Water is incredibly heavy, did you know that?
It isn’t like the starlight James was so accustomed too, light, beautiful, easy. If starlight kisses than water can only strangle. He knows that, knows that better than most.
James is not creature of the night, how can he be when his mother was sunlight brought earth side? Neither though is he a boy of the day, how can he be when his father was not born, but shed from the stars above?
He wakes up from a slumber. Those who have never been dead, they do not know the deafening sound of a moonless light and the dark, dark, dark that accompanies it. He wanders because the sound of his own heartbeat and his feet on the ground are enough to satisfy him, to comfort him. He can remember walking the woods with his sister, he can remember how upset his mother had been, can remember his father calming her.
He cannot remember what he found in the woods though.
James can only remember poppies.
Red poppies.
She reminds him of Septimus, he and Elli’s tutor, and that alone is enough to comfort the boy and flutter curiosity in his chest like a moth cupped between two hands. A flood of advice reaches the back of his mind (a place that still splutters out ocean water and smells like salt and death) “the woods, the trees, they are not friends, James, death lurks there.” “There are no such things as strangers, Ben.” “The night hides secrets, but not all are terrifying.”
Her light cascades over him and he thinks he has never felt happier, has never felt brighter, before her movements leave him in the dark. “No, no! It’s too dark.” He says in a flush of panic. And he suddenly cannot see, it’s too dark and he is stumbling, falling, and the long grass feels all too much like ocean waves and they drag him under once more.
never gave a single thought to where it might lead
image by Gary Bendig
@[cressida]