by Elizabeth Lo
“Oh.”
Wait… Is he saying he… murdered them?
For some reason, my first question is, “Did you regret it?”
“Yeah… I guess,” he responds. “Not for the reasons you might expect. I just… hated myself afterwards. And I didn’t get what I wanted out of it, and so it wasn’t worth it to do it.”
“And what did you want from it?” I ask quietly.
“Revenge. Control. Breaking free. All of it.”
“Oh.”
“‘Oh’ is right,” he says softly. “This is the despicable person you’ve spent the night in the same cave with. Sorry you thought I was just another normal person. So… Now you know you’ll be traveling with a killer with problems with his sanity… You still want to come along with me?”
When I don’t answer, he just nods to himself.
“Yeah, I thought so,” he whispers.
We both go quiet. I don’t know what to say. Is there anything really to say? I should know… good words without true meaning behind them really don’t do anything.
“You know…” he says as an ending thought. “About your brother, I highly doubt that it can be considered anyone’s fault for his death… Because, in the end, it doesn’t really matter anymore. What matters is the outcomes afterward… and the consequences that come with death. I just wanted to tell you that.”
I draw my knees closer to my chest.
“Yeah.”
Clearing his throat, he stands up and continues on in a very business-like voice. “You can stay here as long as you want, or you can finish packing and head off on your own. The closest city is just northwest of here, at exactly ten o’clock. You can find it on the map. I’ll be leaving now.” He starts off into the forest, back slightly hunched over from the bag slung over his shoulder.
For a second, I just sit there dumbfounded next to the rock, watching him walk away.
How unfair, Mr. Falcon. You think you can leave after saying all that?
I take a deep breath. And then as fast as I can, I run back into the cave and grab my bag, screwing the list. Snagging random things from the boxes that I think I may need instead, I dash out, following the direction he went.
Thumping through the brush, I find him already well into the woods, brown trench coat standing out amongst the lighter browns and greens around him.
“Wait up!” I call, running until my legs hurt.
He stops and turns, his eyes widening.
“What are you—” he starts.
“I’m heading to Hanbury,” I interrupt. And I smile at him, just like I did to my brother all those years ago when he barely even knew how to smile. “Will you be my guide? Since you’re not really going anywhere in particular, are you?”
“A-are you sure?” he stammers. It’s funny seeing him so caught off guard.
“Yup. I’m sure.”
He blinks even more. For once, his face, which was always veiled with a mask, is shocked.
Sunlight pokes through the trees and enlivens the mist around us. The entire forest, despite the impending chaos looming over Galviton, seems so serene at this moment.
“And…” I say. “On the way, we can talk more about ourselves.”
Chapter Sixteen
Midnight
With Lafayette
“I told you to wait up!” I call after Lafayette. “Wait!”
“Oh, I forgot,” he says as he stops. “You’re too small to walk faster than one mile per hour.”
“Shut up, you giant,” I mumble, jogging and tripping my way up to him. Nevertheless, he waits patiently for me.
We’ve been traveling now for about a day and a half. Lafayette said that Hanbury actually wasn’t very far from where we were in the cave, so we even take our time at some points in the trip, breaking every hour or so of walking and generally just talking.
Back at the mansion, I’ve been training with Phelix in just general magic usage since this morning to prepare for the upcoming curse-breaking feat. Glorieux hasn’t done anything yet, but I can only imagine what she’s been planning.
Without really realizing it, I’ve stopped getting anxious whenever I talk with Lafayette. Though his eyes are always uncaring and cold, somehow they don’t bother me like how everyone else’s do.
And for someone who’s able to be so easily indifferent, Lafayette’s expressions, when he does show them, tend to come out in bursts. Kind of just like Black, the thought of whom makes me smile just a little more.
But… I still can’t help but remember what Annabelle and Artemis were talking about before. Whether or not a person can be evil… A life for a life. I know I ran after him in the woods, but still…
After some time, I finally pluck up the courage to ask.
“Can I ask… how you felt?” My voice feels like it could disappear on the faint breath of the wind. “When you… killed people.”
“Why? You taking an interest in murder?”
“No, no. It’s just… I’m just… curious. I don’t think you’re a bad person… that’s all.”
He looks up at the sky, closing his eyes.
“Exhilaration,” he says. “Satisfaction. Disgust. Fear. And… that indescribable feeling of just wanting everything to just… stop. I’d say that’s what I felt.”
“Do you think what you did was right?”
He huffs.
“Oh, no, of course not. But there are times when you’re willing to do things you know aren’t ‘right.’”
“Why did you want revenge on them?”
“Because I did.”
“But… Was there…”
He stops and sighs.
“Listen. Don’t try to justify my actions. As much as I’m sure you would like to believe I’m still some sort of hero, I’m not. There’s nothing else to it. I’m a killer. Plain and simple.”
The breeze starts to get colder and nips at the tip of my nose and edges of my ears.
“You say that,” I mutter. “But… I don’t think you’re just a black canvas like you say you are.”
He keeps walking, ignoring me.
“Oh look, it’s right there.” He points off in the distance from the top of a hill, acting as if the tension isn’t there anymore. “Hanbury, city of politics and the right-hand men and women of the Summer Palace. Think you can make it?” His brow wrinkles with exaggerated worry. “I mean, I can carry you if you want…”
“I can make it on my own,” I reply indignantly, but I still grin.
So far, the only thing I can tell for sure is this: Lafayette is not evil. But he’s not innocent either.
“Unforgivable.” Didn’t Artemis use that word to describe murder?
I never thought I would come to a situation where I would have to judge a person this close to me. Is he an unforgivable person?
I don’t know.
Maybe it’s dangerous for me to be walking right alongside Lafayette like this.
But maybe it’s not.
No, no… I shouldn’t do this to myself.
For now, I might as well just enjoy our walk together and stop brooding over this too much. Enjoy the moment—the illusion—because this might really be one of the last moments in my life I can enjoy.
“I wish time could just stop,” I whisper to no one in particular.
He glances at me, finally acknowledging me again, but it takes another mile or two before he starts talking again.
“Can I ask you something?” he says. “What’s the most memorable moment of your life? One where you wish you could go back in time just to savor again.”
“Hmmm? Okay…” I tilt my head from side to side, racking my memory. “I guess… Oh! This isn’t a moment… but a place of many moments.”
“That works.”
“My brother and I found a secret apple tree at the top of a small hill in a clearing in the woods. During the fall, every day after school we would go up to the tree, pick a couple of apples… and just talk. Talk as if the world didn’t matter.
Play pretend heroes or pick the flowers and put them in my hair or climb the apple tree to see who could get the highest…”
When I peek at his face, his eyes are closed and angled towards the sky. Without realizing, tears brim at the edges of my eyes, and I blink them away.
“Those were good days,” I say softly.
“I’m glad.” He opens his eyes again with an expressionless face. “That’s a good memory to have. I hope you can hold onto it.”
“Why?”
He gives me a grim smile.
“Because I’m what happens when a person loses those memories.”
“I’m sure you had some good, or at least pleasant, memories.”
He shakes his head. Frowning, I skip in front of him, stopping him.
“Well then,” I say. “You might as well just make new memories from now on, don’t you think? Memories of your own you can close your eyes to and remember at any time. Memories that will make you smile just to think about.”
To my pleasure, the dark look on his face transforms into a real smile, nothing like the King of Snakes, but just a person named Lafayette.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he says.
I laugh and trot along.
See? This is nice… Just walking and talking like the weight of the world isn’t on my shoulders.
“They’re a strange thing—memories.” I stop and wait up for him, talking as he walks. “Have you ever considered that maybe you could be a different person from yourself in the past? Or that the you in the future won’t be the same person as the you now. Identity-wise.”
He tilts his head and thinks.
“I wonder…” he says. “It sounds like a rather abstract idea.”
“Maybe it is… But I always thought about it. That the present me should make good memories for the me in the future. I’m glad the past me did. She at least gave me these memories for me to hold onto.”
He catches up to me and pats my head.
“If that’s the case,” he says, an amused look on his face. “Then why isn’t this present you trying to make good memories?”
His smile caught me off guard.
I don’t want to move on from this moment. Talking with a sort-of-stranger, in the quiet forests of Galviton. As a Midnight at peace. All that’s left is this me and the memories of past Midnights. After all, I won’t have a future me soon.
But I can’t tell him that.
“Ah, well…” My words fumble off of my lips. “Well, not every moment of your life will be pleasant, I guess. There will always be ups and downs… And this me just happens to be a little lower on the spectrum.”
“Hmm…” he says, continuing to walk. “An interesting theory.”
“Yeah.”
Always walking, Lafayette. Why can’t he walk a little slower?
“But I disagree,” he calls back, now that I’m the one behind again. “I consider myself the same person from the moment I was born to now. Just… changed over time. I’m an accumulation of everything I did in the past.”
“So…?”
“So separating myself from my supposed ‘past self’ like you said is really, to me, just a form of running away.”
I manage to jog just enough to catch a glimpse of his face.
“Somehow…” I start. “I get the feeling that you don’t want to move on from your past.”
We walk many more meters in silence.
“I’m… sorry,” I stutter after the quiet has already eaten half of my conscience. “I didn’t mean to be intrusive…”
He combs his hair with his fingers.
“No… You’re not wrong. But it’s not because of guilt for what I did or anything like that. I am… after all… a coldhearted killer.”
“You don’t seem to be as coldhearted as you make yourself out to be, though. Well… honestly… the fact that you took a lot of lives makes me feel a little uneasy… but the other day, I saw a person with real bloodlust. With an anger that made her scream her lungs out and cry out with a wretched look on her face… She didn’t have to say any words for me to know that she wanted revenge for something. I don’t really get that feeling from you.”
“You’d be surprised how many faces people have,” he says bitingly.
“Maybe. But who’s to say that I don’t have many faces, too?”
He sighs.
“Are you going to give me one of those ‘true personality’ speeches or something? That we all have a personality deep down inside that’s our ‘real self’?”
I laugh and clap his back.
“No. But did someone tell you that once?”
The edge of his lip curls just slightly.
“Some old man in one of my old squads said something cheesy like that once. Said something like ‘Your true self isn’t as heartless as you want everyone to believe’ and ‘you should learn to live again.’”
“Live again…?”
“Yeah, right? What sort of nonsense was he spouting?”
“Live again…” I echo. “Doesn’t that sound nice though?”
“Live… What does it even mean to live? Everyone says something different, and each and every one of them insists they are right.”
“I know that too well,” I say softly. “But that’s only if you look at the big picture. If you drown yourself in what you want to be in some vast picture where you are only a speck of paint in a sea of oils. It’s suffocating.”
He glances down at me, and I can see he noticed the change in my voice.
“Instead,” I say, trying to be more chipper. “I wish I could just do small things. If I could enjoy reading a novel again or draw on the wall for hours. Or savor the smell of freshly brewed tea or laugh with my brother under the apple tree again. I wish I could live like that. Enjoying the small things.”
“But then you get bored,” he says.
“Is that necessarily a bad thing?”
He frowns. “No. But is living a bored life really living a life?”
“You have a point.”
I listen to the crunch of the earth under our feet, the beat of his feet just slightly slower than mine.
“So did you get caught in a loop too?” I say quietly.
“A loop? What do you mean?”
“A pattern. An inescapable rhythm that slowly drug your life down.”
“A loop… yes, that’s a good word for it. I made it a habit to avoid being a human.”
We both laugh, but there’s a sour twinge to it.
“To the very end,” he continues. “I’ve never really learned how to be a human.”
To the very end? Somehow, now that I’ve been handed my death sentence, hearing those words from Lafayette feels rather ironic.
I poke his side, and he flinches, finally turning just slightly to face me.
“You’re not at the end yet,” I say with a smile that doesn’t feel quite right on my face. “You’re still breathing. Your heart is still beating.” Our eyes finally meet. “You still exist. You don’t have to find meaning in it, I think. But as your time ticks away, you might as well find a way to enjoy it.”
Lafayette pauses. “Maybe I will, but,” he says, “there’s not much hope for someone like me.”
Something in me tightens.
“You still exist,” I repeat. It takes me a second to realize my smile grew legs and walked off my face as I was talking.
He looks at me and pauses. After a few seconds, as if being released by a spell, he sighs and pats my head.
“I know, I know. I heard you.” He chuckles to himself. “Didn’t expect you to get so serious all of a sudden.”
He resumes his steady march once more, not glancing at me again.
Even I was surprised at myself. Where did that intensity come from? Was I really just talking to Lafayette?
“Come on, hurry up,” he says. “The daytime is only so patient.”
“Yes, yes. You could stand to learn some patience yourself.”
“Or you could le
arn to walk faster? It’s easier to learn that than to train the sun to set later.”
“Lafayette,” I start, as I run to catch up with him for the thousandth time. “You don’t really have any friends, do you? With that pessimistic attitude of yours.”
He rolls his eyes.
“What’s it to you?”
“You know,” I say, teasingly skipping backwards in front of him. “Now that we’ve spilled our secrets to each other, from now on, we should be good…”
Oh…
I wonder what Lafayette and me are. Friends? Acquaintances? Mutual comrades? No… We can’t be anything long-term like that…
“Let’s be good travel buddies,” I finish.
He glances at me and slips a small smile.
“Sure.”
Eventually, we encounter a dirt road through the trees leading towards the gates of Hanbury. After even more walking, the road turns into a full-fledged paved road leading into a giant gated wall that reads, “Welcome to Hanbury!” at the top. When I look left, I see the wall stretch on beyond the reach of my vision, and I quickly find that the right is no different. Why would a city need such a wall?
As I marvel at the gate for a second, Lafayette answers my unspoken question.
“During the course of wars, the citizens of Hanbury, filthy rich as they are, decided to build a wall around themselves to protect themselves from wars. Rather silly and selfish, but basically every citizen inside agreed.” And after kicking up some dust, he says, “Well, in we go. Don’t attract attention to yourself.”
“I should say the same to you, Mr. Guns and Knives.”
“I’m a Falcon. All we do is carry guns and knives.”
Two city guards stop us and ask for identification.
Lafayette merely says, “Sergeant Lowell Falcon, here to testify for a new military protocol. And she’s with me.”
