Merrion Priddy (merrymage) wrote in emillion, @ 2013-09-18 20:55:00 |
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The alcohol on his skinned knee stings, but his father puts on a puppet show as his mother frets over his fall. Merri barely hears her admonishment of how he ought to be more careful when he plays outside over the sound of his own laughter and the high-pitched voices his father uses for the chocobo and the moogle, and it isn’t long before the pebbles and dirt are removed and a bandage takes its place. His mother puts the first aid kit back beneath the counter and his father drops the puppets atop a nearby crate, swooping down to gather Merri into his arms and tosses him in the air. “Cedwyn!” his mother cries, but Merri is too busy squealing with joy to hear the panic and worry in her voice, and his father spins him about the shop, only to stop the instant a customer walks into the store. It’s back to business, but for Merri, it’s back to playtime, and he rejoins his friends outside without another care for the world. Merri likes bedtime the best; his mother tucks him in with a warm glass of milk and his father settles in next to him to sneak him a cookie and to read him a book filled with adventure. As Merri eats his cookie, his father regales him the story of the young Jaymes Hawke, a cabin boy aboard the ship the Hispanillia, as they search for long buried treasure. It’s his favorite story, and his father changes his voice as a new character speaks. Merri tries so very hard to stay awake, and it is too soon when his mother pokes her head into his room – the cookie has long since been finished and the crumbs brushed away – to remind them of the late hour. Both parents kiss him on the forehead goodnight and Merri drifts to sleep with thoughts of pirates and buried treasure. The white mage visits daily now and his mother is beside herself. Merri peers into his parents’ bedroom to see his father too pale and sweating as the mage casts a spell upon him and has him drink a potion, which seems to do him any good. Merri wants to run inside to his father’s side but he is paralyzed with fear, though he doesn’t know why, not even when the mage emerges from the room and tells his mother something that makes her burst into tears. It is barely a week later when Merri is dressed in all black and sitting in the church with friends and neighbors surrounding him, but all he can stare at is the wooden box at the altar and he does his very best not to cry. He fails. It rains a lot in the spring, and Merri finds companionship in tin soldiers and the mage who visits him today. He sneezed yesterday, and his mother almost rushed him to the clinic in spite of the weather, but instead she was advised that because Mrs. Glace was in labor and Mr. Vaughan took a bad fall that she wait until today. She hovered over Merri all night; now the mage examines him, and he is used to the routine. He opens his mouth wide and he doesn’t flinch when she shines a light in his eye or his ear. He tries to act like he’s not worried more for his mother’s sake by continuing to play with his toys, but he is actually terrified. What if he has what his father had? The mage finally pulls away and shakes her head. “Just allergies,” she assures, and it is the last time Merri sees her. It’s a new mage who visits every week after that, at least until the autumn. The leaves on the oak tree are green and Merri wants to open the window to let the fresh air in, but there is talk of the West River Virus and this is the time of year when mosquitoes buzz day and night. A net is set up around his bed like a huge tent, and Merri contents himself with a book about a boy who flies away from his nasty aunts in a giant peach with all his giant insect friends. He wonders what living inside a giant peach would be like –sticky, probably, if his fingers after enjoying the treat are any indication – when he hears a tap at the window. He’s surprised to see a girl with red braided pigtails sitting on the thick branch of the oak tree, and he forgets about mosquitoes as he throws the window open. He doesn’t see anybody aside from his mother and the white mage anymore as the customers are now just muffled voices beneath his floorboards and his friends have long since forgotten him, so her smiling face is not unwelcome. “Hi,” she chirps as she pulls out a purple velvet bag from her pocket. “This is for you. Mama told me to share this with my friends, and I feel like you’re the one who could most use a friend.” Merri takes the bag and pulls the yellow string to see chocolates and cookies piled within. He doesn’t get to eat sweets anymore since it’s unhealthy, but he pops a chocolate into his mouth and nearly swoons to his pillow as it melts on his tongue. “Thank you!” he says, but she’s already climbing back down the tree. It’s after a lice scare that Merri sees the girl at his bedroom window again, and this time she has a green pouch filled with brownies. “Can I come in?” she asks, and he doesn’t hesitate to let her. They share the brownies as they introduce themselves: her name is Cati, and her father is a barber and her mother bakes all the time, she says, and she makes the best cakes and cookies and brownies in all of Ivalice. Merri believes it as he scarfs down another brownie, and he tells her his name and that his mother owns the general store downstairs and runs it all by herself ever since his father left to live with Faram. She admires the bookshelves that line his walls, and she asks if he’s read them all and what his favorite one is. He tells her about the one with Jaymes Hawke, and he lets her borrow it before she slips back down the oak tree when mothers begin calling their children in for dinner. She promises to return it as soon as she finishes and to bring him one of her favorite books in return. Three days later, she returns with both his book and one of her own: Anna of the Green Gales. “She has red hair, like me, and I want to be just like her!” said Cati. After Merri reads the book, it’s easy to see why, and he fancies himself as the boy version of Anna’s best friend, Delia. He is thrilled when Cati makes the same determination. Cati visits every day throughout the summer and autumn except for rainy days and the days when the mages come. She always brings treats, though they stop exchanging books as it’s difficult for Cati to climb the oak tree. Instead, they tell each other stories, though Merri asks his mother for the titles Cati recommends to him: Little Cottage on the Plains, Mathilda, Little Ladies, The Viera in the Cupboard, among others. When he reads to her his books, he tries to speak in the same voices his father used to, but he is too self-conscious and gives up after a while despite Cati’s urging that he’s doing a good job. At some point, they begin acting out their favorite scenes instead, though they balk at anything with romance. When the snow comes, however, their visits become limited to brief conversations as she calls up to him from the ground. Sometimes she brings him sweets, and they devise a pulley system so that he can still receive them. They tell each other the titles of the newest books they’ve read before Cati runs off elsewhere. Merri assumes that she is going home where it’s warmer so that she doesn’t catch a cold, but one day he sees her building a snowman with the other children just down the block. For the first time since they met, Merri feels such a sickening twinge of loneliness that his mother is sure that he’s come down with the stomach flu, or worse. The snow melts early that year, and Cati returns to his bedroom window eagerly with pink frosted cupcakes with sprinkles. He’s happy to have her back, but he remembers the snowman and though he tries to be enthusiastic, it’s difficult. The hope that Cati won’t notice is a short-lived one, but he doesn’t tell her about the snowman. After all, she never told him that she was going home; he only assumed it, and she is such a wonderful person that of course she has other friends. “Are you sick?” she asks finally, tilting her head. It’s the best and easiest lie, but it means that she would leave, so Merri shakes his head. She asks him what’s wrong but he claims that it’s nothing, and after they finish their cupcakes she leaves anyway. When his mother checks on him later, he’s come down with a fever and the white mage is called. Though the mage says it’s nothing, Merri doesn’t feel better for days. It’s after Saint Ajora’s Feast Day when Cati returns with her pockets full of candy: jelly beans and chocolate dreamhares and sugar-coated marshmallows in the shape of baby chocobos. “Are you feeling better?” she asks, and Merri nods, determined to be in better spirits this time. Before long, they slip back into their old rituals, and Merri forgets about the snowman as they talk about all the new books they read and the presents they received a few months ago for Faram’s Mass. This time, just before Cati climbs down the tree again, she asks if he’s willing to sneak out tomorrow to play with the other children by the pond. Merri says yes in an instant. He manages to climb down the tree with nothing more than a torn shirt and scrapes and cuts on his legs and arms. He has forgotten what pain beyond stomach and headaches feels like and he hisses when his feet touch the ground. But Cati urges him to hurry or they will be late, and the outside smells nicer under the blue sky, and so Merri ignores the stinging sensation and struggles to keep up with Cati as they dash towards the pond. He’s out of breath once they get there and he collapses on the soft dirt. He worries at first that he might have overexerted himself, that his lungs or his heart really are as weak as his mother fears, but one of the boys hands Merri a fishing pole and teaches him how to fish. He doesn’t catch anything and everyone is soon playing tag and hide-and-go-seek instead, a game Merri sorely misses. One of the players is a golden retriever, and soon Merri nose runs and his eyes water, but he doesn’t care. He trips over rocks and his own feet and he’s bleeding a lot just before the clock in the town square strikes four, and it occurs to him that he’s going to have trouble hiding this from his mother. Cati takes him home and he tries to climb back up the tree, but he is so distracted by thoughts and ideas on how to explain each scratch to his mother that he accidentally grabs a flimsy branch. It snaps, and he takes a hard tumble to the ground, and all he remembers is the agonizing pain in his arm and screaming. His mother is hysterical as the white mage tends to his broken arm. His nose is still stuffy but his eyes are red more from crying than from the dog. He thinks he sees Cati peering in through the window, but when he tries to get a closer look, there is no one there. After the mage calms his mother by telling her that no, Merri will not be losing his arm and yes, he will certainly live, she takes him home and tucks him into bed and bids him never to leave the house again. He doesn’t like seeing her like this, so he agrees, and he means it. Cati stops visiting after that day. Books are cold again, but they are the only friends Merri has anymore. He loses himself in stories of heroes and pirates and princesses and princes and they are all realities that he wishes are his, but he does not leave his bedroom anymore. He tries not to look out the window, for sometimes he sees Cati playing with her friends, and the heartbreak is too much for him to bear. His mother tries to cheer him up with a chocolate cake, but he takes one bite of it and he starts crying, and his mother doesn’t know what to do to make him feel better, but it’s the last sweet thing she gives him until his tenth birthday a few months later. It’s a yellow cake this time with vanilla frosting, and still Merri can’t take a bite of it without shedding tears and feeling sick inside. |