Magical Spice - Part Eighteen
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here.
All morning long, I’ve been scribbling in the journal Aiden gave me for my poetry.
I haven’t come out with anything all that good, or even vaguely like a real poem. I’m not even sure why I was suddenly struck with the urge to take the journal out. I slept so well last night, and I have the vague sense that I’m trying to capture something from my dreams, something that I can’t quite remember. I only know that I wanted to remember.
I guess I’m really just trying to work out my thoughts. About everything that happened when my memories were gone, and everything that happened after. The things Aiden said to me last night before I fell asleep. The way I behaved without my memories, the way he behaved when he realized I didn’t have them… and, most of all, lingering in my heart and my thoughts like some puzzle I can’t put together - the great, sparkling, golden sweep that fell through my subconscious when my eyes fell on Aiden.
What was that?
He hasn’t asked me anything else about why or how I recognized him on sight when I was cut off from my memories. Almost like that’s one of the things that made sense to him about all this. Even if he’s at a loss to explain it, like I am.
Why is it that I feel like he would’ve known me, too, if the situation had been reversed?
I have no real answers to anything. Maybe that’s why, for the first time since I was fourteen, I’m writing out poetry the way I used to. Without trying to make it sound good, or trying to figure out what my style is, or trying to replicate the much better poetry I’ve read before. I’m just putting what’s in my head down on paper, taking long breaks to sit and think.
I’m going over the memories of the last few days, trying to follow a thread stitch by stitch until I can see what pattern it makes up, what much bigger picture it forms. Trying to understand something unexplained and unsaid, beyond words, only felt instinctively through every touch Aiden left on me, every subtle nuance of his deep voice, even through the way the air feels when I’m in a room with him, the way he affects the tick of my pulse and the pace of my breathing just by looking at me…
How am I supposed to figure all this out? No wonder I’ve resorted to attempted poetry. If Aiden was responsible for me giving this up in the first place, he’s definitely responsible for getting me to try again.
I’ve been sitting by the window all morning, with the curtains thrown back and my face to the sun. Watching the dusty summer day ripen outside, the landscape blurred with shimmers of dry heat. Snacking on the frosty slices of iced watermelon Aiden left for me. Watching the breeze stir the heavy fruit that weighs down the branches of the trees, watching the blue sky fill up with dazzling sunlight. Scratching quietly away at my journal.
Dimly, off to one side, I’m aware of the deep quiet of the bright day outside. The lazy summer heat-stillness that seems to affect all living things. Broken by a whispering undercurrent of plants shifting in the breeze every now and then, or the scattered calls of birds.
But my mind is far off, sunk deep in thoughts of last night. Of Aiden, of us, what happened. My hand moves on its own, writing without the input of any clear thoughts from me.
It doesn’t even really rhyme, I realize, stopping to run my eyes over it.
Only we sing to each other.
Just us. Just me and you.
Somehow it makes perfect sense to me.
Knowing doesn’t always mean understanding
And I’ll never hear it for myself.
But I know now
Without hearing
Without explanations
Without doubt
What you always knew.
I hastily stop halfway through and tear my eyes away from the poem. I’m going to decide I hate it if I keep rereading. So much gets lost in the space between what’s in my heart and the words on the page. No wonder I haven’t been able to find a way to tell Aiden anything close to what I’ve wanted to. Sometimes I think he’s transmitted the message more clearly with his eyes alone. Nothing I’ve said or written, in all the loving words I’ve ever rained down on him, has been able to fully convey what he really means to me.
I have to keep trying. Even if it’ll take me a billion attempts to get it right, even if I ultimately never quite get there.
This poetry definitely doesn’t do it, so I take the journal and bury it deep in the bottom drawer of my night table when I’m done. I’ve just shut it safely away when I hear a knock on our front door.
Aunt Sarah is standing outside of the doorway when I come downstairs, a wrapped tray clasped in her hands, her silver hair half held back with a sea-blue butterfly clip. She’s relieved to see me, based on the very tight hug she immediately wraps me up in. I’m guessing that means Aiden already filled her in on everything he saw fit to tell her about.
“He came to see me halfway through his jog this morning,” she explains, once we’ve settled down together in the coffee-room with the baked saffron rolls she brought over. “He usually stops by the house for a minute or two when he goes on a run.”
I sit back in surprise, pausing midway through petting Luna. I actually didn’t know that Aiden has been doing that. We see Aunt Sarah pretty regularly already, but it sounds like he’s been fitting other little visits in all the time.
“It’s really nice to have you right down the street,” I tell her brightly, reaching for one of the rolls. “Not just because of the saffron rolls and stuff, if I’m not being clear.”
Aunt Sarah smiles warmly, stirring the icy glass of mint water I brought her.
“Mmm, yes, this is all such a nice change from how things were before Aiden came home. He always felt so far away, even though I didn’t know where he was.”
“Yeah, I…” My fingers close around the malachite shoot necklace, the little thing I made so I would always know what direction to go to find Aiden. “I understand that.”
“Do you know,” Aunt Sarah says thoughtfully, after a moment, “I found my old cell phone the other day, clearing out a drawer? I went looking through it to see if there was anything I should save before I take it to be recycled.”
She draws a battered old phone from her purse as she speaks, then pulls something up on it.
“I almost forgot that this used to be the extent of everything I heard from Aiden.”
She scrolls up through an old messages chat, as if to show me it’s all the same, then offers the phone to me.
I hold still in surprise, then slowly set down my glass and accept the phone from her. It’s her old conversation with Aiden, from way back when he was in the middle of being gone for eight years.
There’s an obvious pattern to the messages before I have a close look at any of them. Long messages from Aunt Sarah, then lots of shorter messages from her, asking how Aiden is and where he is and how he’s doing.
Very rarely, there’s a response from Aiden. It’s almost always I’m fine auntie, don’t worry, I love you too, and then a picture.
The pictures are never of him, though. The first one I stop on is a photo of a beautiful landscape. White ice, glinting ocean, towering mountains, and vivid greenery, all together. A gigantic glacier sits in the background, shadowing a winding river of stunningly blue water spilling away from it. The sea is white-tipped and choppy to one side, the greenery sprawling endlessly over the hills to the other.
Aunt Sarah responded saying it looked beautiful, and asking him where he was, and did he have enough money to get by still, and was he with someone, and where was he sleeping out there? It looked like there was nothing for miles around.
Aiden never answered any of that, or any of the messages that followed, for a couple of months. The next response, to a pleading message from Aunt Sarah, just says - I’m okay, don’t worry. Love you too.
This time the attached picture shows dreamy, sunstruck mountains. Orange in color, but cast into shades of dusty blue and purple by the sunlight, snow-capped at their tops. The wind-sculpted mountain range overlooks a sprawling, flat terrain of shallow salt lagoons, the glassy surfaces of which reflect back all the mountain colors. A desert, maybe? There are some flamingos milling around in the salt lagoon.
Where is that? Aunt Sarah wrote back. It looks gorgeous! What are you doing there? Can you let me know where you’re staying, and who you’re with?
No response from Aiden for several months, until Aunt Sarah sounds desperate in her texts again.
Another picture, this time of a big, beautiful park that looks to be enclosed within a city. Soft green grass, winding waterways with dancing water features in them. All the colors of spring foliage, softly pink petals. People are picnicking on the grass or sitting on benches, meandering across the wooden bridge over the water. I can see some kind of architectural shape in the background, a big wooden structure over a paved pathway like the entrance to a shrine.
With the picture, a single message from Aiden: Love you too. I’m okay.
“That’s all I used to hear,” Aunt Sarah says softly.
I stare at her in disbelief, then drop my gaze back to the phone, my heart in my throat.
“It may sound backwards,” Aunt Sarah murmurs slowly, “But I think he barely responded because he didn’t want me to worry about him.”
It does sound backwards, on the surface. I’m sure Aunt Sarah would have felt better if Aiden had responded more often and given her more information. I’m also sure that Aiden would have felt better if he had let himself call her or text her whenever he wanted to. I don’t doubt that he wanted to, a lot. It was an incredibly lonely time in his life, from what I’ve heard.
But Aiden hates to worry his aunt, and if she knew what life was like for him beyond the pretty pictures he sent her, she would have done nothing but worry. Telling her any portion of the real truth would have made her terribly upset, helped with nothing. That’s what he must have thought, anyways.
Aiden is just like Noah about this kind of thing. They both have this instinct to quietly hide themselves away when they’re hurting, like at least that way they won’t bother anyone else with it.
A tangled mixture of emotions gathers in my heart as I gaze down at the photos Aiden sent instead of saying anything to his aunt.
He’s never shown me any pictures from his years away. Now that I think about it, he had a new-looking phone when he first came back to Ketterbridge, like he’d just replaced an old one. He probably didn’t bother to keep any of the pictures from his old phone. Or maybe he didn’t want to, like how he didn’t want to keep the old tickets that were in his backpack. Those years were not a happy time for Aiden. He doesn’t want any mementos of them.
So I’ve never seen any photos that he took while he was gone. Seeing even just a few of them, now, for the first time, knowing instinctively how much distance he must have covered between each one…
It finally dawns on me just how far Aiden went, trying to find the original Guardian Tree.
“You can see why it’s so nice to have him living right down the street from me now,” Aunt Sarah sighs happily, tearing a saffron roll open. “Having him visit me every time he goes on a run.”
I smile understandingly at her, handing her back the phone. As much as I’m curious to read all the messages and take a close look at every picture, it seems like something private.
“I can definitely see why, yes. I would’ve said that even before you showed me this. Believe me, I get it.” I let out a little sigh, wrapping my hands around my glass. “I’m missing him right now, and he’s just at work. Normally I get to see him before he leaves in the morning, but he went in early today.”
No one asked him to, but I think he’s quietly trying to make it up to Gabby, who gave him the day off without asking any questions when he needed to stay home with me. Having her in our corner is already paying off, to nobody’s surprise.
“I think he was happy to get back to the Archives,” I tell Aunt Sarah. “Have a feeling he wants to be alone for a while, after all the - everything. We’re going to that art exhibition in Greenrock tonight with the guys, so we’ll be around crowds and people. It’ll be fun, just what we need, I think - but noisy. He’ll want some quiet first.”
A fond smile lights Aunt Sarah’s eyes, warm and tender. “That does sound like him.”
She slips the phone back into her bag, and I stare after it for a moment, lost in thought.
“He went so far,” I hear myself say, without meaning to.
Aunt Sarah gives me a look, her blue eyes full of love.
“There’s no one quite like Aiden,” she says softly, “Once he has his heart set on something.”
~~~~
I can’t believe I told Aunt Sarah that tonight was going to be noisy. At the moment it couldn’t be more the opposite. Complete, total silence reigns in the car on the drive back from the photography exhibition in Greenrock.
We’re all staring off in separate directions. Everyone is working hard to avoid everyone else’s eyes. Nothing has been said for a while.
Ralph is at the wheel, biting down hard on the inside of his cheek. Aiden is in the front next to him, shifting his snapback over his hair over and over again. Ripley, Raj, and Noah are crammed next to me in the backseat, all of us making every effort humanly possible not to look at each other. All of us are still wide-eyed, and distinctly red-cheeked. Ripley is bouncing his knee a little, but I get the sense he’s entertained by the situation, and trying not to laugh.
“Well,” Noah finally says, breaking what’s been a very long silence. “I’m glad we didn’t end up bringing Nik. That was - not for babies.”
“Okay, I-” I run a hand over my face, blushing furiously. “I want to go on the record saying I didn’t realize that’s what kind of photography exhibition it was gonna be. The flyer I got from Mugshot didn’t make it seem - there were no pictures on it!”
“Probably because you’re not allowed to put pictures like that around in public,” Ralph mutters, rolling down the window to get some cool air on his face.
The exhibition was similar to Bright Future in the sense that it was kept mostly dark in there except around the actual pieces of art, but that’s where the similarities ended.
“We should’ve known when they ID’d us at the door,” Ripley puts in. “I told you guys they don’t do that at most art exhibitions. The blackout curtains in the display windows were a good indicator, too.”
“Man, there - there was really something for everyone, wasn’t there?” Raj stammers.
There was. We immediately split up when we realized the nature of the exhibition, and all of us accidentally ended up standing in front of one photo or another staring for a good long time.
“Did you guys see the picture of the guy with that black shiny stuff covering his mouth?” Raj asks, sounding concerned. “What was that stuff? Looked like duct tape, but it can’t be that, right?”
“Bondage tape,” Ralph answers immediately.
“Wait, so it’s really tape?” Raj widens his eyes, startled and alarmed. “Doesn’t that hurt like hell when it comes time to take it off?”
“That’s part of the point, man.” Ralph flips on his blinker, leaning forward to check his blind spot. “But it’s actually not too bad if you pull it off fast.”
Ralph glances in the rearview when this is met with silence, then does a double-take when he realizes we’re all staring at him, eyebrows raised all the way up.
“Well - he asked,” Ralph protests, his cheeks coloring up.
“Suddenly I’ve got some questions I want to ask Calla,” I snicker, casting a wide grin at Ralph in the rearview. “Which one of you-?”
I drop it and sink down in my seat as Ralph gives me a look in the mirror that promises a slow and violent death.
“Don’t think I didn’t notice where you and Aiden were lingering around,” Ralph growls warningly. “What was that one piece called? Land of Boy Toys? The one with all the-?”
“Okay,” Aiden cuts in hastily, pulling his snapback down over his eyes. “So, that settles it. We’re never going to a sexhibition as a group ever again.”
Ripley’s devious green eyes light up in delight. “A sexhibition!”
“Good job, dude. You gave him an idea.”
“That was not my intent, Noosh. Ripley, I want no credit for whatever you’re cooking up. Matter of fact, don’t you cook up anything.”
“Mkay,” Ripley says, not listening, clearly already making plans in his head. “Honestly, I thought that exhibition was cool. D’you guys see there was one photo with two trans people in it? The one called 69 At Breakfast Time?”
“Yes, dude, we all saw that - extremely huge piece right when we walked in,” Ralph says, blushing deeply. “We all saw that and everything else! Now let’s all stop talking about any of this forever, please. I’m putting the next person who says anything sexual in a guillotine choke. No more talking at all, in fact. Enough.”
He flips on the radio to a random station, then spreads his fingers at it indignantly when it starts playing Pony by Ginuwine. The sexy beat fills up the car right as the lyrics hit the chorus. If you’re horny, let’s do it…
“Seriously?” Ralph lets out a helpless sputter of laughter, turning the radio off again. “For fuck’s sake!”
“Okay, were you guys seriously not expecting the show to be something a little bit like this?” Ripley leans forward to catch Ralph’s eye incredulously, suppressing a laugh. “The chick who took our IDs was wearing a PVC corset.”
“We thought that was just art, bro!” Raj protests. “We don’t know art!”
“Wait, that was a girl?” Noah sits up in alarm. “Oh, shit. I - I definitely said hey dude, and man.”
“Oh, no, I assumed they didn’t have a gender at all!” I twist to face Noah, my eyes very wide. “Did our whole group interact with that person, and we all used totally different pronouns talking to them?”
“Ah… yes, sounds like it.”
“Shit, that means some of us were accidentally rude, and we don’t even know which ones!” I twist to look over my shoulder at the receding lights of Greenrock. “Should we go back and apologize?”
“But she - he - they liked us, though,” Raj argues, bewildered. “They let us back in for free when we went out and forgot our tickets inside. Smiling at us the whole time, all friendly…?”
“That’s - true,” I realize, increasingly baffled. “Yeah, they seemed sad to see us leave, even. Did we accidentally do the right thing?”
“Sounds to me like that person was hoping to cause some gender confusion with that look,” Ripley laughs. “And succeeded. So you were right, Raj, it was art.”
“See!”
“Regardless, though, we should’ve figured out the nature of that exhibition way before we actually went inside,” Ralph groans. “I’m embarrassed that Ripley was the only one who knew. You could’ve said something, man.”
“First of all, I thought you guys had figured it out, and second of all, as if you guys didn’t have a good time. We were there for two hours!”
“He’s right,” Raj points out, seeing an opportunity to look at the positive side of things. “Can’t deny it was a good time. Pretty sure we’re all turned on right now, brothers, which is why this car ride is uncomfortable.”
“No one in this car is turned on!” Ralph sputters, twisting around to flash a glare at Raj. “No one is allowed - this is my car, I’m the only one allowed to be turned on in it! Ripley, what are you doing?”
“Nothing. Just texting Alix, seeing what she’s up to right now.”
“Noah, you should change places with Aiden,” I blurt out pleadingly. “He should be back here.”
Noah ignores me, turning to whisper to Raj. “You think Melanie’s still awake?”
“I really hope so,” Raj says, wincing like he’s in real pain.
“Okay,” Ralph groans helplessly, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “I’m not the one driving, for the next thing. Pretty sure I’d prefer to be in the trunk over this.”
Raj gives Noah’s arm a teasing poke. “Would you ever pose for photos, Noah?”
“Yeah, sure. For like ten bucks.”
“What about sex photos, like the ones in that exhibition?”
“Mmm - probably do it for five.”
Raj spreads his hands at Noah in confusion as Ripley leans into the front seat again.
“Hey, Ralph, can you drop me near Alix’s place? I’ll walk her over to the workshop, since it’s dark out.”
A flash of amusement goes through Ralph’s eyes as he glances up to meet Ripley’s gaze in the rearview. “Walk her over to the workshop? Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”
“Sounds like one of those cutesy songs from the 60’s that seems innocent but’s all dirty,” Noah snickers, then breaks out into a sing-song voice. “Oh it’s a summer night / and the mood is right / to walk her over / to the workshop…”
Ripley lets out a gasp of laughter, covering his mouth with his painted fingers. “Stop it, dude, no!”
He tries to catch Noah’s hands as Noah starts enacting a drum solo on the back of the passenger’s seat, then swats Raj’s arm as he starts dancing badly in his seat.
“Seems like things are going pretty good there, Ripples.” Raj grins widely, elbows Ripley in the ribs. “With you and Alix?”
A glowing smile warms Ripley’s eyes, brightening their shade of green.
“She’s been a huge help with the workshop, yeah. She really believes my art is, like - believes in me, and in Transgressive, and - yeah, things have been good.”
“That’s lovely, brother, but I meant that I hear I’m not the only one who’s caught her leaving the workshop in the morning.”
“Oh.” Ripley’s smile broadens into a little grin. “Yeah, um - things have been good in a lot of different ways.”
He groans and presses his face against the back of Aiden’s seat when this is met with a lot of outrageous noise from everybody in the car.
“I can drop you there, Ripley,” Ralph says, once the chaos dies down slightly. “I need to refill my tank anyways if I’m going to Port Sitka.”
“You’re going to Port Sitka, dude? Right now? After you just drove all the way to and from Greenrock?” Noah gives Ralph a wink which tries to be knowing. “Off to pay Calla an unexpected visit, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, Noosh, I am. Say one thing about it and you’re out of the car.”
“Does that apply to me, too?” Ripley asks, grinning like he’s got an excellent joke lined up.
“Yes.”
“Bummer,” he snickers, falling back in his seat. “I’ll have to send it to the group chat later.”
But he doesn’t actually seem disappointed. If anything, his face lights up as we turn onto Alix’s street, and he spots her waiting for him.
She’s sitting on the steps in the summer breeze, pulling on her white sandals, a white string of beads around her wrist. Her hair is wet from a recent shower, knotted into a soft bun at the back of her head. The pink streak is gleaming in the moonlight.
Ripley looks at her adoringly through the window, eagerly lets himself out of the car. Alix waves when she spots us, then pauses in confusion as Noah hangs out of the window to sing loudly after Ripley:
“Oh it’s a summer night!”
“And the mood is right!” Raj joins in enthusiastically, doubling the reach of Noah’s voice.
“To walk her over,” Aiden and I join in, as Ripley whips around in dismay and Ralph drops his face into his hands. “To the-”
“No!” Ripley yell-laughs, as Alix bursts into bewildered giggles behind him. “Fuck off!”
We give him a loud, collective goodbye and leave him there. I steal a glance through the window at Alix and Ripley as Ralph pulls away from the curb. Watching the way Alix looks at Ripley. That expression of glowing trust and faith, of real, deeply-felt belief in him. In his - their - bright future.
She sees so much in him. That’s why her gaze has some similarities to mine, when I look at Aiden.
She rests her cheek on Ripley’s shoulder for a moment. He cradles her cheek in his hand, kisses the top of her head. Then he hooks his pinky finger around hers, and leads her off into the darkness.
“Are we not going in?” Raj asks in confusion, outside of his, Noah, and Mel’s house a few minutes later.
“Be right there,” Noah says breezily, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his rippy blue jeans. “Just gotta talk to Aiden about some weekend plans real quick.”
Raj is already hurriedly walking backwards up the driveway. “You do realize that means I’m the one who gets to wake up Mel?”
“I can have this conversation and still beat you upstairs, alright?” Noah calls, throwing his arms out wide. “I’m that much of a speed freak. In the actual speed of movement way, I mean, not the amphetamines way! I’ll be right there! Also I know you, I know you’re gonna stop for a snack first!”
“No I won’t!” Raj shouts back, then pauses, reconsidering. “I might!”
“Bien sûr,” Noah murmurs affectionately, dimples appearing at the corners of his mouth.
He waits until Raj slips into the house, then turns back to me, Aiden, and Ralph, leaning in confidentially.
“We going to the forest this weekend, boys? See about that witch?”
“That’s the plan,” Aiden says, with a surprising lack of nervousness in his voice. “I found some old camping gear at my aunt’s place I can loan you guys, if you’re sure about helping us with this.”
Neither Noah nor Ralph bothers to answer that, because the answer is already abundantly clear.
“What time?” Noah asks firmly.
“Just letting you guys know one more time that this could be dangerous,” Aiden rumbles, his blue eyes and deep voice very serious. “I’ll do my best to keep you safe, but that’s the fact.”
It was the wrong thing to say, if he was hoping to discourage these two from participating. Ralph breaks into a little smirk, and Noah breaks into a wide grin.
“What time?” Noah repeats.
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