Chapter Thirty
Nicholas laced his fingers together and leaned over, creating a cradle for her to place her boot in. She hesitated only a second more before doing just that. He easily hoisted her atop the massive beast, settling just below its shoulders. She gripped the monster’s wild fur, and glass though it was, it gave her purchase.
She turned in her make-shift seat and took in the turning, glittering glass of the Crystal Carousel. “This is amazing,” she said. It was a lame thing to say in the face of something so extraordinary, but she meant it. Deep down. The Carousel was other-worldly, and yet they had it all to themselves.
“That’s not the best part,” Nicholas told her. He mounted the monster beside her, some kind of cross between a three-headed dragon and a lion with a massive stinger-tipped tail that curved up behind him, and turned to smile at her.
“What is?” she asked, wondering what the heck could possibly be better. “The fact that none of the other people here seem to notice it exists?” She gestured to the Carnival goers who ran to and fro, here and there, laughing and screaming, but never climbing aboard the crystalline heart of the fair.
“They know it’s here,” he assured her, glancing at the dreamers. “But they see it only at a glance, in the periphery of their vision. It’s that unattainable center that keeps their dream alive. They wouldn’t mess with it if they could. Because then they might stop dreaming.”
Addie stilled in her seat as his words went through her. She knew them intimately. She knew what he meant. She’d been in dreams she never wanted to end, she’d feared that if she tried too hard, focused too long, the illusion would dissipate, dissolve around her, and be gone. Like fog on a hot day….
Addie looked down at her monster and ran her hand slowly over the glass of its fur. “I understand that,” she said softly. “Sometimes dreams are better than reality. In fact,” she said as she turned back to him. “I’d say that’s usually the case.”
Nicholas was quiet for a moment, and it felt as if he were listening to more than her words, but her feelings… even her experience. Then he nodded, and said, “Maybe. But not this time.”
He grinned and looked over the animals, addressing them as if they were alive. “Let’s go, fellas. The lady would like a ride.”
Addie’s brow furrowed. She looked from him to the unicorn in front of her, then turned in her seat to look at the lion behind her. None of them moved any more than they already had, their glass figures fixed by equally crystalline poles to the roof and floor of the Carousel. So, at first, she was confused as to why things felt different. Then she realized a breeze had picked up and was moving her hair. And the glass of the animals seemed brighter, as if they were now reflecting more than Carousel lights.
She watched the eyes of each creature begin to glow, coming to life like headlights. The music of the Carousel strengthened in volume, like a giant music box chiming out a favorite song. Pixie dust seemed to come off the fur and out of the manes of the creatures to be caught on the wind and carried away, filling the air with the glitter of magic all around.
Addie let her gaze lift from the animals around her to the world beyond the edge of the Carousel.
The Carnival was gone. The ground was gone. Clouds floated past, and the stars were bright. Open air, vast night, and a full moon were all that greeted the no-longer-Earth-bound ride.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “We’re flying.”
Nicholas chuckled beside her. It was as beautiful a sound as the music pouring from the Carousel, as the pixie dust magic floating all around them. “I was seven when I first left the ground in the Carousel. I was riding a Pegasus,” he told her, his voice winsome, his expression filled with the past. He glanced up at her, and she found herself fascinated by him. All at once, he was more compelling than a flying Carousel made of glass.
“I was made to be the Realm’s King,” he explained. “Though I was never born as a mortal would be born, I was nevertheless created as a child. The Realm wished for me to experience every aspect of life, deciding that no sovereign could ever truly rule in just fairness without having done so.”
He leaned back against the crystal tail of his monster and laced his hands behind his head, propping his booted legs up on the head of the beast. He appeared utterly relaxed, completely in control, and it was obvious who owned the Carnival – and its glass heart.
“Minnaea and Andros raised me. They were made by the Realm as my guardians, and over the years, they’ve become my friends.” He smiled as a memory clearly overtook him. “One day, I threw a temper tantrum in the middle of a history lesson Minnaea was trying to teach.” He laughed. “Andros seemed to know exactly what I needed, exactly what was wrong. He said the pressures of what was expected of me were getting to me. And that I needed to just be a child.” He looked over at her. “So they brought me here.”
“To the Carnival?”
He nodded. “It was filled with dreaming kids. It was the first time I’d seen other children. I was six at the time, in Earth years anyway. I had no idea how to approach them. But luckily for me, when kids dream, they open up. They are no longer shy or frightened. They become the people they wish they were in waking life. So they approached me. I never had to do anything. We were… instant friends.”
Addie moved that through her mind, smiling at the thought. She knew exactly what he was talking about. She’d always been a terrified child, considered anti-social by her parents, shy by her peers, bitchy by people who had no patience with tentative emotions. In her dreams, she took charge. She’d always been a lucid dreamer, a trait she’d realized in her adulthood that she shared with few. She was not only a lucid dreamer – she could control her dreams.
In that special, sacred realm, she was Wonder Woman. She was Xena. She was Sarah, standing in the midst of the Labyrinth, knowing the Goblin King was watching her, and relishing every second of it. She was Storm from the X-Men, bringing the fury of the heavens down upon her enemies – enemies she constructed with her own thoughts, out of her own subconscious need to regain control over adversity. To be in charge of her fate once more.
In dreams, you became what you always wished you were. Just like he said.
“I can’t tell you how much I understand that,” she said softly.
Nicholas moved in his seat, rolling over on his side to face her. It was a feat of agility and athleticism to maintain balance as he did in that position, and he seemed to do it without any effort at all. “Sure you can.”
She blinked. Then she licked her lips, and her fingertips absent-mindedly brushed the inner skin of her wrist. A gold balance of choices teeter-tottered back and forth in her head… yes, no, yes, no… tell him, don’t tell him. Just spit it out. Just be honest.
I’ll lose him.
Then he wasn’t worth keeping.
She closed her eyes and sat up on the beast, swinging one leg over to sit side-saddle. Then she took off her leather jacket, laid it down beside her, and took a deep breath. She rolled up her shirt sleeves and held up her arms, wrist-out.
“When I was fourteen years old, I reached a breaking point in my life. I had been bullied relentlessly for four years. They’d broken my nose, my jaw, and killed two of my teeth. They set my locker on fire, trapped me in a stall in the locker room, and spread false rumors about my sexuality in a time when people were a lot less accepting of anything but vanilla.”
She shook her head, hopelessly. “I am a high functioning adult on the autism spectrum. Something I didn’t discover until a few years ago, but something that explains so much of what I was like when I was a kid. I was so shy, so quiet… and so very miserable. I felt the desperate need to be in control of my surroundings, so much so that I used to take the blankets and sheets off of my bed so they wouldn’t wrinkle. I couldn’t control my family life or my school life, so I tried to control my room… or rather, part of my room since I shared it with my sister.” She licked her lips, gazing far away. “Awkward, outspoken in the wrong way, sensitive to heat and cold and discomfort, quiet and distant? I was fodder for bullies….” She closed her eyes again as her heart began pounding and her fingers and toes tingled uncomfortably. Control, she told herself. You have it now. High-functioning adults with autism were ten times more likely to commit suicide than adults without autism, and it was worse for teens. She’d learned the hard way. You’re here, not there. You can remember without re-living. You are in control now. You have been for a long time.
Another deep breath had her continuing. “That morning, I made it into my father’s closet. He had so many guns, shot guns, rifles, revolvers… I stared at them, trying to decide which one to use. I had come to a decision. I was going to use the gun on someone. Either them – or me. One way or another, I was going to end the pain once and for all.”
It was silent on the Carousel. The music had stopped, the breeze was gentle. But in her mind, there were noises. Sirens. The beeping of machines. Distant screams. She would always hear them – always.
“I chose my weapon. It was already loaded, so I didn’t need to mess with bullets.” She shook her head, trying to clear it of the clouds of pain. “I don’t know how long I stared down at it. In the end, I decided… taking their lives would hurt others, not them. It would hurt their parents, though I barely gave a shit. As far as I was concerned, their parents could die too for letting them do what they did to me. But I thought of little brothers and sisters. I thought of grandparents. I don’t know why, but I did.” She sighed heavily. “In the end, it wasn’t going to be them. It was going to be me. I was how I was going to put an end to the pain. I was going to put an end to me.”