Happiness in Numbers

by Nicole Field

  Alive, came to mind as the immediate answer; he swallowed a hysterical laugh and shoved his hands into his pockets to have something to do with them. "I'm okay," he said. "I'm… sorry."

  "No, well, it's good that you're good," she said. She picked at her nail polish on one index finger with her thumb, absently, and smiled after a moment. The expression was sad and hurt, but almost relieved. "I'm sure Lucas would be glad too. I'd heard you were kind of a mess after."

  "Kind of…?" Keith asked, giving a twitchy smile. "I mean. Yeah. I imagine it was worse for you."

  "I mean… a different kind of worse, maybe," she said. A bit of her nail polish flaked off and fell to the floor. "I'd heard you were kind of a basketcase after. Seeing his ghost everywhere. I'm… sorry if we, you know, contributed to your guilt—"

  His heart was doing something impossible inside him. He wasn't sure he could breathe. "No," he said. "No, I mean—none of you said anything wrong. And it's only right you got to grieve. It wasn't about me. He's your brother."

  She shrugged a shoulder. "Yeah," she agreed. "Still. Shitty situation all around. He wasn't the sort who would let someone get hurt in front of him if he could help it, and I guess he decided he could help it. But…"

  Here it came. "But?"

  "I guess I was kind of jealous too. That you got to be the kind of basketcase who still saw Lucas. While I just got to be one who didn't. I mean…" she sort of laughed, the sound not very humorous. "I missed him. I didn't think he'd be the sort to want to torment the person he helped, though, even if he was a ghost. So I figured you were just… having a hard time."

  Keith tried to keep breathing. It was a manual action, rhythmic, necessary. "Do you believe in ghosts?" It wasn't what he'd meant to ask.

  She seemed surprised. "I did," she said. "I sort of still do. Maybe our 'selves' are just energy, I don't know. If they are, why shouldn't they stick around? That's the theory, right? But… well. I never saw him, so I can't really believe it in practice. You know? Besides… I'd rather he be at peace and happy, not restless. So that's that."

  "Shaunee," Keith began, and then trailed off. What could he say? There was no way to prove it to her, and saying it on its own was cruel.

  "I'm right here," Lucas burst out. He'd stepped out from around the shelf as if drawn, gaze intent on her, just feet from them both. "I'm right here, Shaunee…!"

  Keith couldn't keep himself from glancing at him, immediately wishing he hadn't. She tried to follow his gaze to the blank spot there—

  Hiraeth, behind the counter, cleared his throat, drawing both their attention back. Before he fully turned away, Keith saw Lucas give Hiraeth a grateful but panicked glance. "Shaunee!" Hiraeth said, as if he'd just placed it. "Shaunee, Shaunee… what's the last name?"

  "Brown," she and Keith answered at the same time.

  "Shaunee Brown, is that so…" Hiraeth dug around behind the counter. "And Lucas, huh. That boy, five years ago…"

  Her expression shuttered. "I should go—"

  "No, hang on," Hiraeth said. He was doing a great job with the script, sincere and earnest. Then again, Keith thought, he was a much more experienced actor than either himself or Lucas. "I remembered the case because he'd been by the store before. He wanted to get a gift for his sister Shaunee. It was that doll you were looking at earlier, actually. He couldn't quite afford it so he had me put it aside…"

  "What?" she said, stunned and teary, laughing a little.

  "For real," he said, gesturing at his heart in a messy cross. "Listen, since he wanted you to have it, I want you to take it for free. I've found the accessories too—"

  She was already shaking her head. "I can't possibly," she said. "I couldn't possibly take that. Thanks, but this is so… I don't know…!"

  "I want you to, Shaw-shaw," Lucas said. He'd stepped closer to her again, one hand out. The pain in his voice was raw, aching. "Please, I haven't been able to do anything for you in so long, I just want you to know how I feel, I want you to know how much I love you—"

  She couldn't hear him, was still babbling excuses at Hiraeth over his voice—she wanted to accept it, but she just couldn't, it was too much, this was all too much—and standing there, helpless to take action, listening to the way their voices overlapped and wound around each other, Keith became abruptly overcome with how unfair it was.

  He wanted her to get the chance to see Lucas. He wanted Lucas to get the chance to share his feelings.

  It built in him until he thought he was going to scream and then he just… pushed it out of himself.

  It was risky and possibly stupid and he didn't know if it would do anything and he wasn't sure if he'd do more harm than good if it did do anything—but he didn't have room for second thoughts, not when the opportunity was right in front of him, not when it probably wouldn't be again.

  He pushed it out of himself and for a moment, to his own vision, the room grew dark. All the auras, the strange shadows, everything giving the room the depth that he was used to maneuvering in—they all vanished. Hiraeth, staring at him wide-eyed, was a normal, human young man. He was a little less pale than Keith was used to, with a round antlerless head, and mouthed what at him in growing delighted awe.

  Lucas was gone, too, but not seeing him wasn't enough to make Keith panic, because he could still feel the tether. He couldn't hear Lucas, couldn't see Lucas, could barely feel the patch of cold air that he knew was Lucas.

  But that was fine. He wasn't the one with his second sight right now.

  "What the fuck?!," Shaunee yelped, staring at Hiraeth, just above his head. And then, reacting to something—had Lucas said something?—she whirled around. "Lu… Luke…?"

  "I can't see anything much right now," Keith announced to the air, wobbly. "And maybe this is a bad idea but I couldn't—I couldn't do nothing. I just couldn't."

  He knew Lucas must be answering, but couldn't hear him. His heart ached and his vision felt all wrong. "You two, you two talk. I don't know how long I can keep it on you instead of me. I'm… going to sit."

  This time, he didn't wait for an answer. Not being able to hear it was too weird now. He stumbled around the shelving to reach the back room, escaping them. He found the door open and Avi and the Snakeskin Girl looking out, observing.

  He expected them to chide him for his actions, but they didn't; he supposed that letting another human in on the truth might not actually matter to Others. Given how everyone had disbelieved him… she'd be in the same boat. So would anyone who knew, so long as it was just one person at a time.

  So he just kept going, and they parted, letting him through. He could only take a few more steps before he sank down, completely disoriented at seeing the world with no Otherworldly overlay at all. Avi looked like a normal, kinda preppy guy. The Snakeskin Girl's skin had no scales and her mouth was a normal width.

  They glanced at each other, then reentered the room too, closing the door softly behind them to give Lucas some privacy. They didn't try to speak, and neither did Keith, just putting his head on his knees and counting his breaths as he focused on keeping part of himself away from himself.

  It could have been seconds or minutes later that the door opened and then closed again; it was Hiraeth. He must have closed the shop to give the siblings the privacy they needed. Slowly, Hiraeth came over, sank down next to Keith, and pulled him into his arms. Keith almost lost his hold on the projection then, feeling frustrated tears well up, but he forced them away, forced himself to calm, went back to counting breaths, letting the heavy earthy scent of Hiraeth's body help himself focus.

  Hiraeth seemed to understand what he was doing, rocking him in time with his breaths. Slowly, Keith slid a hand up Hiraeth's back, up his neck, into his hair, and found the shape of the antlers he couldn't see. It consoled him a little; this was all still real, all still there, even when he couldn't see it anymore.

  Time passed. A knock came on the back room's door and it jolted Keith, interrupted his focus. He drew a sharp, strangled bre
ath as his vision warped, nearly blinding him again, his sight rushing back with a vengeance.

  "Hey," Shaunee said weakly, tears in her voice. She opened the door and peeked in. They must have been a surprising sight—Hiraeth wrapped around Keith, two strangers hanging out in the back of the room with them—but she took it all in without blinking.

  Then again, she'd just seen something much weirder.

  "A-are you okay," Keith stammered out. He put a hand over his eyes, rubbing at them with the heel. "O-ow. I. I hope you're okay. I hope I haven't fucked things up for you. I was really really scared I'd fuck things up for you…!"

  "I really, uh. I don't think you did?" Shaunee leaned in the door frame, hugging herself. "I have a lot to think about, obviously, Jesus Christ! But I'm… I'm so grateful. I'm seriously grateful, Keith."

  "I didn't… no, I mean, you got a lot of reason to not be grateful. I just wanted… I just had to," he said weakly. "I hope… you had a good talk."

  She swallowed audibly, wiping at the tears on her face with her forearm. "We did, yeah," she managed after a moment. "I have to—I need to go just. Process this? But um. I'd like us to keep in touch. If that's okay? Both… for Lucas's sake? And because—uh, because I've just learned something kind of wild and I—I'm going to have a lot of questions for you later, I think?"

  "I don't know if I can answer them, but I'll try," Keith rasped. "H—sweetheart, can you… deal with… that? I need a moment."

  "Of course, love." Hiraeth kissed his forehead, then unwound from around him, striding over to Shaunee with a smile. "I happen to have his phone number and I really would like to give you that doll."

  She let him lead her out. "You know?" Keith heard, as the back room door closed, "I think I'll take you up on that after all."

  Keith just barely had the time to catch his breath before Avi strode over. "How did you do that?" Avi demanded.

  Was he going to get chided after all?

  "I just…" Keith made a face. "I don't know. I haven't done it before. But I knew I could project my abilities out of my body because I can enter other people's mindscapes, or feel their feelings. And I know my seeing things is an ability, I can turn it more on or less on but never off. And I just… really wanted to help them. So I combined it, and… and threw my sight at her."

  "Huh," Avi said. He seemed to wait for Keith to say more, but when he didn't, his feet—the only part of him in Keith's field of vision—stepped away as he turned to go back to the Snakeskin Girl.

  The two of them talked quietly at the other end of the back room, and Keith took a few more moments to just breathe deeply.

  And then Lucas was in front of him, and Keith blinked up through tears of relief as he saw him again, knew for sure that he hadn't forever given up his ability to.

  "Thanks," Lucas said, and sank down, throwing his arms around Keith, hugging him hard enough that his arms went partly through his body, chilling Keith to the bone.

  Keith burst into tears and did his best to hug back. They stayed that way until Hiraeth came back—and then stayed that way a little longer, with the addition of one incredibly-moved deer boy wrapped around them both as well.

  He didn't want to stop, didn't want to leave the comfort of their joint embrace.

  But Avi came over again, and waited until they were separated, and this time, when he met Keith's wet, blurry gaze, Avi's face didn't look challenging.

  It looked defeated.

  "Please," Avi said, imploring, "help Fish."

  *~*~*

  They didn't start until the next day. They couldn't; Keith was exhausted from using new abilities, and while he'd mindwalked under worse circumstances, those were in a do-or-die sort of situation. This… he just couldn't trust himself, not when he was that tired.

  He skipped class on Monday, but it was nothing super important anyway—a lecture on Greek mythology, the content of which, he was pretty sure, had been covered in about five other courses he'd taken already. It gave him time to sleep in, rest and recover, and head over to Hiraeth's a little early.

  Hiraeth let them in with a bright smile, wrapping Keith in a hug, then leaning his face into Lucas and inhaling, as if he could taste Lucas on the air he occupied. "Hello, loves, hello! Come on in, get comfortable. Do you need anything?"

  His usual energy seemed to be back, Keith thought with relief, whether because of Avi's decision to trust Keith, how they'd managed to help Lucas and Shaunee, or perhaps the combination.

  "Water," Keith said. "I woke up super dehydrated last time, want to solve that in advance."

  "Make him eat something with sugar too," Lucas added.

  "We'll hydrate and sweeten you wonderfully," Hiraeth promised.

  Sure enough, by the time the others arrived, Keith had slowly nursed a tall glass of water to empty and finished a cookie.

  "Hey, Keith, Lucas," the Snakeskin Girl said cheerfully, shrugging her jacket off. "Everything still going well? Hey, Hiraeth!"

  "You knew his name?" Keith asked, startled.

  "Of course I knew his name. Have you been avoiding it the whole time?" She blinked, surprised. "Oh, you have been. That's really nice of you."

  Keith shrugged uncomfortably. "I only just know enough about Others to worry about committing a faux pas," he admitted. "I never talked to any until about five months ago, when I met Hiraeth."

  "Wow," she said. "Well, you're doing a great job. Call me Pertu, if you like."

  Keith stared at her in surprise, somewhat moved. "Pertu. It's nice to meet you."

  "Well, you too." Pertu made a face, like, We've been talking all this time already, but she laughed lightly, leaning over and ruffling his hair.

  Avi huffed as he entered, carrying the fish tank. "You're giving him your familiar name? Really?"

  "I think we're giving him more trust than that already," she said over her shoulder. "So why not?"

  "I guess," Avi said, though from what Keith could tell, he was less unconvinced and more sulky. He put the portable fishbowl down on the ground in front of the bed. "What do you need from us to make this work?"

  Keith licked his lips, already feeling his mouth go dry with nerves. "I'm not sure," he said. "Tell me something high-level and basic about him. If it's like before, it'll all be a symbolic landscape in there. It's really easy to overthink things, especially since I don't know him—I don't want to go in with too much detail and follow the wrong symbols. So just… enough to feel like I know him a little. That worked for me before."

  They nodded. Keith expected them to have to take a moment to think, but Avi began speaking right away. "He's kind. He's got infinite capacity for forgiveness, but sometimes it feels like he's making up for something."

  "He's playful and flighty," Pertu said, her sharp features thoughtful. "He likes to play. He doesn't like to lose, but usually sets the terms of the games he plays so there is no loser as a result. Generous to a fault."

  "Kind of a peacock," Avi added.

  "Like you can talk!" She laughed.

  "Whatever," Avi said. "Should I keep going?"

  "No, I… think that's a good place to start," Keith said hesitantly. He slid off the bed, sitting next to the fishbowl, and leaned back against the mattress so he wouldn't fall over. He put his hand on the edge of the bowl. "Fish, is it okay? Will you let me see inside you…?"

  Fish darted over to the side where his fingers were, and bumped against it a couple of times. Keith stretched himself out, trying to feel more about Fish, and got a sense of resignation, of embarrassment, of welcome.

  It was as close to explicit consent as he was going to get. He drew a breath—

  "Keith?" Hiraeth sat down next to him, taking his hand. "Lucas. Can I try an experiment with the two of you?"

  Off guard, Keith blinked owlishly at him. "Uh, now?"

  "Oh. I think I get it." Lucas sat down too, leaning against and a little into Hiraeth—until he slid inside completely. Both Avi and Pertu couldn't seem to quite hold back shocked noises, but Hiraeth
's eyes fluttered open and he gave them both a firm, almost smug, look that kept them silent.

  "Uh," Keith said, taken aback. Mostly they'd done that as a way they could all join in sex with each other, not just… hang out. It wasn't anything they liked to do for long; it was weird for Hiraeth to feel another person inside his vessel, and weird for Lucas to be in a body that didn't feel like his own.

  "We're going to ground you, if you'll let us," Hiraeth said. He squeezed his hand on Keith's. "Lucas has a connection to you, and I should be able to make use of that to yank you out if it looks like something bad is happening to you. In fact, if you want to wake up on your own, you might just be able to call on your connection with Lucas and I'll try to reel you in. I can't guarantee that we'll know if something's wrong on our own, but it's better than nothing. Right, love?"

  His mouth twisted into a smile more like Lucas's than his own. "Yeah, we can do that." Still Hiraeth's voice, but no longer his phrasing. That part was completely Lucas.

  Keith couldn't bring himself to glance at Avi or Pertu and see what sort of judgment was on their faces. He needed to focus. "That sounds great," he said firmly. He wound the fingers of one hand through Hiraeth's—and Lucas's by proxy—and drew that deep breath again.

  He dipped the fingers of his other hand in the fishbowl water, and fell.

  *~*~*

  For a moment, Keith felt as if he were drowning. He was spun around, buffeted by strong waters, a deep undertow that threatened to pull him away completely. But he was attached to a line, hooked onto it with his fingers wrapped around it, and he held tight, trusting it to see him through this.

  And as suddenly as it began, he was free. He found himself lying on the beach, coated in sand and wrapped up in netting. For a moment, he couldn't move, too disoriented and dizzied from the whirl of water, but then the need to breathe overtook him and he coughed, spitting out sand, rolling and retching until water came out with it.

  "Gross," he mumbled. He shrugged the netting off himself, squirming free, and drew several breaths of the crisp ocean air as he took stock. He might be mildly bruised, but was otherwise fine. His sweater and jeans were waterlogged and coated in sand, but there was no helping that. He didn't need to wear more sopping wet clothes than necessary, though, and reached for his socks.