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I hold my breath as Kaito reaches forward and pushes the door. I flinch when it swings open, as if expecting every monster to come after me the moment I’m exposed to the outdoors. Nothing happens. There’s no screech of some monstrous bird or growl of some creature waiting just outside to rip me apart.
“One step at a time,” Kaito murmurs, waiting patiently for me to gather my bravery.
Listening to his soothing voice, I take a single step forward, and then another, and another, until I’m standing on the other side of the threshold. Taking a deep breath, I draw in the scent of the forest around me, the trees different than those at home. That’s what makes me realize we’re in the Dead Lands and not the Gilded Lands. The thought nearly causes me to freeze again, but I understand I couldn’t have stayed there. The Gilded Lands are where I died. I’m nothing but a phantom now, waiting for death to finally find me, so it makes sense that I’d spend my time in the Dead Lands.
Despite what I know and what I’ve been told, the Dead Lands aren’t as . . . well, dead as I expected. The trees are great, tall things that look both burnt and alive. They have dark leaves that speckle the branches, giving them a haunting quality that makes me shiver, and although the sun is high in the sky, it barely penetrates the canopy, casting everything in shadow. Some of the shadows shift and I flinch, but I realize they are only small creatures I don’t recognize living amongst the leaves.
“It has started coming back to life,” Kaito says as he leads me a little farther out, never pushing. He encourages me, but he doesn’t force me to move. He waits for me to be ready. “Since thenew monarch destroyed the wall, it’s allowed the Dead Lands to find new life.”
“I didn’t expect it to be so . . .”
“Dark?” Kaito watches me closely, as if I’m going to flee at any moment. I still might.
“Alive,” I reply, meeting his eyes. “It’s all so alive.”
Kaito nods and looks into the trees. “There is much that the Gilded Lands kept secret or perverted the truth about this world, such as the Dead Lands being dead or the monsters being bad. I’ve learned that monsters come in any form. It isn’t how someone looks that makes them a monster, it’s how they act.”
I bite my lip at the profoundness of his statement. It resonates with me deeply, and I find myself squeezing his hand this time, offering comfort. “I understand,” I rasp, looking up at him.
For a moment, our eyes meet and hold, but fear still makes me look down and hide from his searching gaze. The moment something twitches in my chest, I’m reminded of my life, of the pain I live with, and I can’t bear to look into eyes that stare at me as if I’m not broken. I’m no longer whole and salvageable. I am a million shattered pieces floating in a wooden bowl. At any given moment, what’s left of me will spill out and there will be no more broken pieces to mourn. I’m not worthy of such a look. Not anymore.
Outside the cabin, just on the brink of where the forest starts to darken, Kaito reveals a small garden hidden by trees. I stare at the lush plants growing vegetables in surprise. He plucks a few, passing them to me before moving on to another plant. Once we both have an armful of food, he leads me back inside. The moment my feet cross the threshold, I feel safer and as if I’m able to breathe deeply again.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Kaito asks as he sets the vegetables on the counter where he plans to cut them.
“It was terrifying,” I admit, emptying my own arms. “But . . . I did not mind so long as you were with me. The darkness unnerves me.”
“There is good in everything,” Kaito muses, beginning to chop the vegetables he brought in. No doubt he plans to add it to the large, boiling pot in the fireplace. “Even in darkness.”
His words touch something deep inside me. The darkness has only felt like darkness to me. What must it feel like to see something else there? To be able to see in the darkness and live in it? I can’t even fathom such a thought. I miss the light. My darkness is too thick for even monsters.
Rolling my shoulders, I pick up another small knife and start to slice a different vegetable. Kaito looks over at me in surprise.
“You don’t have to help,” he says, watching me carefully.
“You’ve shown me nothing but kindness,” I reply. “The very least I can do is help you prepare dinner.”
We spend the next few minutes in silence, only the sounds of our chopping breaking up the quiet. It’s a comfortable companionship, so comfortable in fact, it makes me wonder exactly what I’m doing here if I don’t plan to use this second life as anything but a stepping stone toward my eventual death. Still, Kaito makes something inside me force in air, even if I don’t want to. Perhaps it’s simply his kindness or the way he treats me like I’m a porcelain figurine in need of repair. Or, perhaps, it’s the way he saw me flinch and changed his entire demeanor to make me more comfortable. Either way, there’s a speck of light in the darkness because of him.
I don’t know how it makes me feel.
I don’t understand it or him or anything inside me. My emotions war with each other, begging for attention, but above all, that darkness suffocates me. It drags me deeper until that speck of light is so small, it might as well be forever out of reach.
But it’s there. Shadows, it’s there.
“You know, before I met you,” I say, glancing up at Kaito, “I thought all monsters were, well, monstrous.”
Kaito smiles. “And I thought all humans were cruel.” He bumps his shoulder gently against mine, and it doesn’t even make me flinch. “Seems we were both wrong.”
That speck dances in the darkness like a ballerina on stage.
What I could have.
What I never will . . .
Chapter
Five
