Last month, we stopped at the old fur forest and met someone who said they used to love you in another time. They never gave us a name—not because they didn’t trust us, but because they haven’t decided on one yet.
Last week, we had dinner with Plato at the Purple Hotel and he told us about the first time you got drunk in front of him and how he realized how young you were even when you always acted like you were over a hundred.
Last night, we found your Home. It’s tidy. Menace says it still smells like you. I left some flowers on your bed, because well, I always have some flowers to spare now.
Things are tense between your people and hers, but life is still going on. The Universe remains indifferent and Time does what she has always done: she keeps going.
Did I ever tell you what I thought when I first saw you? I don’t suppose I did. Now it’s been so long, I don’t know if I could ever explain what it was like. Not really. Memories are fallible and any story I tell of our first meeting is forever muddled now.
But here’s what my muddled memory tells me. It tells me you were tall, and your hair was ridiculously long. It tells me you had a perpetual look of someone who is waiting to get into an argument. It tells me that you smelled like sage and cedar, but I think that might just be in my head. Your Home doesn’t smell like any of those things.
Like I said, memories lie.
Menace says you knew how to access the Universe in a way he never learned how. That you could send off messages through little avenues and pathways to different places and different times. That you understood that time wasn’t linear, but a looped pathway.
You could probably send a letter off across some path that could eventually reach someone in another pocket of time, but I can’t do that. So I have to live with writing this down and leaving it here on your desk where it will remain unread.
Like always, things will be unsaid and unheard and we will all be forced to be okay with that.
Still. I wanted you to know that I’m trying to be more alive. I’m actually in the world instead of around it now. Its messy and ugly and noisy and some days I just want to go back to the glass bubble, but Menace keeps my feet firmly on real ground. You know what he’s like—a sentient version of a straight punch.
You were right. He’s good for me. And I try to be good for him. Our friendship is weird and in some ways we’ll never really understand each other, but in other ways we understand each other better than anyone else.
I suppose that’s a good enough compromise.
I don’t know where we’ll be next week, next month or next year. Which is a first for me. I’ve always known where I wanted to go in life before this, but my world was a lot smaller back then. Suddenly everything feels wide open and I’m not sure if I like it, but I’m fairly sure I don’t hate it.
Is it weird to say I’ll miss you? You really weren’t in my life all that long for me to miss you, but I do. I think I missed you all these years without knowing, and now I’ll just miss you and be aware of it. You’ll be a spot in the palm of my hand that I’ll press my thumb against and it’ll hurt a tiny bit every time, but I think I’ll start to accept it as normal.
I think it’ll be harder for Menace. He’s being very quiet about it, but I know you being gone is hard for him. He thought you both would do more together, that you had time. I suppose that’s why he’s been so restless these past few weeks, shuttling us about. He’s trying to fit in more in the time he has with me.
I don’t think I’m dying. I don’t feel like I am, but we’re still in the process of finding out what Rann did to me and maybe, we’ll be able to reverse it. I haven’t seen the Dog around so maybe that’s a good sign. But even if the flowers don’t kill me, time will. I’m not like you or Menace, I’m not going to live very long. My body will catch up to me and I’ll be frail and old before Menace even knows. He won’t say it but that scares him a little.
Its funny but it doesn’t scare me. It has to happen and in a way, seeing you leave with the Dog—I don’t know, it loosened a knot of fear inside me that I didn’t even know I had.
We have to leave now. There are things to see, people to meet, and worlds to learn. I’m borrowing a few books from your collection. I promise to bring them back in good condition.
Thank you, Bones.
I’m honored that you chose to die with the name I gave you.
I’ll miss you and I’ll always owe you.
-Ellie
Thank you for reading my first attempt at serialized fiction. I really enjoyed this little story and I hope you did too.