I don’t see Adrian of Flesh for the rest of the day. Chel was called back into her house, and you spend the rest of the day rolling over in the grass with Cambion. I laugh along with you. The dog is much more pleasant when he is clean. You really ought to go back and clean the kitchen as you promised, Jim. Jim?

“Good dog,” you laugh, slightly out of breath. The dog pants into your radiant face, and you pat it. “Sure am glad I saved you from the dump.” You kiss the crown of the puppy’s head.

Jim.

The dog paws at you, turns tail and darts back into the house. I am forced to follow you as you grudgingly get back up onto your feet. I don’t want to leave the sun, but your thirst has made your mouth dry. I take your hand though you do not feel it, and touch your arm with mine.

Your mother’s voice drifts from the kitchen, bidding you to attend to the mess your dog left. Cambion blissfully makes for your bedroom, having no need to assist you. Are you jealous of a dog?

I will be with you to scrub the floor. I will help you to tend to the dirt, for as long as the light shines on you I shall serve your every need.

And as we comply to your mother’s requests, dropping to our knees, wet rag in hand, I sensed a light. A very flaxen light, bobbing into this reality, as pallor and unhealthy as the labored breaths of the dying. Its toxin-laced miasma curdles my inky blood, drawing my attention to this otherworldly presence. My eyes lift from the floor, and I come face-to-face with the light.

A corpse candle.

I go rigid with the sight of it. A figure, small and beautiful, with her silky royal blue dress and hair drifting like cotton about her pixie body, approaches us. Her irises were dyed a fervent mercury-silver, and she wore a headdress of pink cypress flowers. Mercury. Cypress flowers. I knew then, without a doubt, that this was a Fairy of Death. In her hand she held a waxy candle, and above the candle floated an ominous, pearl-sized, ball of light.

My heart screamed.

“Shadow, this is for the boy Jim Lawson.”

I look at you, on your hands and knees, casually blowing the brown bangs from your eyes, obliviously nudging at the tiles with your thumb. This child, my human. “But he isn’t even twenty yet.” I look into the apparition’s mesmerizing poisoned eyes.

“If it is of any comfort his death will be painless. His last moments will be that of peace.”

Her mind reaches towards me with a message that called to me with a voice of urgency. Unwilling to receive it, I drew away. The message withered in the air, unspoken, unused.

 “How?” My voice was bogged with weeping. “When?”

“Cease your crying, young one.”

“When? How many days?”

Her gentle face weakened. “No more than three. He will die venturing into the night, and in his weary slumber the air will evade his lungs.” She looks up at me, speaking more with her gaze than with her words. “It will be swift, dear one.”

“Why will his breathing stop?”

“Murder,” says the fairy simply.

“Murder! Why, m-murder! I… I will not allow it.”

“That is not for you to say,” chided the fairy, her supernatural eyes coruscating brilliantly in the candlelight. She glances down at you. I lunge forward with the motion of a wolf, but before my fingers make contact she snuffs the candle out, and disappears.

Shaken, I sink to your feet. I close my eyes, and your strength flows into me, winding me and pulling me to you. When I’m this close your blood seems to run with mine. I hear your heart, the rhythm of your breathing, I hear the valiant nature of your heartbeat, and walk in your bloodstream. Why ought Death claim you as her own? I hug your waist and cry, no longer able to help in the push and pull of your muscles. Inevitably, you tire. Fragile being that I love, will you not love me too?

“Mom, can I take a break? It’s almost done, anyway, save for the splatters on the wall.”

“Yes, dearie, take five minutes or so.”

I cradle your chin as you stand to leave, attempting to turn your head towards me. Entirely unaffected, you shuffle over to the living room, and land on top of the sofa with an “oof”.

“Now, where was I? Page 71.”

We flip the pages of your book together, and settle down to read. Yet my mind is elsewhere. I lean in to your ears, and whisper.

Object of my adulation, I devote my life to you. To be by your side is my raison d’etre, to protect you my Lebensaufgabe. Sleep, darling, so I may think freely.

The book slides out of your hands. As your subconscious escorts you into a land of mythical creatures and worlds beyond your own, I rest your head upon my lap, and draft up a course of action.