Silversong (The Fable Series, Book 3)

Chapter 2

Pop.

Another day, another little yellow pill tumbling out of the blister pack.

Falling into my outstretched hand, and then into me.

Sunshine yellow, like a tiny sunbeam cutting through somber grey clouds.

Helping me to forget and to flow, drifting like a leaf on a lazy stream. Pulled along this way and that, offering no resistance as I float through the Autumn haze.

Wrapped up in a soft warm blanket of forgetfulness, I have folded into myself.

The leaves on the maple tree outside my window have turned to brilliant crimson and coppery tangerine veined with gold, driving back the last dying whispers of summer's green fire deep into the trees.

Nature is drawing into itself as the cold approaches, preparing to hide in slumber over the long winter.

I'm doing the same.

Deep and safe beneath the surface, dreaming away the hollow days since the Fable Boys left.

It's been almost three months, but it feels more like three years.

In fact, the whole crazy experience feels like it was a lifetime ago, or part of someone else's life entirely.

I'm grateful for the comforting meds, and for Dr. Martel prescribing them, and for my mom whisking me off to the psychiatrist's office when I started losing weight again and suffering night terrors in the weeks following the boys' sudden departure.

And when I say terrors, I mean deep, horrifying terrors.

Some nights as I was on the cusp of sleep, I would see a ghostly white dream face floating in the darkness above my bed. The face of a woman, unnervingly familiar and yet forgotten, buried deep in a distant memory. Hovering so close and yet at the same time so far away, like the full moon, her deathly pale face creased in concern as she whispered to me in a strange language like the rustling of wind through dry leaves.

Other nights, I would dream that my bed was a rickety boat tossed about on the waves of a pitch-black ocean, while a vast silvery serpent thrashed under the raging water, racing up towards me. I would wake up tangled in my bed-sheets, screaming, clawing at the air.

And the days weren't much better than the nights.

Getting through every single day after the boys left felt like an impossible task - like swimming upstream through the heavy hours with my hands tied behind my back.

More drowning than swimming, really. Drowning in my own sadness, sucked beneath the cold dark churning waters.

The problem was within, but also without - which is where the bright yellow pills come in. They are my invisible armour, my shield and my shroud, hiding me from a world determined to expose me.

In fact, I couldn't have imagined just how exposed and vulnerable I'd be after my involvement with the band came to light.

Less than a week after they left, a forgettable middle-aged man in a sad grey suit showed up at my front door, explaining that I'd need to sign a "Non-disclosure Agreement", or an NDA as he called it - meaning that I couldn't tell anyone anything about what had happened over that summer with the band. I didn't think twice about signing. The last thing I need right now is BYG Records and their lawyers making my life hell, or going after my parents.

If BYG thought that was all it would take to sweep the episode under the rug however, they were sorely mistaken, and even more naive than I had been.