20. Banshee

He spoke to her gently, in a small voice. Thin enough to snap at the stroke of her fingers.

"Hey, love…"

He hadn't said a word in days and his voice was frail.

Hello…

Beverly trembled behind her curtain of death. She wasn't there with him. Not in a way that he could comprehend. He was all alone, lain upon his side, a puddle of tears greying under his cheek. And he still called her 'love.'

Peter. Worldly, pessimistic Peter.

Peter…

He was praying to her…

"I hope I'm doing this right…"

And for a split second Beverly swore to feel the caress of a renewed heartbeat. A butterfly nest, cracked open between her ribs. She loved to love him. God… God, she loved him…

Do you remember my theories?

Was there a god in that ocean of starlight? Was the Sun a god?

"I have never believed in God, but I do believe in you…"

That the sky is an ocean… Not a town… That the dead are the stars…

She listened to him. She slipped away into the morning, forsook the flames of her father's fireplace. The murmurs of a forgotten mother. A selfish specter.

"Can you hear me? Will you hear this?"

That the sky does not discard you for being sinful, but embrace you for what light you can offer?

And she concentrated every limb, every inch of her shapeless form, into the attic of Grand Central Station.

And Peter's prayer.

I was right, Peter…

She ran airy fingers through the coarse blackness of his hair. She traveled down his clothes, felt the palpitation of hunger, the rumble of his belly. The thickness of his heartbeat.

I was right…

She reveled in how alive he felt, despite it all. His misery only seemed to revitalize the rest of his body. Make it louder, and more vicious. More desperate to combat the death that awaited.

That very day. On a bridge. She saw nothing beyond that.

Mere darkness and water. Little bubbles, stardust, washing past the twilight, up, around her. She would fall into water and he would be there, in the sky, like a fish ensnared in a net.

I was mostly right…

He was loud. He was anything but quiet. He would step on the one noisy floorboard of a house. He would breathe and lull her to sleep, his arms around her, his lips pressed to the crown of her head.

His breathing, his blood, the rush of air and liquid. His blinking black eyes. Exhausted, but alert. Moving.

I didn't know about harnesses… or transactions… The economy of stars…

She clung to him fiercely as he finally incorporated himself off the bed. And she spoke to him.

She told him she loved him, and that John loved him, and that Willa loved him, and that Cecil loved him, and that Isaac loved him, even, in spite of it all. That they'd need him. That he had so much to give.

That he was a mechanic, not a thief, and a son, not an orphan, and a lover, not alone. Not alone.

He was too kind to be lonely. That had been the last thing she'd ever told him… Last he'd heard of her voice, on Earth, beyond the stars.

Peter, my friend, my miracle…

She felt no pain at the utter of these words. She spoke from a heart that no longer beat. She didn't beg him away from his course, or even try to do so, because she knew by now that the effort would be fruitless.

She merely walked with him like he'd walked with her, every night, in the Coheeries. How he'd held her hands and whispered and turned down every other sound in the world.

I didn't know you would need help to get up there…

She was with him till the end. She watched him hide his trinkets into the floor. She went with him every step of the way.

But then again, I have always been more privileged than you… I was foolish to think you'd be as lucky as me…

As he left. Leisurely. Waded into the wintry fog. The city's sighing body, a fallen soldier. Barely alive under all this snow.

I don't know what my miracle was… How on Earth I managed to swim so far up without drowning…

She fell in kisses of frost and snowdust, clung to his clothes and his hair and his face. She traveled with the wind and enveloped him, tried to hug him. She could offer nothing but cold. Peter Lake shivered as the coffin was brought down.

But… then again… a lot of things can be categorized as miracles…

Little Willa saw him, through barely. And she waved a little hand. And Peter Lake waved back.

She would find Isaac Penn in front of the fire and would not even try to wake him… When? When?

You burned your hands when you fixed the furnace and they miraculously healed…

And then Peter Lake left, and Beverly followed, screaming until her tongue hardened and her teeth froze. She was soundless and transparent and yet her skirts clawed at her ribs and tried to drag her back as she raced after him.

You saved me… You saved me when Pearly had me cornered on the street…

She could feel pain, even in death. A heart still lay within her chest, though it did not beat. It ached for him now. It ached and heaved like a pillar being sunken into the sea.

And with her pain the weather grew crueler. Winter roared. She ran across the city one final time, let the breeze gather in her gown, but Cecil would not be found, and nothing could be done.

I danced and didn't burn…

All she could do was wait for time to eat him up. For Pearly to show up. For Peter's laugh, his tears, his absolute sadness.

Confessions of murder. Revelations. His name was Gabriel and he'd killed her with champagne.

It was almost comical in its corniness, she believed. A cowardly murder.

Beverly cared not for his face or his reasons, she was dead and she had no lust for vengeance. She only concerned herself with the one person she cared for, on this bridge. Her friend... Her lover... His beloved face, twisted in panic and misery. His sorrow morphing into blind rage. Words of ice. Eyes burning in tears.

Yet... he put up no resistence, when the wolves came for him. He had no wish to fight, in spite of his fiery voice. His anger was nothing compared to his sadness.

And she was useless. She was so useless.

He was dragged and grabbed and thrown and she could do nothing, she was the air, a net of nothingness upon which he fell.

I ran… You took me flying…

She swelled within the horse's wings and hastened his journey up and down the bridge. She blew and screamed and howled and wept and Peter Lake hugged Athansor and buried his tear-stained face on the whiteness of his coat and he begged him, begged him…

More than once, too… I didn't die…

And Beverly was the swinging breeze behind Pearly Soames's arms. The boom of his strikes. The taste of blood and the smell of salt.

Peter Lake was thrown into the East River on January 4th, 1917. Dropping straight down, like an arrow, and disappearing in the waves.

Cecil told me everything would be well in the end…

Icy water widening into skirts, fanning around him, draping him in. Slicing through him like needles through a cake.

You do need help to get to the stars…

And Beverly didn't hesitate.

You need my arms. My light.

She went after him.

You're coming with me, Peter Lake.

And he was asleep. And he was sinking.

You promised you'd stay with me after returning to the city.

And Beverly wrapped her arms around him. She turned her face to the sky and the earrings glinted into the white winter sunlight. The sky was ablaze with silver flames. A storm. Winter glew and bled into the green.

You promised me you would never disappear…

Beverly clung to him for dear life.

Author's Note: ... To anyone who is here today, Happy New Year, and thank you for reading!

Okay. NOW I'm finally past the plot of "A Star in the Lake." Twenty chapters, wow, took me long enough XD And I am so ready to write next chapter because oooooooh I'm about to get melodramatic again! Because this is "Winter's Tale," and this is me, and now Peter is dead, and Beverly has taken him. And, in the movie, Peter is dead at least for some hours until he is brought back to life. In ASITL I make it clear that not only does Peter stay dead for most of the day, but also that winter sort of ends for the time that he's dead.

Also, another thing to point out: I made Willa notice in the end of ASITL that she sees that "a star is missing" in the sky, right after Peter comes back to life. Mm... I have some plans for that :3

If you want some foreshadowing, return to Chapter 10, "Interrogation," and notice how I described Beverly's star, her tent on the ocean. (Note/Anecdote: Funny enough, I admit that this was a mistake on my part, that I kinda forgot that Beverly is supposed to be in a star, and stars shine, but her tent is completely dark when I have her wake up in the sky - at first I thought I had been really stupid, but THEN I thought of a better possibility, of a star not lighting up immediately. Another reason why Cecil and others may be fishing for miracles or performing miracles. Because in the logic I wrote into how the star and miracle system works in the movieverse (based on what I personally intepreted), I make Cecil explain that one needs a ticket to get to the stars, not to necessarily BECOME one. Mhm... My big melodramatic micro-analyzing brain started working and I will talk about this soon, cause I just made some updates to the worldbuilding thanks to this "mistake" I made :3 I'm so excited!)

Anyways, ahem... Happy New Year! Here is your hug, *hug*, and my gratitude, and my love for you, thank you for being here, and for caring about this movie and my silly and overly-complicated fanfictions about it XD I'm thankful to you. With all my heart, I'm thankful.