Chapter 12: Where the Tarps Lie

Chapter 12: Where the Tarps Lie

The path of bruised-purple light was not a path at all, but a wound in the world. Stepping onto it was like diving into an ocean of pure thought. The chaotic noise of the dying festival was replaced by a roaring, psychic static—the death throes of a god. Memories, not his own, flashed through his vision: the terror of a boy named Elias Thorne clutching a wooden soldier in 1889, the sharp scent of a wildflower pressed by a girl named Martha Gable in 1894, a century of final, desperate moments bombarding him all at once.

This was the mind of The Stillness. And it was coming apart at the seams.

He pushed through the maelstrom, his own thoughts a single, desperate beacon: Lily. Lily. Lily. The entity’s consciousness was a tempest, but his purpose was an anchor. The path, which had no physical substance, held firm beneath his feet, a testament to the bargain he had forced upon this place. He was not a sacrifice; he was a guest, and he would not be turned away.

The storm of echoes subsided, and the chaos gave way to an unnerving calm. He found himself standing in a vast, dark space, under the same bruised-purple ceiling he remembered from his trial. Before him stretched an infinite field, but instead of thorny bushes, it was filled with softly glowing, ethereal blooms, like ghost-lilies swaying in an unfelt wind.

Jedediah Kane’s barren garden.

Each bloom was a soul. He walked among them, a visitor in a silent, tragic museum. He saw a translucent image of Elias Thorne inside one, forever playing with his wooden soldier, a faint, contented smile on his face. He saw Martha Gable, forever twirling in a summer dress, her pressed wildflower tucked behind her ear. They were not screaming. They were not afraid. They were trapped in their single, happiest memory, a peaceful oblivion curated by their captor. This was the entity’s terrible mercy: to preserve its meals in a state of placid perfection, a collection of beautiful, dead butterflies pinned to a board.

Then he saw it. At the very center of the garden, one flower pulsed with a brighter, more vibrant light. It shone with a fierce, stubborn warmth that pushed back against the encroaching darkness of the entity's collapse. It shone with Lily.

Leo ran towards it, his heart a painful, hopeful thing in his chest. As he drew closer, he could see inside. It wasn’t the horror of the lightning strike. It wasn’t a memory of fear.

It was a perfect summer afternoon. Lily was sitting on a red-and-white checkered blanket, her blonde hair clean and tied back with her favorite butterfly clip. She was laughing, a pure, bell-like sound that echoed in the silent garden. Next to her, a pot of stew—the thick, rich kind their mother hadn't made in years—was being served into a bowl by a boy. By him. A version of him, carefree and smiling, without the exhaustion in his eyes or the grim set of his jaw. This phantom Leo handed Lily the bowl, and she beamed up at him with absolute, untroubled love.

It was everything he had ever wanted for her. A world without hunger, without fear, without a broken mother and a desperate brother. A world where she was safe.

A thought, vast and ancient and tired, settled into his mind. It was not an implant this time; it was a conversation. The voice of The Stillness.

You see? It was not cruelty. It was preservation. You fed me your fear, and I gave you peace from a world of pain. A fair exchange.

The ground beneath Leo’s feet trembled, and the edges of the garden began to fray, dissolving into static.

Your ritual… it has poisoned the well. The pact is unwritten. We are undone. But this place… this memory… it can be saved. I can anchor it. A world for two.

The entity’s final offer bloomed in his mind, a tempting, poisonous flower.

Stay. Let the broken world outside fade into nothing. Here, there will be no more Watchers, no more debts, no more sacrifice. I will draw my sustenance from your loyalty, and in return, you will have this. Forever. You can give her the life you never could. You can stay with your sister.

Leo stared at the idyllic scene. He could just step inside. The phantom Leo on the blanket looked over at him, his smile faltering, a flicker of confusion in his eyes. He was an echo, but he was an echo of Leo’s own deepest desire: to protect his sister, to be the brother she deserved. To stay here would be to surrender, to accept the beautiful cage for what it was. But wasn't a beautiful cage better than a brutal reality?

He looked past Lily’s glowing prison, at the hundreds of other souls, each trapped in their own lonely heaven. They were safe. They were peaceful. And they were utterly, completely alone, their stories finished, their last page written. That wasn’t life. It was a picture of life. Freedom wasn't the absence of pain. It was the promise of a next page, even if that page was stained with tears.

He had not come this far to become the monster’s final zookeeper.

He looked at the perfect scene, at the brother he wished he could be, and he felt a pang of murderous jealousy. He had to destroy his own dream to save his sister.

He took a step towards the light, his boot sinking into the illusion. The phantom Leo stood up, a protective arm in front of Lily. "Who are you?" he asked, his voice full of a confidence the real Leo had never possessed.

Lily peered around him, her head cocked. "Leo? Who's that man? He looks sad."

Her words were a knife in his heart. He had to break that perfect world. He had to remind her of their world, the real one, the one worth fighting for.

He cleared his throat, his own voice sounding broken and weak compared to his phantom’s. He began to sing, the words soft and familiar, a melody of patched-up clothes and empty cupboards.

"The sun has gone to bed, you see… so has the sleepy honeybee…"

It was their lullaby. The one he’d mangled and half-forgotten, the one he sang to her during thunderstorms when the world was too loud.

The phantom Leo’s eyes widened in confusion. He didn’t know the rest. That version of him had never needed to. In his world, there were no thunderstorms.

Leo kept singing, his voice growing stronger, imbued with the memory of every scraped knee he’d patched, every nightmare he’d chased away. "Even the fish down in the deep… are cuddled up and fast asleep…"

Lily’s perfect smile wavered. A shadow of memory crossed her face. "Leo…?" she whispered, looking from the phantom to him, the real, sad man at the edge of her perfect day.

He held out his hand. His real hand, calloused and dirty. "It's time to go home, Lily-bug."

The entity screamed in his mind, a shriek of betrayal and dissolution. You choose… oblivion? You choose pain?

He locked eyes with his sister, pouring all his love, all his resolve into that one look. I choose her, he thought back at the dying god. And she deserves to choose, too.

Lily looked at the bowl of stew, at the perfect brother, at the endless summer afternoon. Then she looked at the real Leo, his tired eyes, his outstretched hand, and the promise of an imperfect, uncertain home.

She took a hesitant step, and then another. She walked right through the phantom Leo, who flickered and dissolved into motes of light. She placed her small hand in his.

The moment their skin touched, the garden, the entity, and the entire world of violet light shattered.

There was a deafening crack, not of thunder, but of reality snapping back into place. Leo was on his knees on the damp grass of the festival grounds. The world was utterly silent. The fireworks were gone, the music was dead, the crowd was frozen like statues, their faces a mixture of celebration and dawning horror.

Slowly, like figures in a dream, they began to move. A collective gasp rippled through the town as they looked at the field, then at Leo, then at the small girl standing beside him, her hand held tightly in his.

Mr. Abernathy was staring from the stage, his face streaked with tears. Henderson and Gable stood halfway to the Miller family, their faces blank with utter shock. Mrs. Miller was openly sobbing, hugging her son, Daniel, who was looking at the field with wide, confused eyes.

It was over. The pact was broken. The hungry god was dead.

Leo looked down at his sister. Lily. She was real. Solid. He could feel the warmth of her hand in his. He had won.

She looked up at him, her face pale in the sudden moonlight that broke through the clouds. Her bright, familiar eyes held a deep, unsettling wisdom they hadn't possessed before. And deep within her pupils, like a nebula in a starry sky, swirled a faint, unmistakable trace of bruised-purple light. He had pulled her from the garden, but a seed of that unholy place had come with her. His victory was absolute, and it was terrifying.