Unmaking Percy

Part IV - IV (The Parted Glade)

Somehow, Percy willed himself to wake before the others. He needed to be quick. He tensed and stretched his limbs as he moved cat-like to silently gather his bedroll, his bag, his shoes. He slipped outside into a damp and dull dawn, misted over by the rushing river. He focused on each of his discomforts, so that he might stealth away before his deepest hurt could stop him. He was cold. He was sore and stiff, as though he had slept for days on crooked stones. He was both hungry and nauseous. Perhaps by the time he had solved all such complaints, he would be too far away to have any chance of turning back.

He had at least been spared the agony of deciding. When that moonlight had shone through the gaps in his fingers, and he had known nothing of it – not how he had done it, not how he would stop it, not what it might cause, nothing beyond knowing that he had wished for light to better see Evans – it had decided for him. All that had been left for him to choose was when, and where to.

Whatever had determined how he should act now, he would not give it the satisfaction of calling it fate. But he wished at least it had not treated him so very much like a child, deciding for him what truly mattered, and leaving him only a few choices for scraps. He recalled one such moment: he was five, standing by the door of his bedroom, with his nanny asking if he wanted the black coat or the blue, deftly ignoring his protests that he did not want to go out with a coat at all.

'When' had to be now, or he would never go through with it. 'Where' was also brutally simple. He would find someone who would teach him to wield the gaps within him. And if no such person existed, he would find someone to close the gaps in him for good.

He went through his bag, making sure he had enough to last him a week at least. He had learned a lot from watching Evans and Valeria as they travelled, but he was not certain he had learned enough. He checked his bag once more, this time to make sure he had left something behind: the small golden clasp of his cloak, in the centre of which gleamed an etched beech tree, and which none of his friends had truly noticed until that day in the clearing. Since then, they had all, at least once, cast it a furtive glance. He had left it by Evans' bedroll, where they would not miss it.

He hefted the bag over his shoulder with a grunt.

"Without so much as a goodbye? After all the tea I gave you?"

He jumped, startled, and saw Valeria standing by a pine tree, her hair fraying out of the plait she slept with. Her arms, of course, were crossed.

"Why do you wake up so damn early all the time?" he muttered.

"To catch little shits who try to sneak out. You think it makes you look brave? Quite the opposite."

"You don't even know why I'm going" he mumbled.

"Of course I do. For longer than you've been drawing snotty breath, I raised young boys into men and tried my best to save them from themselves. Did you think I expected you to brush off what happened in that clearing and go in your merry way? I knew you would go and look for answers. But I admit I did expect you to tell us first."

"I want to come back. It's the only reason I'm going" he murmured.

"How damn insightful of you. Leaving is usually a requirement for coming back. Or you could just, well, stay."

He closed his eyes. They stung with lingering sleep and tears.

"What I mean is that I don't trust myself near him until I learn more about... whatever it is I have inside me, and what I am capable of with it. And how to control it."

This, as he had predicted, was all it took to soften her. Her arms remained crossed, but she had one of her muted smiles. He had come to appreciate them, and he could catch their glint from a mile away, even when she tried to hide them.