embodies.

So, in her lack of information, Beverly had pictured chalk stars upon the floorboards. She'd imagined blue glass and iron brushstrokes slicing through the ceiling. Dust. Frost. She'd imagined the cold, back when she had a heart of fire.

Now her heart lay, stone-still, inside a carriage, behind the people she loved most in the world. Her sister's pale face, a ghost, a stain of feeble pink on the glass window. Her father's icy eyes shut in defeat.

And winter was a huge, huffing beast. New York, a range of crystal bells, trembling under its breath like a necklace, harmonizing into a thickening choir. Too similar to the twinkling starfire she'd woken up to…

Beverly was as massive as the atmosphere, but as delicate as a veil. And she couldn't scream back at the weather. Feel the heat at the roof of her mouth, the fire leaping up her throat, blades of bright red, twisted into her hair.

Her fire was extinguished and she found herself vaporized. She had no voice to combat this melody with. No crickets to free, no music sheet.

I didn't imagine a place like this…

No dreams. No visions of an attic that may have been.

I was stupid…

A cozy spot. Blue glass.

Chalk galaxies only she could have drawn. Because Peter Lake was fourteen years her senior, old enough to be worn out into skepticism by the reality he so unmistakingly belonged to.

Winter had always been his beast.

I let myself forget that you were never as fortunate as me…

The walls were putrid, yellow, oily. The mattress was flaky at the edges, parched in puddles of muddy creams, gentle greys. The floor was a chessboard, a gate, lain down, collapsed into submission.

That your home could ever match the painting I made in my mind…

This was the belly of a sky of paint. A foolish recreation.

But this isn't even really your home…

Beverly had looked up into the sky for years. She'd seen through the swabs of water and color and found him, curled up, tired and frightened, on a horrible bed, in a horrible cranny.

Peter…

Peter, lain down upon his side. Gaze vacant. Features relaxed, forming a macabrely blank expression.

She wanted to comb back his hair. To watch it stubbornly return, looping back across his face like a dark constellation…

I wish you could explain this to me…

He held two items, one in each hand.

What is the "City of Justice"?

A little golden banner. Clutched between his fingers, deep within the folds of his pillow. CITY OF JUSTICE.

Where are you from?

And a little piece of chocolate. That with which he'd made her laugh.

Mm…? Peter…?

Thumb gently grazing the yellow wrapping.

That paper would never be torn. The sweet inside, never to be freed from its shackles of gold.

Beverly did speak now.

"Eat it."

Because Cecil was not here and his absence was beginning to grow a virulent desperation deep within her gut.

She was underwater, too sunken down to be dragged even further into the abyss by needless resentments. But she did grow impatient. Peter Lake's face had gone from purple to ash-white.

"There's nothing sadder in the world… for a sweet to stay unwrapped."

He'd become very pale in just a short time. And his skin was darker than her own, sun-burnt under the eyes, reddish-amber at the fingertips and mouth…

"For a gift to never be opened…"

Green earrings winked at the weak sunlight. What little of it managed to crawl inside this tiny space, with its thick-glassed walls of moribund yellows.

Seeds of metal dribbled down her throat. Beverly felt the weight of the water she was diving through. She was sunlight and the ocean was thick and cold and blue. She sank to her knees, making no sound. She let her musical hands forge back into unity and she reached for him, but she couldn't touch him.

Cecil, where are you?

She now found herself free to fully look upon the gown she'd acquired in the descent. She examined the fabric, her skirt, her sleeves. Solidified into shape, no longer broken into particles of dawn. And all very green.

Green…

An impossible color. The color of the earrings, yet deeper, thicker in intensity. The shades stolen from a spring neither she nor Peter Lake had even gotten to see.

So Beverly considered this particular hue to be especially insulting, considering her current state.

She was a fantasized season, the end of winter, hidden in plain sight. An invisible dream.

Here but not here. Everywhere and nowhere at all. A hypocrite.

A scream. A whisper. A gust of wind.

I beg you… I can't see you…

Peter Lake had wept inside a greenhouse with her body in his arms.

You told me you'd be here…

Beverly hated this gown… She preferred herself invisible…

She looked down upon her rose-tipped fingers, the thin bones on her hands. She trembled. It was cold underwater.

But I don't know where you are or where you'll be…

She'd dreamed of white grass and crystal bees. She'd not been ashamed of the pleasure. Peter had asked her in the morning if she dreamed often…

Peter…

The universe was old and gnarly upon her tongue.

"Y- You're going to die in three days, Peter…"

Her eyes, re-emerged within the spaces of her face. Beverly allowed herself to cry behind her curtain of death. Rivers ran, salty, oily, kindly tepid, down her face. For a split second she forgot she was dead.

"That means you'll… you'll…"

Peter Lake couldn't look at her. Wouldn't comfort her. Or know just how wrong he was for thinking she was way beyond his grasp.

He was condemned, blind, and Cecil wasn't here. And Beverly spoke. She didn't know what else to do.

"Don't go… Don't- Don't go to the bridge… Please…"

She still spoke and heard little more than the grumbling of the ceiling. Or maybe it was the floor. This fallen fence. The paint that parched the ceiling underneath.

"Don't go…"

Bubbles. Stars. That twinkle.

Am I still able to feel pain?

On a lunge Beverly arched herself forward, shuddering. She felt suddenly possessed by the urge to vomit.

Castor… Pollux… Capella…

Grease pooled her mouth. Hot water fueled her belly and salt nibbled at the walls of her throat.

It's not wise to speak underwater.

Where was Cecil?

You're weighed down by the sound of your own arrogance.

Stars harmonized insufferably.

Ursa Major… Ursa Minor…

After that, Beverly behaved less brusquely. She kept herself as she was, curled, shivering, unseen and unheard. In due time, at dusk, she regained her strength.

And she once again crawled into him. His rhythmic, monotonous breathing. She was moonlight and dust and frost and her gown was gone, lost to the night, greens bled out into purples and blacks.

Say "America."

Dying little girl with a funny accent.

I didn't know Isaac had another daughter…

Unworthy of even a mention. Useless even in death.

No matter how infinite she was, how massive the atmosphere spread at her heels, Beverly was seated in front of a piano she couldn't play, looking at a range of crickets she couldn't free.

You know something, Peter? Something… horrible?

Beverly touched her own face. In the same way that she'd touched his, just last night.

I don't want to see you die…

In the hopes of remembering that what she could touch did, in fact, exist.

But I do want to hold you… To feel you again…

She couldn't feel him. She couldn't even feel herself. Human skin didn't blur this way, at the brush of her fingers.

To talk to you… To let you look at me…

The worn edges of a paper sheet.

I've been dead for just a day… But I feel like I've already forgotten the feeling…

Crickets, dried ink.

But don't die, Peter… Not for my sake… You cannot save me, I'm already dead…

Now moistened by a child's mouth as they nervously nibble at the page.

So save yourself… Please…

Please…


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

I honestly don't know how to feel about this chapter. I still really like writing about Beverly's physical and emotional hardships as she deals with her new form and its endless possibilities, how she still feels useless despite her inability to be harmed anymore (which is not really true, as you can see. I am so happy with the section where "the galaxies flood" Beverly's mouth from talking too much - I wanted to make it actually gross to read, without being too graphic, so I hope I succeeded.)

I also think that she'd frankly feel some sort of longing for Peter to join her, so they could actually be together (oooooh I'm going to put a pin on that, just wait till I get to the bridge scene XD), and that she'd feel terrible for it. Because that would mean that she would, in some way, want him to die. And Beverly obviously doesn't want that. I don't think she'd want that in the movie, either - in my version, though, I just think she'd feel conflicted. I like to add little dramas like these, I feel like they can be very realistic in some scenarios.

Overall: I'm becoming way happier with the rules I personally added to the ghost logic of this universe, the more I write about them, as they affect Beverly. I'm proud with everything I have written regarding Beverly's emotional state, and well, Beverly in general. But there is something about this chapter that I'm not super convinced about, and I can't quite put my finger on it...

When I find out what it is, I'll just edit it, don't worry :3 For now I'd just rather keep my story going so I can keep moving forward.

Because I still need to get to the bridge (which will come soon, after Beverly reacts to Peter's prayer (one of my favorite chapters from ASITL, I feel so proud about Peter's prayer ahh!) and Beverly's mom shows up - I have had plans regarding Beverly's mom for a long time, just you wait, I'll get there in no time).

And I'm just patiently working my way back to where "A Star in the Lake" ends so I can finally return to Peter's POV, and have therefore a shared POV with him and Beverly, which I think I'm gonna be very happy with because I love writing from the perspectives of both of these characters for very different reasons (with Peter's POV I connect to my own humanity, whereas with Beverly's POV I connect to my own creativity - again, two different writing styles that I really love working with :3), and have Cecil join in at long last. I promise Cecil isn't gone - he's just missing... mm...

As always, I'll be back soon, thank you for reading, I can't hug you in person so I'll just send you a digital hug, here it is! *digital hug* I'm so happy you're here. It means everything to me. See you next time!