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Verso woke from dreams of non-existence and dripping gold. Something about them seemed to call to Mother, who was always nearby to stroke his hair like he was a little boy again.
“There-there”, Mother said kindly, fingertips resting on his cheek as she looked searchingly into his eyes. Verso, disoriented, blinked slowly until the afterimages of golden glow faded. “It was just a dream. You’re safe.”
In these moments, Verso always felt both safe and unsafe, comforted in a way that appeased rather than soothed. Strange—he remembered the solace of a soft embrace from his childhood, but this wasn’t it. Maybe that’s just the price we pay for growing up, he mused. Mother’s hugs were no longer a cure-all.
Mother pushed Verso’s fringe back from his forehead and glanced at a nearby chest of drawers. She smiled and resettled the Esquie plushie atop it closer to the bed. “There—now you’ll have a guardian to watch over your sleep.”
Verso smiled crookedly. “Thanks, maman.” He yawned, suddenly exhausted.
Mother pulled the blanket over his shoulders and murmured softly, the content of her words lost beyond Verso’s fatigue. He was asleep before Mother moved to leave his room, not noticing the faceless ghost of a boy who sat unmoving in the corner.
He never noticed him.
***
Verso woke from dreams of whimsy and memories of a childhood pet whose name eluded him. He had a splitting headache and little desire to deal with Mother’s hovering, so he turned away with a forearm across his eyes.
“Ah”, she said quietly, correctly interpreting his discomfort. She retrieved a cloth from the next room, wet it in a basin and laid it across his forehead. Verso shifted it to cover his eyes fully and sighed.
“Let’s go,” Mother whispered for some reason, and walked an arc around Verso’s bed. She paused next to his piano bench before continuing to the door.
The faceless boy took her offered hand and kept pace next to her despite the trembling in his knees.
***
Tonight’s dream was the reoccurring one of a house fire, which featured often enough in Verso’s nightmares to have grown dull. Verso wasn’t particularly afraid of fire, but there was no accounting for one’s subconscious, he guessed.
Mother was already holding his hand, a frown of concentration carving a deep crag between her brows. She startled when Verso shifted to sit up. “Verso, I—” She cleared her throat. “I thought you were asleep.”
“I was.” Verso covered a yawn. The orange and purple fingers of dawn were advancing from the horizon outside his windows. “But breakfast calls. Shall I fetch some pastries from Angelique’s?”
Mother settled back into her chair and released her grip on Verso’s hand. “That sounds lovely, dear,” she said, distracted and melancholy.
Verso noted Mother’s attitude and resolved to bring her her favourite pain au chocolat and a coffee. Nothing banished one of Mother’s moods like coffee.
He stepped around the ghost boy as one would a pillar or wall—an obstacle that doesn’t warrant conscious notice—to retrieve a fresh vest and cravat. He ran the back of his fingers along his jaw and wrinkled his nose. Should do something about the 5:00 AM shadow.
As Verso closed the door to the bathroom, the boy turned his head toward Aline. He didn’t move his hand from Aline’s grasp, but also didn’t stem the shivers and twitches that ran through the limb, shaking droplets of chroma free. A deep gash ran down the middle of the boy’s forearm, bleeding more gold that soaked into the sheets. It outlined where Verso’s head had lay on the pillow in an almost-gorey halo.
Aline clicked her tongue impatiently and waved a hand. “Another failure,” she hissed as the room righted itself and the boy’s wound closed. This time she left the boy as she stalked off to her workshop.
It didn’t matter. Either way the boy and Verso would end up back here again tomorrow night.
***
A tap sounded at the shuttered window. Verso was sound asleep, and Aline had left, examining a chunk of grey-gold and muttering to herself about mixing chroma to the consistency of modelling clay. The boy stood and opened the shutters, knowing the alternative was some broken hinges and Aline’s ire.
“Little Verso…” said the balloon-like giant alighted upon a next-door chimney. The figure drooped. “You’re hurt.”
The boy considered this statement and his reflection in the dark window glass. A portion of his jaw hadn’t grown back yet, giving him a lopsided appearance. “…Yes, I think so,” he replied without inflection.
Esquie moaned and shifted closer, fingers flexing in the way that meant he wanted to give a hug. After a moment, he turned with determination and knocked against the wall hard enough that paint flakes shook free. “Wake up, Big Verso!”
In his bed Verso flailed and nearly hit himself in the eye in his scramble to push the sheets off. “What in the—?” He froze, spotting the form blocking out the window, and his mouth fell open. “Es… Esquie!?” His gaze jumped between the plushie and larger-than-life versions.
Esquie heaved a sign. “Big Verso never remembers our adventures, and Little Verso doesn’t want to go on them. But that’s not Big Verso or Little Verso’s faults.” He extended a puffy arm into the room. “Let’s adventure anyway!”
Verso spluttered in confusion a few times, followed Esquie’s gaze to his old train set on the floor and nearly choked on his own spit at the sight of a being with skin the ashen colour of a corpse or statue, with a face imploded and crumbling at the edges, and wearing a flat cap. It was the cap he kept getting stuck on—what sort of ghoul dresses like a newsie??
There was the sound of quick movement from downstairs. Esquie unceremoniously grabbed Verso and the Ghost of Christmas Past and hauled them through the window and onto his back.
“I am speeeeeeeed!” Cried Esquie, whipping his arms around while Verso clung to his neck for dear life. Next to him, calm, sat the fragmented boy, ash from his face streaming behind them in the wind.
Below, a betrayed screech echoed out of the Mansion, followed by a shockwave that Esquie hopped over. It sounded like Mother, Verso thought, heart pounding. It sounded like Mother, but inhuman. Somehow, despite the racket, not a single person in their neighbourhood stirred.
Esquie reached up and patted Verso on the head. “It’s alright, your maman’s just mad and sad. But that doesn’t make it okay to hurt either Verso.”
Numbly, Verso resigned himself to not understanding the world for the next while.
***
Fairytales spoke of Esquie’s Nest, the glittering cavern hideout alight with phosphoresce, refracted by walls of jewels of every colour. The tales failed to mention the giant pool Verso was dunked in without warning when Esquie landed.
Verso sputtered and scrambled like a drowned cat, then flailed like one having been picked up by the back of his collar and lifted. Esquie plopped Verso and the ghoul boy upon the ledge in front of his pool and patted them down, adjusting the angle of the boy’s askew hat. Water dripped down Verso’s sleeves, plastering his nightshirt uncomfortably against his arms.
“That’s better.” Esquie nodded in satisfaction, patting them both gently on the head. “Now we can talk safely. Oh! But first…” He lifted an unnervingly long arm to an outcropping of rock behind him that seemed to serve as a shelf for odd baubles and the broken-off top of a lamp post. He shifted a pair of spectacles with cracked lenses and retrieved a tattered piece of paper that looked like—
“An advertisement for the Opera?” Verso asked, nonplussed and accepting the paper on reflex.
Esquie gave the impression of smiling kindly despite not having a face. “Oh, yes, but also no.” He gestured to the other side.
Verso turned it over and froze.
Verso— the spidery script said in his handwriting. Esquie says I’ll forget writing this along with all that I’ve learned when next I return to Lumière. When I’m made to return to Lumière and the sphere of Mother’s influence.
Esquie and Little Verso, as he calls the boy with the crumbling face, say that maman is doing something that involves cutting him open and trying to merge his “chroma” with mine. From what I can gather, this is not unalike his soul or essence. They claim maman sees us as the same person, splintered, and that she means to make me whole by forcing the shards together.
I wish it didn’t make such horrible sense. But out here I can clear my mind of the fog that always numbs my worries, and I ask myself—How is it my memories before a certain point are so detached and blurry? When and how was Alicia’s face so terribly burned? Is father weak-willed or literally unable to defy maman? Why is maman always in my room at night with a half-invisible boy who wears my favourite cap from when I was ten? It’s hardly normal for a parent to watch over and soothe the nightmares of their adult son—but then again, how old am I? I just tried and failed to remember my exact age.
Esquie claims he has come many times to our aid and will always do so. It seems the tales are true that he feels the anguish of those who truly hurt, and it calls to him. He likewise claims that I am his best friend, despite the memories maman washes away. I have no logical reason to, but I believe him.
We are going to flee to the mountain peaks and seek shelter with the grandis. Esquie speaks of maman capturing us as an inevitability. When I asked him why bother flee at all, however, he responded that the act of trying itself heals the spirit, even when we know the attempt will end. I quite like that—certainly more than resigning myself to maman’s mad science.
We spent three days here in Esquie’s nest before I understood and came to terms with the danger I face at home. Bluntly put, Esquie and ‘Little Verso’ are not skilled in constructing logical arguments, which I insisted they use in their explanations. I write this letter in the hope that next time it may expedite the process.
Best wishes for myself, I suppose.
—Verso Dessendre
Verso finished reading, running his fingertips over the frayed edges in thought. “…How long ago did I write this?” he finally managed.
Esquie tapped his chin and hummed. “Two years, seven months, fourteen days annnnnd… about ten hours.”
“Midday, then,” Verso commented in a needless aside. He startled when Esquie chuckled.
“Yes, yes, and Verso scrunched up his nose when we flew because the sun was so bright and hot!”
‘I have no logical reason to, but I believe him.’ Verso’s gaze fell upon the sentence anew and it resonated, spreading a warm feeling through his chest.
“…Well, now we have the opposite problem. I’m hardly about to go flying in the middle of winter, at night, with my nightclothes soaked through.” He ticked each item off on his fingers, then smiled hesitantly up at the gentle giant.
Esquie flourished with his hands. “Of course, that’s not the way we start an adventure.”
“And how do we do it right, then?” The smile grew, and grew more crooked.
“With warm mushroom soup and rest, then a visit to Franfan to get shouted at until he feels better, and then an adventurers’ meeting where we all draw up a treasure map.”
Verso had no idea who Franfran was supposed to be, but— “I do like mushrooms,” he confessed, turning to the faceless boy. “How about you?”
The boy seemed to consider the question slowly and gravely. “I think I did, too.”
***
In the end, all the shock from the revelation of Esquie’s and Verso’s shared history paled in comparison to watching just how a boy with no face managed to drink mushroom soup.
***
‘Franfran’, né François, was a giant stone turtle surrounded by ominous torches who yelled like Monsieur Dubois on cold mornings when his hip acted up. He bore a striking resemblance to Clea’s imaginary friend, or at least the crude representation her young hands had sculpted, which now sat with pride of place on the sitting room mantle.
“Always barging in when it’s convenient for YOU, you rapscallions,” he grumbled, the fires flaring with his volume.
“A pleasure to make your repeated acquaintance,” said Verso blithely.
“It is NOT,” François bit out. “Did you at least bring the newspaper like I asked you to three times, or were you useless this time, too?”
Verso pursed his lips. “Alas, it seems I am useless.”
“Fran-Fran should be nice to Big Verso,” Esquie admonished. “I kidnapped him, so he didn’t have time to buy a newspaper.”
“Ah.” The short sound gave the impression of understanding. “One of those nights, aye?” He thought, then swung his head toward the ghost boy. “You! Over there! Have you been practicing your bluffing for Truc like I told you?”
“No,” the boy said simply.
François muttered something about no ambition and heads as empty as they look. The bottom of his shell ground against the stone floor of his cavern when he turned to face a table with a deck of Spanish cards that Verso was almost positive hadn’t been there before. “Right. You, the older knave!” He gestured with his chin. “Come play a hand and show the boy how it’s done.”
Verso glanced at Esquie, who nodded encouragingly. He sighed and pulled out a chair at the table. “I don’t mind a card game, I suppose.”
“Of course not!” François scoffed. “Right hooligan you are, you probably cheat all sorts of cretins out of their coin. I’ll be keeping a stern eye on those sleeves of yours, you jackanapes…”
As the game continued, François’ cards floating close to his face with an air of suspicion, Verso found the tension in his shoulders easing. This, too, reminded him of Clea—the toothless critiques of his character that badgered out of concern. He fell easily into the same sort of patter he enjoyed with his sister, exchanging barbs as a means of soothing worries.
“…I concede.”
“HAH! Another six points! Where’s your ruffian pride now?”
Also, the smug crowing when François was winning—that was all Clea, too. He wondered if François was an equally sore loser.
Verso swiped up the new hand that François dealt and allowed himself to smirk widely. “Mon reste,” he pronounced, relishing each sound.
A long pause followed.
“…You vulgar, dirty, upstart SCAMP!”
Esquie’s and Verso’s laughter bounced merrily around the cavern, undercutting the furious tirade that continued for several minutes.
***
The adventurers’ meeting proved an exercise in frustration, as it seemed Esquie and the Verso duo had already traveled to just about everywhere one could reach on the continent, as well as attempting sea voyages in all the cardinal directions. Apparently there was an impenetrable glass wall encircling the continent preventing further exploration.
After the second hour of fruitlessly listing possible destinations, Verso buried his hands in his hair and tugged, defeated. He waved to the faceless boy. “Do you have any inspiration? Before I tear any more of my hair out.”
The boy gave the impression of blinking slowly. “I like trains,” he offered.
Verso glanced at Esquie, mentally measuring him against a standard train door. “Our friend’s a little… portly to fit onto one.”
Esquie looked down at himself as if surprised by his own stature, then deflated—at first seemingly metaphorically, then literally, with the sound of air being let out of a tyre, until at last he was hardly a head taller than Verso and skinny. Frankly, it was bit eerie to watch.
“Now we can go on a train adventure!” Esquie cheered, voice an octave or so higher.
Well, why not.
***
The attendant manning the ticket counter gave them a long side-eye. This was completely understandable. A man with his nightshirt haphazardly tucked into a pair of ill-fitting trousers and a presumable child wearing a full mourning veil from several centuries past was one thing. The lumpy mass of cloth and ribbon ties, wearing a topknot wig, silk kimono and Kabuki mask strapped overtop another mask was quite another.
Verso met the ticket seller’s gaze with forced nonchalance. “Two adults and one child for Mayer Merkantosdemond.”
“We’re going clothes shopping!” Cheered Esquie, kimono sleeves waving like flags around his flapping arms.
“…Hm. An excellent idea, monsieur,” the attendant said dryly. She fed three tickets into the machine and pulled a lever to punch them through. “The next southbound train is scheduled to arrive in 15 minutes on track 3. Stairs to the platform are through the door to your right. We wish you a... successful outing.”
Verso bit his lips to keep from laughing, channeling the sang-froid of Clea for all he was worth. He very much doubted Esquie would by any clothing more tame than a velvet suit. “Much obliged.”
“Ooh, OOH!” Esquie bounced by Verso’s side as they mounted the steps. “While we wait, can we practice our dancing? It’s been so long since we danced together.”
“When did we dance together?”
“On your birthday, when you turned twenty-eight but also three.”
There were a few other travellers loitering about the platform—a pair of lovers arm-in-arm, a mother herding three children with exasperation, a gestral hoisting a 20-plus volume encyclopedia secured with a belt—but… Their group was already attracting curious looks, and Verso was wearing a pair of trousers that Esquie had apparently fished out of a well a century ago.
He shrugged with a smile. “Might as well.”
“YAAAYYY!” Esquie pulled him and the ghost boy into a big hug, lifting them off their feet and spinning around.
This led to an impromptu lesson in arm poses, which the ghost boy imitated with precision and no emotion while Verso whacked his elbow on a pillar. The gestural cackled and clapped to keep time, and the children crept closer while pretending to do no such thing. Their mother gave Verso an embarrassed grimace. Verso shot her a reassuring smile and invited the children to join in while massaging feeling back into his arm. By the time the train arrived, half of the platform was doing a wave of synchronized pantomime to hand over their tickets to a bemused conductor.
***
Mayer Merkantosdemond was a bazaar to put the marketplace at Lumière’s docks to shame. Fabrics of every shade and texture wove around wooden frames in a cacophony of colour—and noise, which they trapped within the makeshift tent pathway. As the fabrics blotted out the sunlight, glowing crystals and lanterns were tied to crossbeams, strewn about in corners and hovering at shoulder-height to show off wares.
“Rabbits’ feet, fresh rabbits’ feet! Chew ‘em or wear ‘em as good luck charms!”
“Swimming costumes, everything from prudish to scandalous hemlines!”
“Cloves, ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon—any spice you folks could need, with a sale on saffron for the next hour!”
“Bespoke demi-battles for your warmongering patate! Each battle comes with a complementary critique and lesson with Sandrine the Fighting Machine!”
“Come try out the newest trend in velocipedes, the penny-farthing! A much smoother ride than your average boneshaker...”
“Mes amis, look!” Esquie pointed in wonder to a tableau vivant of Degas’ Ballet Dancers in the Wings, which the actors were gradually reshaping into Ballet Rehearsal. A lamp with blue stained glass inched slowly leftward, washing the performers of in the Wings a pale blue while the “lively” dancers of Rehearsal were lit in neutral light, right legs frozen in the extension of a développé à la seconde. Esquie let out a happy noise and toddled over to the tableau, lifting his own leg in imitation.
“You really love to dance, huh,” said Verso fondly, as some of the less professional actors tittered.
“It makes me feel graceful and peaceful.” He moved into a ronde de jambe, long arms creating a very wide first position.
“Then it seems to me your friend needs a ballet outfit,” a tiny voice chirped at Verso’s hip in gestral-speak. He was a young gestral with the classic paintbrush hair who bounced on his toes and flapped his elbows energetically, fingers tucked proudly into the straps of his merchant’s pack. He craned his neck up at Verso’s face, then hopped back in shock. “Verso! Monoco’s gonna be SO mad at you, not showing up since two rebirth ceremonies ago.”
Verso jerked back. “Wait... What?”
“I know, we know, busy-busy, lots to do outside the Canvas, but you can always make time for a quick visit, no?”
“I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else—”
The gestral pinched his fingers together to cut him off, gaze shifting between Verso, Esquie mid-plié, the ghost boy, and back to Verso. “Nope, definitely Verso. There’s Esquie, and another Verso maybe, but you’re definitely Verso and you’re already too late to play with Monoco when he was still a patate. Salut, Esquie!” He waved with his entire arm.
“Salut, mon ami!” Esquie returned, flourishing at the end of his impromptu routine to a smattering of applause.
“You know him, Esquie?”
Esquie hummed and nodded. “Noco, this is Verso, and Little Verso.” He gestured to each in turn, and explained bafflingly, “They’re Verso’s cousins.”
“Ahhh, cousins,” Noco imitated with exaggerated human pronunciation. “Like reborn patates, yes? The same, but the memories go fuzzy.”
Not sure at all that this was the case, Verso answered, “…I suppose?” Was this someone Verso had met on his adventures with Esquie and then forgotten about?
“Hmmmmmmm… Well! I guess Monoco will have to forgive you, if you didn’t remember. Now, come, come!” He ushered the party toward a shop tucked away in a corner, whose sign enthusiastically boasted CHEF MERKANTO with a huge arrow. “Only the best ballet tights for my best customers.”
“I’m not really in the market for—”
“MONOCO!!!”
A bang rattled various knick-knacks on the shop’s shelves. “What’s that racket for, you menace?” growled a voice from behind a curtain.
“Verso-patate, Verso-no-longer-patate and Esquie are here to visit!”
“What in the blazes does that—?” The strangest gestral Verso had ever seen rounded a bookcase with trick teapots. He stopped and stared.
“Bonjour, mon ami!” Esquie waved carefully, mindful of the goods around them.
“Esquie,” Monaco grunted with a nod of greeting. He peered at Verso with narrowed eyes behind his mask. “That’s not Verso.”
“I’m pretty sure I am,” Verso protested.
“You look and sound like him, I’ll grant you. You’re a decent imposter.”
“Monoco, don’t be a meanie,” Esquie chided gently. “This is Verso’s cousin, Verso.”
“Y’know, I don’t actually have any cousins, much less one with the same name as—”
Monoco interrupted them with a snort. “I don’t trust it.”
“Patates don’t always smell the same when they come back,” Noco objected with a pout at Monoco.
Monoco ignored Noco and rounded the ghost boy, sniffing loudly and pulling the scarf down to show the boy’s lack of face. The boy stood placidly, turning his head to watch the process. At last, Monoco nodded. “This one’s Verso.”
Verso rolled his eyes and gave up on understanding the conversation. He shuffled to the side to inspect some overcoats next to Noco. Noco gladly fell into the persona of the gregarious salesman, complimenting Verso’s taste in fabrics and encouraging him to try on a royal blue brocade monstrosity. Verso steered them toward the other end of the rack, with a selection that would be a little more tasteful and less hard on Esquie’s funds.
At length, Verso had a better-fitting set of trousers, a proper shirt, a vest, a jacket and a fur overcoat which Esquie insisted on buying for Verso; the ghost boy wore an overcoat so puffy and stuffed with down that his arms were held out away from his torso; and Esquie proudly showed off his new tights, tiara and tutu, which had an adjustable waist wide enough to accommodate him in his larger form. Noco accepted payment in the form of a ruby the size of Verso’s fist, which nearly caused Verso’s eyes to bulge out of his head when Esquie produced it from seemingly nowhere.
All through the visit Monoco pointedly ignored Verso’s existence, pretending to read a book he was holding upside-down whenever Verso looked his way. Well, fine, Verso thought, feeling childish. He hardly wanted to waste his time on someone like Monoco anyway. He made a show of thanking Noco profusely, with which Noco predictably played along while Monoco grumbled under his breath.
The party had their warm gear, and they needed to keep moving. It was time to move on to colder climes.
***
The next stop on the train line away from Lumière was the Great Grandis Arena at the peak of Mont Pointu. It was a grand structure of sculpted ice, similar in shape to the fighting arenas of gestrals and humans. The walls were lined with stands of excited spectators, chanting taunts at the competitors they wished to lose; food vendors wandered the premises, barking a list of their most popular dishes, both hot and chilled; an announcer with a speaking trumpet announced the next challengers with grandiose titles.
Six grandis stepped up onto a series of platforms arranged in a semi-circle. The platforms began to raise and the lights dimmed. A hush fell over the crowd, a collective breath held in anticipation. The competitors got into a ready stance.
A spotlight snapped onto a youth wearing a flaming red cockade and sash. She stepped toward one of her opponents, met their eye, and boomed:
“Pointed snout and blunted teeth,
Downy mane each strand most fowl;
Lineage boastful, but beneath
It’s quite clear your maman is an owl.”
The crowd erupted into jeers and cackles. A vociferous grandis sitting behind them gestured widely and spilled his entire popcorn bucket on the rows below. Esquie fished a kernel out of the ghost boy’s hot cocoa, and the boy sipped at the mug tranquilly. The competitors continued, trading jabs at each others’ ancestry and bearing in what was the program purported was the warm-up round before things got truly heated and personal.
As another competitor accused a third of eating paint as a baby, accounting for the purple tint of his fur and his mediocre rhymes, Verso laughed incredulously and said, “I think I’d prefer fisticuffs, personally.”
“It’s mean, but not really mean-mean,” Esquie explained knowingly. “Like Franfran, but all of them. A whoooole mountain of François.”
“Dear lord help us!” Verso exclaimed jokingly.
Esquie pointed at Verso’s nose. “Exactly like that!” he said happily. “Sometimes the words are mean, but the message is kind.”
Verso looked down at his own hot chocolate in thought. It was a good life lesson, one that he was going to lose when Mother caught up with them. For the first time he felt not just dread, but resentment toward his own family.
Esquie pulled Verso against his side in a half-hug. “The grandis yell lots of mean and mean-mean things during matches, when it’s too loud for anyone else to hear them. Verso should yell too, if he wants. I won’t listen.”
During the next round of cheering, the ghost boy said in a conversational tone, “Leave us alone, Aline.”
Mistaking this as a comment meant for him, Verso blinked while processing the words. Then, he remembered the implicit rules of the grandis; he turned away to give the boy privacy, pretended he hadn’t heard. He stayed quiet for a long time, then finally let out a frustrated yell at the next swell of noise. He wasn’t ready to put words to the miasma of his emotions—and with Mother erasing his memory periodically, he could very well never be—but the screaming was oddly cathartic.
***
The train continued along the mountain range, across bridges that hung like spiderwebs between the mountain peaks. Verso leaned against the window and looked out over the dizzying drop until his vertigo receded.
This was the fourth day of their adventure. According to Esquie, that was already a day longer than their excursions usually lasted.
“Next stop, Pointe du Phénix,” called out the conductor, marching down the centre aisle. “Pointe du Phénix. This is the end of the line.”
The words hung ominously between them. Verso looked across their compartment at Esquie and the ghost boy. “I don’t think we should travel back towards Lumière.”
“She knows when we’re near the mansion,” the ghost boy agreed.
“I can puff up and fly us somewhere else…” Even Esquie sounded subdued by the looming end of their adventure. “Where should we go?”
“You said we’ve already been everywhere, so it doesn’t really matter.” Verso pursed his lips, resenting that the spectre of Mother could take the joy from their journey before it ended.
“Up,” said the ghost boy.
“Hm?”
“We haven’t gone up yet.”
Esquie tilted his head, then began to inflate with an aura of joy. “Little Verso!!!” He tugged the ghost boy into a hug. “You are so smart!”
Verso frowned, leaning back and shifting his gaze up at the clouds above them. “It’s not a usual cardinal direction,” he mused.
“Which is perfect for us!”
By the time the train pulled into the station, Esquie had inflated so much in his delight that he barely fit through the door. Verso, wedging Esquie through the opening and putting his back into it, tumbled onto the platform when Esquie rocketed out with the popping sound of a cork from a bottle of champagne. Despite the scrapes on his palms and knees, he felt okay for the first time today as they bounded off into the morning sky.
***
When the air grew so cold it was difficult to breathe, Esquie bumped into another invisible wall above. He was ascending slowly, so he bounced gently against it like a helium balloon against a ceiling. Verso, gloved hands tucked into his armpits for warmth, sighed. It fogged and crystallized on the scarf wrapped around his mouth and nose.
“The barrier's probably a sphere, then. Even if we dig to the centre of the Earth, we’ll still be blocked eventually.”
Esqiue hummed while flying a tight circle in place. “It’s still pretty cool to see something new on an adventure!”
“Yeah…” Verso turned to then ghost boy idly, about to ask where they should go next—and paused. The ash that usually hung around the boy’s face in dead air or flew away with the direction of the wind, was instead drifting upward and to the side, against the wind. Verso’s eyes traced the trail’s movement as it flowed in the same direction, unchanging regardless of which part of his circle Esquie was retracing. Drawn like iron specks to a distant magnet, Verso described the phenomenon to the others.
The boy tilted his head, considering. “He’s calling out.”
“Who is?”
“…the painter. Verso.”
Verso closed his eyes in exasperation over yet another Verso in this world. “…Sure, why not?” he said finally. “More practically, is it dangerous to go in that direction?”
“I don’t… believe so.”
Esquie met Verso’s eyes, and Verso shrugged. “Seems as good a destination as any.”
So they flew in the direction of the ashes, Verso calling out corrections to Esquie’s path as needed, the ghost boy even more silent than usual, lost in thought. They flew into the evening, through the sunset dying the sky a blazing striation of orange and red and purple, until the stars began to twinkle. They looked crisper from up here. The continent below woke up for nighttime, lamplighters lighting streetlights and hearth fires flickering in distant windows. Verso worried briefly whether this would count as returning to Lumière and Mother’s sphere of influence, but the fog over his mind never descended.
At last a strange… window came into sight. Verso could hardly think of another word to call the shape hovering in mid-air, but it wasn’t panes of glass. It was a rectangle, hovering horizontally, seemingly a hole in the barrier. Gold and black somehow illuminated the interior of the window, swirling patterns and a large sphere of void eclipsing a shining light. Backlit by this was the shadow of a familiar child.
The ghost boy on Esquie’s back stood as they drew near, heedless of the danger of falling. He skimmed his fingers across the barrier—and when they reached the window, his hands sunk in. Esquie tried to copy the motion to anchor himself, but to him the window remained as impermeable as the rest of the barrier.
Inside the window above them, an identical faceless boy crouched on the barrier, paintbrush in hand, stilled mid-stroke.
“Er, hello,” Verso tried calling out. The painter ghost boy moved his head, seeming glancing at each of them in turn. “We’re here, ah… To be honest, I’m not actually sure why we’re here.”
“We’re here for adventuuuure!” Esquie enthused, waving at the boy in the window.
The painter ghost boy reached down through the window, holding out his non-dominant hand. The ghost boy on Esquie’s back grabbed ahold, and immediately began to float, surrounded by golden dust motes. He drifted up like smoke through the window until he sat level with his twin.
“We’re tired,” one said.
“Yes,” agreed the other. “For different reasons.”
“We can help each other,” they both intoned in unison. The golden dust swirled around both of them, followed swiftly by a blinding flash. Verso flinched, and by the time he’d uncovered his eyes there was only one boy sitting above them in the window.
“Did you two—merge?” He guessed, unsure of the correct word.
“Yes,” the ghost boy said, voice a little stronger than before. “We are all fragments of what once was. We can’t join with the new, but we can fortify each other.”
“That sounds good,” Verso hazarded.
The boy nodded slowly. “I hurt a little less now.”
Esquie bounced excitedly in place. “Then that means, MISSION SUCCESS! WOOOHOOO!”
Verso chuckled a bit despite his confusion. “All’s well that ends well, it seems.”
The ghost boy set his paintbrush down on the window below him and began to move it in broad strokes. “There are many shards…”
“Oh! OH! Then that means--Verso!” Esquie lay a hand across Verso’s shoulders. “We don’t just have adventures, now—we have a quest!”
“A quest?”
“Find all the Little Versos and bring them here so they can help each other!”
Verso blinked a few times. “Hold on… There are more ghost boys?”
Esquie nodded emphatically. “Allllll over the continent. Your maman sometimes comes to find one, after she makes another one hurt really bad. But! I’ve never seen her take this Little Verso away from here.”
“I have to keep painting,” the ghost boy inside the window agreed.
It wasn’t clear why, but it seemed Mother was either prevented from taking this version of the ghost boy from this space, or for her own reasons decided not to. Regardless of which, it seemed likely that now that the two had merged, Mother wouldn’t be able to touch the ghost boy who’d travelled with them. The knowledge that there were other ghosts ‘all over the continent’—dozens? Surely not hundreds!—was daunting, but at the same time…
He thought of the ghost boy at the start of their journey, face lopsided with a chunk of his jaw carved out. The boy never screamed or whimpered, and his voice stayed level when he spoke, but his body had trembled. Pain or just fear, it didn’t matter why—a child didn’t deserve that fate.
“We should do it.”
Esquie let out his loudest whoop of all, and danced midair while Verso clung on like a frazzled baby koala.
“However!” He shouted to draw Esquie’s attention. “I’ll need a pen and paper right away.” Before Mother could draw Verso back to Lumière, draw these memories from his mind.
***
Verso— He scrawled quickly on the back of a flyer for the grandis poetry battle. He could hear Esquie’s and Mother’s voices from the entrance to Esquie’s Nest. François shifted beside him to cover Verso from sight, while Verso struggled to get the key points down on the page in time. His heart pounded, equal parts anxious and defiant.
According to Esquie, it has been two and a half years since I penned the previous letter (on the Opera House advertisement, read that one first). This time around, I have travelled with Esquie and a ghost boy. One of many, apparently. There are many copies of this boy throughout the continent, and all appear to be in danger from maman, with the exception of one.
Here is what you must do…
***
Aline subdued Esquie and François and took Verso back to Lumière. She erased his memory and filled it with pleasant days at home. She found another fragment of her son’s soul and continued her experiments.
From far away, the ghost boy watched. He painted and painted, unable to affect what Aline painted in her corner of the Canvas. He watched, and he waited, and he hoped.
For the first time he hoped.
And slowly, gradually, they brought his fragments back to him.
***
***
***
“Sometimes I think you choose to live in bloody freezing places just to make things difficult.”
“Well, I won’t say that’s not a reason,” said Monoco smugly, drawling in his newly-mastered human tongue.
Verso chucked a snowball at his head. Monoco dodged, still smug. Above them, the cracked sky shone with an aurora. In the east it also had a rapidly-growing blot, like a hot air balloon approaching at a rapid pace and exclaiming in joy.
“WOOOOOHOOOOO!” The hot air balloon landed next to them with a crash that upended a huge wave of snow on their heads.
“Esquie!” Monoco growled, like he wasn’t addressing a legendary being Verso had had a plushie of as a child. “Watch who you’re shovelling snow on, or you’ll face me in a duel!”
“That sounds fun,” came a happy, strangely sincere voice. Esquie wiggled to dislodge the snow from his shoulders, and his eyes fell upon the human helping Monoco unearth his staff from a snow drift. “Verso, mon ami!” He shuffled over, his arms held wide to offer a hug. “We haven’t seen each other since the sky went boom.”
“Sorry, I don’t think we’ve met… before…” Verso squinted, feeling the telltale mental fog that Verso now recognized as a sign he’d been repainted. He grit his teeth. “Or have we?”
Esquie hummed sadly, dropping one arm to his side. The other hand reached out and patted Verso’s shoulder. Verso leaned into it reflexively, then stilled when he noticed the reflex. Yep, definitely Mother fucking with his life again.
He sighed. “So, how many times have we met, then?”
Esquie perked up. “We’ve met for the first time eighty-four times before, so this is eighty-five! But we didn’t always meet Monoco again for the first time on our adventures.”
“Eighty-five, huh…” Verso crossed his arms, looking out toward the Monolith and the mournful figure crouched at its base, trapped. He wanted to hate it, to hate her—but she just made him feel exhausted. “Well, at least there won’t be a eighty-sixth.”
“There won’t?” Esquie gave the impression of having wide eyes.
Verso frowned. “Surely you noticed the Fracture happening? When ‘the sky went boom’?” He gestured to the mountain-sized slabs of stone and crumbled buildings frozen midair, the lines denoting shattered reality piercing the sky.
“Oh, yes. Franfran and I were playing hide and seek, but he got stuck in a tree that got stuck under a boat.”
“A master of stealth worthy of respect, that one,” said Monoco, pretending he was sage. “It must have rankled to be trapped.”
Esquie nodded. “Franfran was suuuuper mad. You could hear him shouting from the other side of the mountain.”
“Right, well—” Verso interjected before the thread of the conversation was lost entirely. “That was when Renoir entered the Canvas, and he and maman fought.”
“Ohhhhhhh,” said Esquie, probably not understanding the importance.
“So now he and maman are trapped in a stalemate at the Monolith,” Verso spelled out just to be sure.
“And your maman can’t hurt you or Little Verso any more,” Esquie said brightly.
“Who?”
“Mon ami!” Esquie threw himself at Verso in a squishy bear hug. “You’re free and you’re here! We should celebrate with dancing and cake and presents and wine and music and—”
So it turned out Esquie was another being like Monoco who predated Lumière and most humans, and who knew about the Painters and the Canvas. Honestly, it was a relief not to need to explain. The revelations from Clea-who-was-not-his-sister, who had kidnapped and hurt his sister, were still so raw they made him want to drink to forget. And the less said about his former fellows in the search-and-rescue expedition, the better for Verso’s flimsy sanity.
No explanations needed, just an impromptu celebration with the wine that Monoco had filched from Noco’s stash and a cake Esquie had somehow summoned from thin air. Verso brought out a gramophone and records of lively violins, to which Esquie lead them in a flailing dance, going faster and faster with the quickening tempo until Verso couldn’t keep his balance and they all fell laughing in a heap under the stars.
It was the beginning—and the continuation—of a wonderful friendship.