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On a large island a day’s voyage from the mainland, a house perched in the middle of wide fields. Once, this house might have been called beautiful – and it could still, though now it had faded to the somber air of something that once was grand. Weather-beaten boards surrounded panes of cracked glass. Bushes refused to be contained by the weary gardener and formed an impenetrable barrier on garden paths. This was the Tetch manor.Long ago, the Tetch family had ruled like kings from this place. Parties that lasted for days spilled out of the grand halls. Nobility bedecked in the latest fashions from London and Paris fought to secure marriage alliances here. Then, during the war, the Tetches lost it all. A plague swept the island and brought low the province, stealing the subjects and the court. The crops in the fields rotted from lack of farmers to harvest them. Finally, the Tetches themselves fell.Though the plague was seven years gone, those from the mainland still feared the place. The island had become a ghost town, filled more with the dead than the living. The once-bustling town now boasted a meager sixty inhabitants. The creaking old manor was now abandoned by all but the two small Tetch children and a housekeeper.Jervis Tetch had been alive, though still young, when the plague spread like wildfire. Most of those memories had faded, but some things would never leave. He would always remember his father cradling his newborn baby sister while telling him their mother was gone. How, only a few days later, he had moved his medical practice, and himself, to the mainland. Sometimes, flashes of how things used to be, back in the days of parties and guests and popularity, would float across his mind. When this happened, nothing seemed quite right. He felt as though he was floating a bit out of his body, like his soul wasn’t quite settled in.Jervis and his sister, Alice, had grown up in almost complete isolation. The town was two hours’ walk from the manor, so if their housekeeper, who they called Miss, did not feel up to going, they did not go. She never felt like it, citing the weather, the time of day, or her aching bones. Aside from occasional visits from their father, the siblings did not see anyone but each other and Miss for years.For the most part, Jervis was fine with this, possibly because he did not remember much about living any other way. When Alice was well and the sun shone, they would run through the fields in elaborate games of pretend. On rainy days, they wandered the winding halls of the manor. When Alice was not well, Jervis wrote their games into stories where the worlds they explored and magic they imagined they wielded was real. Days where Alice was not well grew more and more frequent as the years passed. Though she did not have memories of the plague, it had left invisible scars on her. Their mother had been infected when she gave birth, which had spawned a different infection in Alice’s blood. Most days, she was everything a seven-year-old should be. Other days, she would wake up blind or unable to walk. When she was hurt, she bled blue. (A year ago, they had fallen out of a tree together, and Jervis had gotten some of Alice’s blood on a cut in his hand. The cut never healed right, and it always bled blue.)Once, Jervis had asked his father why he saved people on the mainland instead of Alice. His father shook his head and left.Now, they knew better. No one knew what was wrong with Alice, so no one could fix her. She would never have a normal life, but the island had denied her that anyway. Jervis and Alice weren’t yet old enough to think about the future, so this did not have quite the same effect as it would have on the mainland. As all days were much the same, it was a day like any other when Jervis went into the fields alone. “Alice! Shall we go back to the woods today?” He stood outside his sister’s door and called through the door. “I believe we were just in the middle of fighting the evil bird-creature when the rain started yesterday.”“Not today. Everything looks fuzzy, like it’s very dark out. Is it dark out?”Jervis looked down the hall to the window. Clouds hung thickly across the sky, giving the morning the appearance of dusk. “A bit. Should I come in?”“If you like.”Jervis slowly opened his sister’s door. Light from a dozen candles cast strange, flickering shadows about the room. Alice sat in her bed, still as a doll. Though she faced the door, her eyes were unfocused. She did not see him. Chunks of blond hair fell gracelessly where she had missed them while pulling her hair back. Despite noon approaching, she still wore her nightclothes and did not appear to have moved since the previous evening. “Are you going to read me a story today?” Alice’s eyes darted around the room, trying to find her brother. “Have you eaten today?” He asked instead, sitting carefully on the edge of her bed.“No. Did I forget?” When she saw him next to her, she smiled. “There you are! It’s so hard to see you with the lights out like this.”Jervis smiled sadly. “I’ll get Miss, she’ll get you some breakfast.”“No story today, then?”“I haven’t got one ready,” Jervis lied. He had spent countless hours reading, writing, and studying. He had a collection of stories, but none were suitable for today. The ones he had written weren’t good enough anymore, and the ones in the library didn’t feel right today. “Okay. Will you stay with me or will you go out?”“Out. I’ll be back later, Alice. Try not to have too much fun while I’m gone,” he joked. Jervis wandered out the door, barely remembering to grab a jacket as he left. Usually, he lived in his mind, in the worlds he found in the library or in the ever-expanding world he and Alice were creating for themselves. Today though, he couldn’t. He needed to be in his own reality, at least for a time. At least partly.He wondered what it would be like to have friends. In all his books, the hero surrounded himself with people to talk with and adventure with. All in all, it seemed like the hero couldn’t survive without friends. But here Jervis was, and all he had was Alice, and that was okay. Wasn’t it?Sometimes, in the stories, there would be pretty girls for the hero to talk to. There were certainly no pretty girls in his life, only Alice. Jervis wasn’t sure what he would do if there were pretty girls. Make a fool of himself, most likely. It was a good thing they weren’t there, then. Jervis looked up. Somehow, he was in the middle of a wheat field a half mile from the house. Miss must be up with Alice, or she never would have let him go this far on his own. He stretched his arms and spun in a circle, his unbuttoned coat catching the wind and filling behind him like a sail. The wheat rustled where his fingers knocked into the stalks, disturbing black birds who angrily flew to a calmer field. The clouds blocked most of the sunlight, its warmth barely able to combat the chill wind that blew around him.In moments like this, where there was nothing but the sky above him and the field around him and the dirt beneath his shoes, Jervis almost seemed to disappear. He floated out of himself into the wind, where he didn’t have to think about how he didn’t have magic or friends or pretty girls, and he could just be.Until he tripped over a large object that definitely was not supposed to be in a wheat field.“What are you?” Jervis asked, unintentionally condescending. The object, which appeared to be a boy a bit younger than Jervis, lifted his head from where it had rested on his knees. The boy was naturally small, and he seemed to have folded himself into the smallest possible shape.“Look where you’re going next time,” the boy spat before muttering a word Jervis had not heard before but that was unquestionably an insult. He dropped his head back onto his knees and curled his arms around it protectively. “Why are you here?”“Father says I have to face my fears,” he said, his voice muffled.“Well,” Jervis said, skeptically looking from the ragged boy to the idyllic surroundings and back, “what are you afraid of?”The boy’s hair flopped in his eyes as he raised his head. “Most everything.” He laughed, short and self-deprecating, and looked at the ground. Jervis sat down a foot or two away from the boy. “What’s your name?” Maybe, he thought, this was how friends were made.“What do you care?”“Why wouldn’t I care?”The question caught him off guard. He raised his eyebrows and looked Jervis in the eye. Jervis felt as though he was inspecting his soul. “Jonathan.” A pause. “Who are you? Haven’t seen you before.”“I’m Jervis. I’m from over that way.” He waved his arm in the general direction of his house.Jonathan arched an eyebrow even higher. “Town’s that way,” he said, pointing a finger in the opposite direction.“Yeah.”“All right, Jervis-from-nowhere, why are you here?”“I wasn’t sure,” he said, cocking his head to the side, “but I think I’m helping you face your fears.”“That’s not an answer,” Jonathan said, voice flat.“That’s my answer,” Jervis replied, amused.They sat for a minute in a silent face-off, Jervis grinning mischievously and Jonathan glaring. Finally, Jonathan lost the game of mental chicken. “Okay. How?”“I’m not sure. What are you scared of, specifically?”“Being around lots of people, spiders, dying, the scarecrow, the dark, thunderstorms…” The list seemed inexhaustible.“Okay.” Jervis had no idea what he was supposed to do about all that, but he knew he had to do something, because that was what friends did. They helped each other. “That’s it? Okay?”“Yeah. Everybody’s a bit afraid of something. Or lots of somethings.” “Father says fear is unnatural.”“I think your father might be wrong.” After a few seconds of comfortable silence, Jervis asked “Do you want to play tag?”Jonathan pushed him over and jumped up, surprisingly fast for how small and thin he looked. “You’re it!” He shouted, laughing. The next day, when Jervis told Alice about his new friend, she smiled. “Can I meet him?” She asked, a trickle of blue blood running from her nose.“Absolutely.”When they returned to the wheat field, almost a week later, Jonathan was not there. Jervis didn’t know why he had expected him to be, except that he didn’t know how else he would find him again. “I don’t see him anywhere,” Jervis said, turning his head exaggeratedly to pantomime looking from side to side. “Do you?”Alice played along, laughing. “Nope!”“Dryads can sometimes be tricky like that,” Jervis said knowingly. “You never said he was a dryad!” Alice crossed her arms.He pretended to think for a moment. “I didn’t? Well, it must have slipped my mind. Shall we be off? I think the fairy queen asked you over for tea.”As Alice sat on a stump near the edge of the woods, stirring leaves into a cup of dirty water to make “tea,” Jervis wondered how much of their game she believed. Sometimes, to him, it felt more real than life. “Did you make up a friend for yourself?” Alice asked later that afternoon, when the game was over and they headed home. “No. He was real.”“Am I not enough?”“You’re more than enough, Alice,” he said, reaching down to take her hand. He would do anything to keep her safe, but most of the time he could barely keep his own feet on the ground.
Lightning crackled in the dark clouds. A cold wind ripped through Jonathan’s ragged, patched coat like needles of ice. He stood in the center of the wheat field, and he knew it was coming.
All around him, the gold stalks turned dirt brown as the roiling clouds blocked out what little light had existed. He could hear a rustling as something ran through the field, circling him, coming ever closer. The wind picked up, growing louder and louder and colder and colder.
In the distance, where he knew the village hid, a column of the clouds reached out to the ground. Spinning with the wind, it snaked ever closer, ripping apart the buildings, then the trees, then the crops. And in the middle of the wave of destruction, he could see its outline, flying victorious.
Desperately, he squeezed his eyes shut, but he couldn’t keep them closed. He didn’t want to see it, it was always the same but it was always watching and if he saw it then it would see him and then he would never be safe. Lightning shot to the ground deep inside the tornado, lighting the clouds green. It stood out in stark contrast, a black and gray and brown horror with straw poking out the sides. Long, sharp fingers reached out, gleaming silver where they broke through the clouds. The end of a crooked hat, patched in every color of dust, writhed in the air. When everything went black, Jonathan could still feel the deathly weight of its eyes and the hunger of its stitched-together lips.
Jervis awoke with a distinct feeling of unease. Something was wrong today, but his head wasn’t working fast enough to think why.“Daddy!” He heard Alice yell from the floor below.He groaned and flopped face-first onto his pillow. Days when his father visited were the worst. These were days when they all pretended that they were a happy family, that their father hadn’t abandoned them on this island.It didn’t work. All morning, Alice chattered away in a way she never would have normally done in answer to their father’s noticeably uninterested questions. Neither of them could remember a life with their parents, so this whole charade seemed pointless to him. Bringing new books, clothes, and lessons every few months did not make up for leaving them.“Alice, I got something special for you this time,” their father said. He reached into the inside pocket of his coat and pulled out a small book. Gold letters spelled out the title, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, over a red cover. “Look! This little girl is Alice too, and she has spectacular adventures.”“I have spectacular adventures with Jervis too,” Alice said solemnly.“I’m sure you do, sweetheart,” their father said. Jervis thought he caught a hint of condescension in his words.“Did you get anything special for Jervis?” Alice asked.Their father’s face froze for a second before re-settling into fake happiness. “Of course! Your brother is going to learn to shoot.” He turned to face Jervis. “Every gentleman knows how to hunt.”Jervis wanted to ask if he was a gentleman, really, because he didn’t feel like one. He was quite sure his father wasn’t a gentleman. Instead, he smiled and nodded along, just as his father wanted him to.That afternoon, his father took him out into the field and placed a glass bottle on a fence. When Jervis finally hit it, after a long lesson on firearms and aim, he felt a swelling happiness. This was something he could do, something that the heroes of his stories could do also. He knew it wasn’t a skill he would ever use, but it was a skill nonetheless. He could teach Alice, who was supposed to be at home reading her book but who had snuck along with them anyway, in a couple years. When their father left, Jervis saw a ring sparkling on his left hand that he had never seen before. In that moment, he knew that today had been meant as a farewell. That he was never coming back. And he wasn’t sure if he cared. “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” Jervis read. He was growing more and more sure that his father had not bothered to read the book before giving it to Alice. This colorful madness did not seem anything like the drab morality tales he had always favored.
Alice, who had hooked her knees over a tree branch and was hanging upside-down, did not know. “They’re not alike at all!” She laughed, absently brushing the grass beneath her with her fingers.“No, they’re not,” Jervis smiled, “but maybe in Wonderland they are.”“I should like to visit Wonderland then,” a new voice said from a few feet away. “It sounds like miracles could happen there.”“Miracles can happen anywhere,” Alice said, spinning around so that she perched on top of the branch. “Who are you?”His eyes flickered nervously between Jervis and Alice. Jonathan looked just as ragged as before, and something haunted lurked in his eyes. Jervis got the distinct impression that it had taken quite a lot for him to join them. “This is Jonathan. And this is my sister Alice.”“Nice to meet you,” Jonathan said just as Alice blurted “I didn’t think you were real.”“Why wouldn’t I be real?”“Usually Jervis’s stories aren’t true.”“Hey!”Jonathan laughed self-consciously.“We’re reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” Jervis explained. “Would you like to join us?”“Can I?”“It’s a whole book all about me!” Alice added. “Of course you can. You can stay with us any time.”Alice raised an eyebrow. “Go back to reading,” She commanded.“Yes, your majesty,” Jervis smiled.As he read, Alice curled up in her tree and listened. Jonathan pulled out a pad of paper and leaned against the tree trunk, drawing. By the end of the chapter, Alice had flipped herself upside down again to watch him.“Is that me?”“It’s nothing. Just a sketch.”Jervis leaned over to look. He hadn’t seen much art in his life, except the stiff-looking portraits on the walls of the house. This was filled with a mad kind of energy. Three figures and a small mouse sat around a tea-table. One was Alice, one was a large rabbit, and one wore a huge hat.“It’s definitely me,” Alice decided. “And that one looks like Jervis.” She pointed to the one in the hat.Jervis handed Alice the book. “We both look far better in Jonathan’s art than we do here,” he smiled. Alice and Jonathan looked at the weasel-faced Hatter illustration and laughed. “I’m done reading for today,” Alice decided. “Would you like to have lunch with us?” Jonathan nodded.Alice climbed down from the tree and began to walk toward the house. Jonathan and Jervis quietly trailed just behind her, content. ***
Jonathan frantically looked for a place to hide, but there were no convenient corners. No walls, no tables to duck under. He was alone in the field, thick black clouds gathering overhead and amber stalks swirling around him.
It towered before him, its lifeless head lolling on its chest, arms flopping uselessly. It was dead, but Jonathan knew it was never truly dead. Maybe this one was a trick, and the real monster hid just out of sight. He would never know until it was too late. But it wanted to scare him, and Jonathan knew that it considered a quick death, a surprise attack, too good for him. Fear was unnatural, his father said, and he must be right because there was nothing natural about this being of pure terror.
He glanced over his shoulder, left, right, left, right. It was here, it was right next to him, it was –
Lightning forked through the clouds above him as something flickered to life in its eyes. Breaking free of the posts that had held it up, it snapped its twine ties one by one. It grew and grew until its long, ragged hat nearly touched the clouds. Thunder crashed and the clouds gave out, dumping rain so thick Jonathan could barely see. Still it laughed, the torrent darkening its burlap clothes and obscuring its face. All but the eyes, which still glowed with an unearthly light. Another bolt of lightning snaked down next to Jonathan. The last thing he saw as the electricity coursed through him and his vision turned white was a menacing grin as its steel claws swung towards him.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Time was a funny thing on the island. Some days flashed past in the blink of an eye while some hours took years. Without realizing it, Jervis, Alice, and Jonathan grew up in this lazy, inconsistent river of time. Two or three years ago, the housekeeper left. She had been offered a position on the mainland, in a house without the strangeness and constant isolation of the Tetches. Their father had never sent a replacement. Instead, Jervis was left to care for himself, Alice, and the house. Aside from Jon, they were truly alone. Jervis didn’t mind. He didn’t mind about most things, because in order to care about the way something was done, he had to have an opinion. Learning to cook, taking care of Alice on her increasingly frequent bad days, and ensuring both of them got an education was difficult, but it was what he was used to.His father still sent a package every three months or so. When the ship came in, some unfortunate soul would be forced to run the two miles to the Tetch house to announce the arrival of a box, which Jervis would trek out and drag back. Though the contents differed each time, they were similar enough for Jervis to assume that his father had paid someone to pack the trunks for him. Each one contained books, both educational and entertaining, money for food, a list of things they should have learned in their schooling, some minor trinket popular in the city, and once a year, new clothes. The clothes never fit, as their father had clearly expected his children to grow tall, so Jervis had asked the tailor in the village to teach him to alter them.Mirrors lurked in inopportune places in the Tetch house. Some were where you’d expect them to be, but others hid just around the corners of halls or just too above the fireplace to be visible. To them, their faces remained the same as they always had. But sometimes, Alice would pull out an old dress to find it was fit for a child several years her younger, or Jervis would find a pair of shoes now smaller than his feet. Jon always looked much the same. Jervis often got the impression that he simply added new patches to his clothes when they grew too small to avoid ordering new ones.Jon didn’t come to the Tetch house every day. He worked with his father, managing their field in the mornings and teaching the few children of the village in the afternoons. When Jervis came to town, much more often now that he had to buy food, he would meet Jon to lend him a book or just to say hello. When Jon wasn’t required to be at his father’s small school, he would start the walk through the fields. He was over at least three times a week, but usually more. Jervis got the distinct impression the other kids in town, such as they were, disliked him for some reason.Time was weird on the island, but it seemed to move normally when Jon was around. Without him, days passed in a semi-mindless haze of cleaning, fixing, helping, and always, always daydreaming. When he was there, Jervis felt he truly lived. He still escaped into his books, but he was always aware of Jon sitting in the chair next to him, equally absorbed in learning as much as he could from Jervis’s library. He didn’t feel the need to let his mind wander as far while doing simple tasks when he had someone else there.
Jon still drew. Jervis hadn’t seen much art except the illustrations in the library, but he thought Jon’s art was beautiful. Once, Jon had tried to throw away the drawing he had given Alice when they were children, of her taking tea with Jervis the Hatter and the March Hare. He insisted that it was old and embarrassing. “You might not think it’s good anymore, but I certainly do, so you can shut it,” Alice had told him. “Anyway, it’s a memory of the day we first met and that you most certainly cannot just throw that away.”Watching Alice, who was still a bit shorter than Jervis, who was himself a good deal shorter than Jon, win the argument so easily had been entertaining. Alice might be small, but she was a force to be reckoned with. Though days where she could not get out of bed came more and more frequently, they didn’t deter her. She argued with everything she had and taught herself how to shoot better than Jervis could ever hope to.Jon drew Alice a lot. She was dynamic, he said. He drew her standing in the fields under the stars, twirling alone in the unused ballroom of the manor, and of course in Wonderland. Sometimes he drew Jervis, usually engrossed in a book or hard at work. Unless he specifically showed them a drawing, Jervis and Alice were not allowed to look. They never had. Once, the wind had blown one of the books open to a different page when Jon had been drawing Alice. Jervis hadn’t meant to look, but what he saw was fascinating. It was a simple sketch of a scarecrow from the cornfield a mile or so away, but something about its angry, dark lines made the picture seem to be a portrait of fear itself. Jervis hadn’t said anything and never looked again, though he desperately wanted to.Jon kept his sketchbooks and tools at their house, for fear that his father might find them and demand to know why he used his spare time and money for something so useless. “It’s not useless,” they had both told him, countless times.“It doesn’t matter,” he always said. “Even if it’s not, it’s still not running a farm or teaching or curing cancer or whatever he wants me to do.” A few months later, the three of them had dragged all the blankets from the closet into the backyard to watch a meteor shower. Alice had fallen asleep curled up with the biggest blanket as the moon was still rising over the trees. Jon and Jervis lay side by side and watched the sky in silence. When the shower started, Jon pushed Alice’s shoulder to wake her up. She punched his arm and rolled over. “Alice, look,” Jervis whispered. “The stars are falling.”This time, she stayed awake.“It’s beautiful,” Jervis breathed as the last meteor streaked across the sky. Alice had long since fallen back asleep, and his eyelids were starting to feel heavy.“I would draw it if I could,” Jon replied.“You can.”“Maybe.” Jon paused for several minutes, long enough for Jervis to fall into a state of hazy half-sleep. “I’ve always thought I was afraid of so many things, but I don’t think I am. I think what I’m afraid of is being a disappointment, and most everything else is because of that.”“You aren’t a disappointment,” Jervis mumbled.The night hid Jon’s sad smile, the one that said he didn’t agree.“You’re the best friend I could ask for. You’re smart and incredibly talented and if your dad can’t see that, then that’s his loss.” Jervis took his hand and squeezed it. Jon had never understood or required hugging for reassurance like Alice did, but they’d found that hand-holding worked much the same way. It helped him reel in his mind when he got too lost in his own negativity. Exhaustion claimed them soon after, still holding hands. In the beginning of fall, Jon took them out to the wheat field where he had first met Jervis. It had been almost ten years since then, and the wheat was once again almost ready for harvest. The day was hot, though not oppressively so, and there was no wind to speak of.“Jon, why are we here?” Alice asked, confused and ever curious. Jervis said nothing. Something was wrong here, and he trusted Jon would explain.For a long moment, Jon was silent too. It was different from his usual silences. Jon was always quiet, but it was usually the kind of quiet that meant words weren’t necessary, the peaceful quiet of reading a familiar book. Now, he needed words and they had failed him.
He straightened his shoulders slightly in what Jervis knew was forced bravery. He wasn’t sure why Jon needed to be brave here, at the front of an empty field just like every other on their island, but in the end it didn’t matter. What mattered was that this, whatever this was, was something big. Somewhere in the back of Jervis’s mind, a small voice whispered that Jon shouldn’t have kept secrets from him, that this was a sign he didn’t trust him, that he didn’t matter to him. Jervis ignored it and hooked his pinkie around Jon’s in a quiet show of support and defiance.“Jon?” Alice asked again, gently.“We haven’t been here before.” Every word was heavy, dead. “Did you ever wonder why?”Alice shook her head.“We have.” Jervis tilted his head to the side, hair falling in his eyes. “The first time we met.”“You remember?”Jervis nodded. He wasn’t going to explain the way time sped up when Jon was gone, the way he would spend hours on tasks he couldn’t remember doing and sometimes catch himself doing the same chores twice because all he remembered from the first time was his daydream. Jon had somehow become his anchor to reality, and he remembered everything with him in it.Alice narrowed her eyes at Jervis, confusion still present under a thick layer of judgement.“Do you remember what I told you I was doing here?” Jon still sounded detached, but now Jervis heard hints of his teacher voice, the voice he had often heard him use when helping Alice with a particularly difficult problem. Alice had always hated this voice.“Facing your fear.” “That’s why we’re here now.”And Jervis still didn’t understand, but he thought he might be starting to. “Jon,” Alice asked slowly, “What is in that field?” “I never did face my fear that day. I had never meant to, and then I found a distraction. I found you, Jervis, and we could run fast enough that the fear didn’t catch up to me. But it will. And I need you to help me before it can.” Jon dropped Jervis’s hand and walked into the field, the golden-brown wheat rustling then falling still. He had all but disappeared.“Well?” Alice asked Jervis before following Jon. Jervis pushed down a shard of hurt at being referred to as a distraction as he, too, disappeared into the field.Time stopped as he stepped off the path. Moving became more difficult with every step. The air around him seemed to thicken and become charged, the way the world feels seconds before a storm breaks. Every direction was pure, unbroken amber. Distantly, Jervis knew that if he took a wrong turn, he could wander this field forever and never leave. No sooner had he realized this than he found himself in a small clearing.A cross of sticks stood defiant in the center, stark against the sky. From it hung a limp figure, wrists dangling from their supports, loosely tied with loops of coarse twine. Its clothes were ragged and torn, straw poking from every hole. A hat that used to be tall and pointed before falling victim to seasons of wind and rain shadowed the vacantly smiling burlap face.Jon stood in front of it, Alice by his side. All of his carefully constructed bravery and detachment had fallen away, and he hovered near the edge of the clearing. His right hand twisted the hem of his shirt almost unconsciously.“You brought us here for a scarecrow?” Alice asked, confusion and fear warring in her. Fear of Jon or fear for Jon. It didn’t matter which.“Demons wear many faces,” said Jervis idly. Alice raised her eyebrows.“It’s not the scarecrow that I’m afraid of.” Jon paused, eyes flickering over the scarecrow. “Or, it is, but …”And Jervis waited, and Alice waited, and the scarecrow waited too.“It’s less, in the daytime,” Jon said carefully. “Powerless.”Jervis didn’t think the scarecrow looked powerless at all. In fact, it felt a bit too alive. It was fascinating.“When I was little, I used to think it was just creepy. Hanging there dead. I used to wonder why they wanted a dead man in the field after all the death in town,” Jon whispered.“I don’t remember when I started giving it my secrets. It was easy, talking without really talking. I could give the scarecrow the secrets and doubts and fears I could never give to my father. And I thought I was safe.“When I was seven, everything changed. The scarecrow wasn’t a dead man anymore. It had become everything I had ever given it. When I came here, it would stare right through me as if it could see my soul. I stopped coming. I haven’t been here since.“But in the end, it didn’t matter. I’m here when I sleep, and every night it’s getting closer. I don’t know if I can hide anymore. Or if I should. And I don’t know what I’m going to do when everything I’ve never wanted to face catches up with me.”Jervis kept silent a while, considering. He’d always known Jon was running from his family, from the town, but he’d never known he was running from himself. He should’ve known.“You’ll face it,” Alice told him. “You’ll face it and you’ll win.”“I don’t think I’m strong enough.”“You are,” she promised. Jervis had often read that a bloodhound, when it caught the scent of its target, was nearly unstoppable. In the weeks after he had brought them to the scarecrow, Jon became more and more like one. In the last ten years, none of them had ever truly had a purpose, but now, Jervis thought, Jon might have found his.He came to the house less frequently, and at random times. Whenever he did come, he practically locked himself in the library and often would not emerge for hours. His pencils lay untouched in their drawer gathering dust. His mind seemed further away too. Whatever he was working on had completely captured his attention. Whenever Jervis or Alice spoke to him, he was so lost in thought that he did not hear them until the third or fourth repetition of their question. Eventually, Alice stopped trying.“He’ll get over it, one of these days,” she told Jervis. “And until he does, talking to him is about as much use as talking to a wall.” When Jervis had merely shrugged, she continued “I know you miss him. I do too. But if he doesn’t want to talk to us, there’s not much we can do.”Jervis wasn’t sure that Jon didn’t want to talk to them. He thought Jon just forgot that life went on outside of whatever he was hunting. So while he no longer attempted to interrupt Jon’s work, even when he pored over a book long enough to miss meals, Jervis still made an effort to be in the library when Jon was over. If he played chess with Alice, he did it in the library. If he was mending a hole in his jacket, he did it in the library.This was, Jervis knew, a strange thing to do. Alice made this clear with raised eyebrows and sideways glances. Somewhere in the back of Jervis’s mind, he couldn’t let go of the hope that one of these days Jon would look up from his books and remember his friends. Remember him. When that day did come, it was both nothing like Jervis expected and the only possible outcome of the situation.Jon excitedly scribbled something in a notebook and slammed the book in front of him shut. Two more still lay open on the table in front of them, scraps of paper sticking out to mark various pages.“I’m going to do it, Jervis,” Jon whispered excitedly. “I’m going to end fear.”Jervis was skeptical. He was not often afraid, as he felt that a large part of fear formed from a deep connection to one’s body, specifically the wish not to see it harmed. As his own soul hovered only close enough to his body to use his eyes, Jervis had never formed this type of connection.“Why?” He knew why, but he was not sure he understood.“Because,” Jon said, grabbing another book off the table. “Fear is unnatural. Think what I could do if I did not fear disappointing my father. If I were not afraid of failure.”Privately, Jervis thought that what Jon was doing now was a very good example of just such a scenario.“Fear is holding me back. I could finally be someone,” he ranted, eyes ablaze in a way Jervis had never seen them. If Alice were here, she would say something reassuring. “You already are someone,” perhaps. She would be correct, of course. She so often was. Jervis did not say that. He did think Jon was someone; he believed that far more than he believed that he himself was someone. However, he also thought that the fire in Jon’s eyes was far more interesting than it had any right to be, and he would not try to put it out just yet. Instead, he asked “How will you do it?”The corner of Jon’s mouth twitched up in a self-satisfied smile. “I’m going to make a vaccine.” He dumped four large books into a bag, which he slung over his shoulder. “I’m going to distill the very essence of fear, so that exposure creates an immunity to the feeling. I can make myself fearless, Jervis. I can make everyone fearless.”This was, Jervis thought, not quite how science worked. He was fairly certain that there was a difference between polio and fear, and that one could be vaccinated while the other could not. But he had always been more interested in fairy tales than science, and if there was anyone who could do it, it would be Jon. He was, Jervis thought proudly, a bit brilliant.“And you can do that?” He asked.“Now I can,” Jon said, patting the bag. “This is going to be a breakthrough, Jervis,” he called as he rushed out of the room. “The biggest discovery of the century!”“Where are you going?” Jervis called after him. There was no response. Now that Jon didn’t need to use the library anymore, he came by even less often. In the two weeks since what Jon regarded as his breakthrough, Jervis had seen him three times. Each time, the bags under his eyes were deeper and he seemed to have grown paler. Jervis considered asking if he was okay, but he knew that even if Jon wasn’t okay, he wouldn’t admit it. So he and Alice pretended nothing was wrong, even if neither of them believed it.Jervis watched the clouds roll in, thick black sheets hanging low over the island. This was the first true thunderstorm since whatever breakthrough Jon had had in the library. It was not the first time it had rained, though the rain had come with less and less frequency as winter approached. But this was the first time he could feel his ears pop with the pressure, see the clouds flicker a greenish gray with lightning as they blotted out the horizon.Alice and he piled blankets and pillows under the largest window in the attic, making a nest they both knew they were too old for. Neither of them cared. Ever since they could remember, they had camped out under this window to watch thunderstorms, the lightning crackling through the air and distorting behind the sheets of rain. Usually, Jon joined them. He did not enjoy storms the same way Alice and Jervis did; something about the loud crash of thunder too near the house did not sit well with him. Still, he burrowed under the blankets and slept. Jervis had once asked him why he stayed with them, and Jon had just shrugged. “It’s safer here,” he had said, though this was not strictly true.Even though he knew he wasn’t coming, Jervis kept glancing at the door. When a tree scraped against a window, he reminded himself it wasn’t the noise of the door opening downstairs. The wind whipping and curling around the old house was not the creak of the stairs. “Just go talk to him,” Alice said.Jervis pointed to the window. Sheets of rain fell so thick the fence at the edge of the yard blurred into obscurity.“Tomorrow.”“Will you come as well?”“No. This is a you problem.” Alice smiled, and as the shadows flickered across her face, she looked almost sad. “And besides, I think I might be staying here tomorrow.”Jervis motioned to their pile of blankets and pillows. “Here?” Alice nodded. A flash of lightning, near enough that the resulting crack of thunder was almost instantaneous, illuminated her face in its pale, watery light. Suddenly, she looked like exactly what, Jervis supposed, she truly was. A very sick girl, barely older than a child.He took her wrist in his hand and counted the beats while she counted off the seconds. One, two, three, four, five, six.“Thirteen,” he said. Their eyes met, and he could see her push down the fear he knew was written all over his face.“It feels different, recently,” she confessed. “I can feel it in my veins, everywhere it goes. Sometimes it’s warm. Sometimes I feel like I have ice inside me.”Jervis didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything. They knelt there, among the blankets, rain steadily pounding on the roof, for a long moment. He did not drop her wrist, even when she settled against him and laid her head in his lap. He was sure he could feel the river of burning cold just under her skin.After a while, Jervis spoke. “Everything feels like it’s ending.” “How?” Alice asked, her voice almost a whisper.“With Jon gone, and with you getting worse. And I don’t know how to help.” Even now, Jervis half expected Alice to say she was fine, nothing was wrong, because nothing had ever really been fine but she had soldiered on anyway. But she said nothing. “It’s like this part has all just been the prologue, and chapter one is about to start. Or like in Jane Eyre, and all this time on our island is the time before she leaves her school.”“Are you off to find yourself a Rochester?” Alice teased, and they both laughed.“I only picked that book because I know you read it!” Jervis sputtered halfheartedly.Alice kept laughing. “Yeah right. You used to read it all the time.”“I don’t want things to end here,” Jervis suddenly grew serious again. “I would stay here forever.”“Forever is a long time, brother.” Alice’s hair reflected what little light penetrated the storm, forming a soft halo around her face. “And there’s nothing you would change?”“I would heal you,” he said, “and have Jon here like before.”“If you could have anything in the world?” Alice asked.“That’s all I want.” Jervis sighed. And it was, he realized. He used to want so much. When had that stopped? “What would you wish for?”“I would see the world. Go everywhere, do everything.”“We can do that, if you want. I can sell the house and we’ll go all through England and France, and in the summer we can go south and see Italy, and from there—”Alice brought her other hand over to cover Jervis’s, still lightly holding her wrist. “There isn’t going to be a next summer,” she said, looking him directly in the eyes.Jervis was speechless. “How—” How can you just say that? How can you give up so easily? How do you know? “There will be. There always is,” he muttered, more to himself than Alice.“I hope so,” Alice whispered to herself.They lay there, thunder jolting them awake every time they drifted close to sleep, until eventually, it too became background noise. Soon enough, tangled in the heap of blankets and with his sister curled up beside him, Jervis fell asleep. The next morning, Jervis awoke to the sun shining softly through the window and a vague sense of unease. He wasn’t sure how, but he knew that Jon had been out last night, and that he hadn’t made it to the manor. He slowly started to extract himself from the blankets, most of which seemed to have been thrown on top of him after he fell asleep.“Stop worrying!” Alice mumbled into her pillow while whacking him in the leg with one laying nearby. She somehow had only part of one blanket, which did not even attempt to cover her legs. She must be cold.“I didn’t say anything!” He protested.“You didn’t have to,” she said, lifting her head from the pillow so that she could glare at him. Alice had never been good at effectively glaring at Jervis (though she could usually intimidate Jon), and she was even less effective with pillow creases on one side of her face. “I can just tell. You’re worrying about him again.”“Of course I am,” Jervis said, beginning to fold blankets Alice wouldn’t need. “He’s my best friend.”“He’s my best friend too,” she reminded him.Jervis attempted to change the subject. “Are you sure you’ll be staying here today? You don’t even want to go downstairs?”“It makes a nice change. Different view. Anyway, I was saying.” Alice ignored Jervis’s dismayed sigh. “You act like you can read his mind or something.”“Or something.” He found it was hard to argue with her. Not only because she was right, but because he had just woken up and his brain still hadn’t unfogged all the way. Also, all his hair was flipped to the left side of his head, and it was distracting.“You have to think about yourself sometimes, too,” Alice reminded him. I know, Jervis wanted to say. But as soon as I think about myself I realize how lost I am.Instead, he said “Yeah.”“You don’t even need to leave the island to find your Rochester. He’s been right here all along.”“Jon is not my Rochester,” Jervis said, affronted. “I’m not looking for a Rochester.”Alice raised an eyebrow. Despite the fact that she was still laying on the floor, her judgement came across crystal clear. “Tall, not overly handsome, unknown comings and goings, mysterious motives… Really Jervis, I think he sounds just like him.”“Can I get you some breakfast before I go out.” Jervis asked, monotone.“Yes, thank you.” Alice flopped back down onto her pillow. “Boys,” she muttered as he left the room.Jervis wandered through the fields. In the back of his mind, a voice that sounded an awful lot like Alice told him that he had no way of knowing that Jon was anywhere but safe in his own home, that he was being overprotective and that he should go. He resolutely ignored it.“Something’s wrong,” he muttered out loud. There was no one to hear him.Finding Jon wasn’t his only problem. It didn’t even come close. But it was the only thing he could fix. For years and years, he had worked to make the best life he could for Alice. But now, all of that didn’t even matter. She was going to die, and there was nothing he could do about it.It did matter, he insisted. It does.A cold wind hit his face, the first hint of winter. He didn’t notice. The leaves had fallen off the old tree in the yard and been blown away by last night’s storm. Every so often he stepped on a crumpled patch of red or orange. He didn’t notice that either. In fact, he was so lost in his head that he likely would not have noticed if he ran into Jon just the way he had seven years ago.He had always thought he’d made his peace with Alice dying. After all, there had never been a time in his life when Alice wasn’t dying. Instead, he realized, he had assumed that Alice would be dying forever, but she would never actually do it. Life had been him and Jon and Alice for so long that he didn’t know who he was without the other two.Jon knew who he was. That’s why he wasn’t around anymore. Because he was finally doing what he was meant to do. Jervis was a bit jealous of Jon, of how sure of himself he was. And somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew he was jealous of how easy it had been for Jon to leave them behind.Alice certainly didn’t seem scared Jon had left them forever. Or maybe she was scared, but she was just better at putting on a brave face. Of course, she had been putting on a brave face her whole life, Jervis reminded himself. Because she was dying.
Jervis shook his head to snap himself out of it. It only partially worked. Looking around, he realized that he was standing in front of the wheat field. Directly in front of him, the scarecrow loomed over the clearing. Now that the harvest had passed, the dead stalks of the summer’s crop barely blocked the figure from his sight.
As he pushed through the sharp, blackened field that looked to have been more burned than harvested, Jervis thought about the joke Alice had made this morning about him and Jon. Jervis had always read everything he could get his hands on, and while he was partial to fairy tales and other fantastical stories, it was true that, as a kid, he’d had a soft spot for romances. He wasn’t sure when that had stopped, just like he didn’t know when he stopped wanting to be the hero of a book, complete with the adventures and a pretty girl waiting for him. All he knew was that one day, he woke up and realized that he would much rather have Alice and Jon than any adventures or girls in the world.
Still, he didn’t know where Alice got that particular idea from.That train of thought vanished as soon as Jervis reached the clearing with the scarecrow. Somehow, he’d known he would find Jon here, but seeing him like this…Jon lay curled up at the base of the scarecrow, arms pulled into his threadbare sleeves to keep warm. He was so thin Jervis could see each vertebra on his back through his shirt, which he had pulled around himself. His eyes were closed, and he was shaking.“Jon?” Jervis whispered.The only response was a more violent shiver.“What happened to you?”For a split second, Jon opened his eyes. They were blank, nothing behind them but pure, unfocused terror.When his eyes had closed again, Jervis took off his coat and laid it over Jon. He picked him up, unbalanced from how light he was. Slowly, Jervis carried Jon, still twitching despite the warmth beginning to return to his limbs, back to the house.
Jonathan stood in the field. It was always the same field, always the same swirling stalks of grain rustling about him no matter the season. The same thick, black clouds rumbled over him, the same biting wind tore through his thin, patched coat. He stared at the ground, determined not to watch as the monster made its way towards him.
He expected to curl in on himself, to block out the horror clawing its way across the landscape. Every night, it drew closer. Jonathan had never been religious, but he prayed it would never reach him. Instead, as the first heavy drops of rain hit his face he found himself flying. Slowly, then faster and faster, he rose until he towered over the field. The rain fell harder and harder, mixing with the wind to send droplets whipping through the air. They soaked through his clothes and he could feel them slowly dripping from his hair, and yet he was unafraid.
Running through the wheat below, Jonathan saw his father. He scurried beneath the harvest-heavy stalks, head snapping back and forth, back and forth. Like a mouse, Jonathan thought. Was he looking for him? Had he finally wondered where his son had gone, had been dragged to every night? He reached out to touch his father, to reassure him, and that was when he saw his hands. Huge, covered in gloves that showed only straw through their many holes. Each finger sharpened into a long metal syringe filled with a sickly green liquid. He did not have to look to know the rest of his body would be the same. He could feel the long, tall hat perch on his head. His cloth face stretched as he laughed, long and loud.
His father wasn’t afraid for him. He never had been. He was afraid of him. For Jonathan had become the Scarecrow that had always haunted him. From where he stood in the midst of the storm, lightning crashing around him, Jonathan understood. He no longer needed to be afraid. He would make others fear him.
The blind panic didn’t fade from Jon’s eyes until late that afternoon. Jervis put him in his bed, intending to stay until he warmed up enough to stop shaking. As the minutes passed, instead of abating, Jon only shook more. He tossed and turned on the mattress, restless. When he woke up, he stared at nothing with the same pure terror. Desperately, he pressed himself into a ball against the headboard, whimpering.During the first of these, Jervis had reached out a hand. “It’s okay, Jon, I’m here, it’s okay,” he whispered. The moment his hand touched Jon’s, Jon looked at him without recognition and tried to scream. His voice cracked, and no sound came out. How long had he been screaming last night in the storm, with no one to hear him? Jervis pulled his feet up on his chair, hugged his knees, and waited. The light had started to dim when Jon stopped shaking and fell asleep, the blankets pulled as close as possible to his chest. Jervis rested a hand on Jon’s forehead to check for fever. Satisfied, he filled up the glass of water on the bedside table and left, leaving the door slightly open. The attic door creaked as Jervis inched it open. He winced, not moving out of the doorway.“Did you find him?” Alice looked up from a book.Jervis nodded.“And he’s okay?”Jon wasn’t okay, not by a long shot. But how could he tell Alice that? “He’s fine.” Jervis sat down in the blankets near Alice, moving with a deliberate slowness. There was only so much worrying he could take. The Jon and Alice situations were pulling him apart and his mind begged to fly away into the story worlds where he had always sought refuge, but he knew that was no longer possible.Alice set down her book. “I take it he’s not coming back.” “He might.”She wrapped an arm around his shoulders, pulling him into a sideways hug, a support that Jervis gladly fell into. “I’m sorry.”“He might,” Jervis whispered. Late that afternoon, Jervis sat on a low branch of the tree in the backyard, leaning against the trunk with a blanket pulled over him. He wasn’t really sure why he chose to sit in the tree; it wasn’t the warmest of places, especially not this late in fall. Unwilling to go back inside, he ignored the cold and let his mind go.It wasn’t often that he got the chance to do this, to lose himself in the way he had when they were younger. Now, no matter how he hated it, he had to stay in the present, in his body, even when he looked in the mirror and didn’t know, for a moment, whose reflection he was seeing. It was too much responsibility, but he had managed. Somehow.Before he had come outside, he had helped Alice move everything back to her room. Or, more accurately, he had stood by while she did everything herself and refused to let him carry anything. He was never quite sure where the line between reasonably helping and being overly helpful and thereby condescending to her illness lay, but with years of practice, he usually managed to stay on the right side of it. Once she was settled and the extra blankets and pillows were properly put away, he checked in on Jon. He was still sleeping; he had not entirely recovered from whatever he had done to himself. Jervis wasn’t quite sure what growing up entailed exactly, but he thought he had reached the age where he should, by all rights, be an adult. Sometimes he felt he was, but more often he felt like a kid out of his depth. In all the books he’d read when he was younger, people his age were going on adventures, getting married, and starting their own families. Nothing felt further from his reality. He had his family, and it was a sister he couldn’t save and a best friend he was watching grow away from him.Below him, the back door creaked open and Jon stepped out. “Leaving again, then?” Jervis called.Jon didn’t look fazed to see Jervis sitting in a tree. “I can’t stay.”“Why can’t you?”“Work to do.” Jon looked straight ahead as he spoke, avoiding the tree were Jervis sat.Jervis knew he was being petty and selfish, but that didn’t stop him from saying “That’s never stopped you before.” He regretted it as soon as he said it. Jon’s work now was giving him a purpose, and he would never deny him that. But it was killing him. Somehow it ended with him alone and terrified, and Jervis wanted to understand. But above all, he wanted his best friend back.“That was my father’s work.” Jon looked up at Jervis. “This is mine. This is what I want.”“I know.”“I’m not leaving because of you. You and Alice,” he trailed off for a second, “you’re the most important people in the world to me. But this is something I need to do. And I won’t be gone forever.”“Won’t you?” Jon opened his mouth to protest, but Jervis talked over him. “You say this is just for now, that everything will be the same when you finish your work, but it won’t be. It can’t be. Whether or not you succeed, you won’t be the same person. You aren’t. And just look at what this is doing to you!” He didn’t mean to shout, but he couldn’t help it. “You’re killing yourself over this. Let it go.”“I can’t.” That fire was back in Jon’s eyes, but now Jervis didn’t find it as exciting as he once had. Now, he was scared that fire would take Jon somewhere he wouldn’t be able to follow. In a sense, it already had. Jon was standing at the edge of a cliff, and he wasn’t looking back.Jervis watched Jon walk away. He wanted to stop him, to make him understand how terrified he was. To share how lost and alone he felt. To bring Jon back. But he couldn’t say anything, so he pulled his blanket tighter around his body and watched half his world walk out of the yard. Jervis didn’t see Jon again after he left that afternoon. Days came and went, each one stretching for an eternity yet passing in the blink of an eye. Another thunderstorm rolled through, and Jervis and Alice set up under the attic window again. Jon didn’t show up this time either, but somehow Jervis knew he was okay. In a way, this storm felt like a second chance. Alice was feeling better, and Jon wasn’t trapped outside and the thunder cracked so loud it felt like the universe was pressing the reset button. Like maybe, things could be all right.That happiness lasted for almost a week. It was a cold, clear afternoon, and Jervis was walking back from town with a bag of food. As he passed the wheat field, something felt off. More than that, something felt wrong in exactly the same way as it had during the previous thunderstorm. Though he hadn’t noticed before, this field was the only one with crops still standing. Standing wasn’t the right word, but he wasn’t sure what the word was for the way the black, dead stalks of wheat remained while every field around him was barren and empty. As though in defiance of the cold, of their own death, they remained to protect the scarecrow.Hefting his bag on his shoulder, he pushed into the field. The wheat around him cracked and snapped everywhere he stepped. It poked him and tore at his clothes, fiercely guarding its sole inhabitant.Somehow, Jervis had thought that his last experience in this field had prepared him for this one. As he stepped into the clearing, he realized how wrong he was.The cross that had borne the scarecrow stood empty, just two crookedly-nailed pieces of wood jutting into the sky. The twine that had held its wrists had snapped and now dangled, useless off the crossbeam. The scarecrow itself lay at the foot of the cross, and it was shaking.Pulling aside the burlap and straw, Jervis saw Jon, curled up and twitching inside the scarecrow. He went to pick him up, to carry him home as he had last time. But when he lifted Jon from the remnants of the scarecrow, he screamed and uselessly tried to clutch at it.“Jon? Jon, we have to go home,” Jervis whispered. “Come on, let’s get you home.”Jon did not respond, did not even open his eyes. Jervis had not expected him to.Ignoring the gut-wrenching screams, Jervis carried Jon out of the field and started back towards the house. As they left the field, Jon’s screams dissipated into fearful whimpers and eventually into sleep. He opened the door and saw Alice standing before him.“Help me.”“What happened to him?”Jervis shook his head. “Not now. I need – we need to get him inside.”Alice ran ahead of him, opening doors and turning back the blankets on Jon’s bed. As Jervis set Jon down, trying his best to make him comfortable, Alice grabbed the bag of food from Jervis’s shoulder and disappeared to put it away. When she returned a few moments later, Jervis sat on the edge of his seat, watching as Jon shook even under his blankets.“What’s wrong with him?” She whispered, not moving out of where she stood in the doorway.Slowly, Jervis stood and walked out of the room, gesturing for Alice to follow. As he left, he left the door open a crack. He wasn’t quite sure why. Alice lead Jervis into the library, crossed her arms, and leaned against a bookshelf. Her hands shook slightly, and her forehead was scrunched up in worry.“Talk.”Jervis sat on the armrest of the nearest chair. It was a small wooden thing, and the armrest wasn’t overly comfortable, but he didn’t deserve to be comfortable right now. He looked at the floor, at his hands, anywhere but Alice as he spoke. “The research he’s doing… it’s killing him and he won’t stop.“He’s trying to cure fear, but he can only test it on himself. He’s making himself more scared than anyone has ever been before. I found him by – well, in – the scarecrow. And this isn’t the first time.”“How many times?” Alice’s voice was strained with the effort to keep emotion out of it. He didn’t know exactly what she was feeling, but he could guess. Anger. Fear. Worry. Everything he felt, with added betrayal for being kept in the dark.“This is the second time I’ve found him there, but it can’t only be the second time he’s tested this.” Jervis looked up at Alice, trying to ask her forgiveness without words.“Why didn’t you tell me?”Jervis winced. “I didn’t want to worry you.”“You didn’t want to worry me? My best friend is doing this to himself and you thought you’d keep it all to yourself because you didn’t want to worry me?” Alice’s voice grew louder and higher-pitched as she spoke, gesticulating violently.Jervis was not dealing with that at this very moment. Instead, he shrugged and said “We can’t stop him. I’ve tried.” “He has to want to stop for himself. You can’t just make him do things, Jervis.” Alice spoke slowly, voice low. Jervis got the distinct impression she thought he should have known that without her having to tell him. He didn’t appreciate being condescended to.“Why not? I’m trying to help him!”“So tell him that.”“I have!” He hissed.“So tell him again. Show him that this isn’t only affecting him.” With a sigh, Alice sat down heavily in the chair across from Jervis.“Okay.” With a deep breath, he stood and left the room. After leaving the library, Jervis sat in Jon’s room. Officially, he was there to keep an eye on him and make sure he didn’t suffer any ill effects from whatever he had done to himself. Unofficially, he didn’t have anywhere else to go.When Jon woke up, the sun had long since set. Jervis had tried to keep the room as well-lit as possible, but it still felt distinctly gloomy. He opened his mouth to speak, but Jon cut him off. “I know what you’re going to say to me. Look what’s happened, I have to stop this now. But I can’t. I’m so close, I can’t give up now.”As much as he hated it, he really couldn’t think of a counter-argument. Alice was right; until Jon wanted to stop, he would keep on doing what he was doing, with no regard to his own health. “At least be careful. Don’t get yourself killed.”“I won’t.” Jon crossed his arms. Jervis got the sense that he very much wanted to roll his eyes, and was unsure why he didn’t.“Promise?”“Promise.” The next day, Jon didn’t leave immediately. Instead, they all ate together, ventured out into the yard in search of the woods, and were driven back inside by a biting wind. For a moment or two, Jervis could overlook the tension between the three of them and just be again. Eventually, Jon did leave, but he did so with a smile on his face. As the weather got colder, Alice took a turn for the worse. After that night in the attic, Jervis had been sure the end was near, but then she had seemed to bounce back to normal, to being as healthy as she had ever been. As he found out late in the afternoon of one particularly unpleasant day, death hadn’t decided to pass by Alice. Instead, it had simply become invisible after so long hovering so close.Alice looked up from the book in her lap. She hadn’t turned a page in several minutes, but Jervis hadn’t commented and she had kept staring at it in a common acceptance of her pretense. They sat, neither of them reading but both pretending to, in Alice’s room. She was propped up with an extraordinary amount of pillows in her bed while he curled up in a chair nearby. It wasn’t the most comfortable way to sit in the chair, but there was something more reassuring about sitting this way. That, and it was easier to fit completely under a blanket.“Tell Jon it’s okay,” Alice said.“What is?”“That he’s not here.”Jervis closed his book, using the inside flap of the dust jacket as his bookmark. “I can go get him.” He started to stand up, but Alice shook her head.“But then you won’t be here either, silly.”“Here for what?” They both knew for what, but he had denied this inevitable for so long, and he didn’t want to stop now.Alice sighed. “I don’t have much longer now.” She set her book aside, and it fell closed. Without a bookmark, it was pristine. If he didn’t know better, Jervis could almost have thought it had never been opened.“Don’t say that.”Jervis unfolded himself from his chair and sat on the side of Alice’s bed. Gently, he took her arm from where it lay on her lap and placed two fingers on the inside of her wrist. He did not count the beats, and Alice did not count the seconds. They didn’t need to. Just under Alice’s skin lay a river of fire, the blood pumping faster than he ever thought possible and the temperature hot enough to burn.“Stay with me,” she said, taking his hand.“I will,” he whispered. “I’d never leave you, Alice.” He barely managed a whisper, emotion threatening to block his voice. “Please don’t leave me.”Alice met his eyes. He saw there the same unshed tears he knew were in his own. She squeezed his hand and smiled. “I wish I didn’t have to.” Jervis didn’t know how long he stayed there, sitting beside Alice. When the light began to turn from golden to orange, he said “I love you, Alice. And Jon loves you too. Don’t ever forget that.”“I love you too.” Alice’s voice was so soft he could barely hear her. Beneath his fingers, Alice’s already-burning veins grew even hotter.“I don’t know what I’ll do without you.”Alice winced and glanced at her wrist. “See the world for me. But don’t get too lost, okay?”Jervis attempted to smile, just for her, but he knew all his face showed was his fear and grief. He wanted to hug her, but as he turned to face her completely she gasped and the life flickered out of her eyes. And then Jervis couldn’t stop himself, he pulled her body close and held her as he cried, as the lifeless thing that used to be his sister cooled in his arms. That night was a blur. Jervis only remembered it in flashes: finally letting go of her, the room so dark he could barely see. Shuffling to the chair and curling up there, out of tears to cry but still so, so empty. Jon opening the door just after dawn and just standing in shocked silence.Jon found two shovels in the shed behind the house.“Here,” Jervis said. He stood under the tree, looking towards the woods, and beyond them, the rising sun. Solemnly, Jon handed him a shovel, and they got to work. As he dug, Jervis cried, tears he thought had dried up overnight but that just kept coming. Next to him, Jon cried as well. There was no sound aside from their shovels chipping away at the earth.Thick clouds gathered as they worked. The temperature dropped. By the time they had dug a satisfactory grave, the ground had started to freeze, as had the tears on their faces. A light snow fell as they carried Alice out and lay her in the grave. In the dim light, she looked even further from life. Her skin was too pale, almost blending into the white of the nightdress she wore. Her hair pillowed around her like a halo. “Wherever you are now, Alice, I hope it’s wonderful.” Jervis could barely hear his own voice, thick and scratchy as it was. “I miss you, and I love you.” “I hate that I wasn’t there for you,” Jon said, “but there was never a moment where I didn’t love you, Alice.”They picked their shovels back up as the snow fell heavier. Slowly, Alice’s ethereal body was covered with a mound of dirt.And as they stood there, snow already beginning to cover the new mound before them and coming to rest on the rough wooden cross, Jervis could feel the tears freeze on his face and in his eyelashes. He looked at Jon beside him, and though they both wore thick coats to stop the cold, Jervis saw the needle marks he knew clustered in Jon’s left elbow. Jon reached out a hand; Jervis took it. Jon had stepped off the cliff, but he had looked back as he fell. Jervis closed his eyes against the wind, and leapt off into the space where Alice’s grave used to be. As he fell, he thought he could see Jon just in front of him, both plummeting to the bottom of this endless void. Jervis opened his eyes. The snow had stopped. In its place was a gray sleet. He held a cup of tea. It was still hot. He was in the library. Jon was not next to him.He walked around the perimeter of the room, trailing his fingers along the spines of the books he passed. He stopped when his fingers hit empty air in the middle of a shelf. A thin space sat empty, and on the table in front of him, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’s gold letters sparkled in the candlelight. Jervis left the room. The sun had set, but the candle on the library table was still burning. Jervis stared at the flame as he traced the letters on the cover of the book before him. Over the years, he had read and reread this book so many times he had lost count. Surely, he thought, once more wouldn’t hurt.Even as he thought that, he knew he was lying to himself. But it didn’t matter, not as he flipped open its red cover and whispered the first words: “Down the rabbit hole.”Alice’s favorite character had always been, well, Alice. A girl who could have the best adventures, could do anything she put her mind to, regardless of physical or mental ability. Jervis had never had a favorite character. He had been fascinated by the madness of it all, and he had loved the book’s Alice as he loved his own, but there had never been a character he could truly relate to. As he reread the story, holding back tears, he found a piece of himself. Time had stopped for the Hatter as punishment for a bad song and a worse joke. Before, he could not fathom time stopping. Time had always been a vague haze for him, with nothing much to distinguish the days aside from the changing of the seasons. Time had not only stopped, it had ceased to exist on that cold autumn day. With every moment that passed, Jervis remained the same, bottled up in the tiny slice of time when he watched Alice breathe her last. He could feel himself becoming divorced from reality, just as the Hatter and the March Hare had, but he did not know how to stop it. It was drizzling when he figured it out. If he could no longer experience the passage of time as he once had, he must make that separation permanent. His head snapped up and he saw his wild-eyed reflection in the fogged window. “Time stopped for him, as it has for me, so now the Hatter I must be,” he muttered. When he was ready to begin, the table was barely visible under the piles he had dropped on it. He placed the iron in the fire, rolled out a strip of linen, and smiled.The fire had burned down to embers by the time Jervis stitched the deep red silk onto his new hat. He looked at his creation—tall, slightly slanted, perfect—and smiled. There was a trunk on the front step. Jervis was unsure how it had gotten there. Vaguely, he recognized it as being from that traitor, and yet he still didn’t know how it had come to be on his front step. Was it that time of year already?Jervis blinked, and he and the trunk were in the sitting room. Well, he and Alice called it the sitting room anyway. In their lifetimes, no one important enough to justify taking the dust covers off the ornate chairs had set foot on their island. Sometimes, when they were children, they had pretended to be royalty and this was their throne room. In fact, Jervis thought he could hear Alice’s high, delighted laughter from just outside, pretending—And then it was gone and Jervis sat in suffocating silence as he stared at the dress carefully folded in the trunk in front of him, a dress that would never have an occupant. Later that day (It was dark now. When did that happen?) Jervis threw the trunk, still fully packed, into the attic. It was so heavy that he could barely lift it and the effort of throwing it nearly knocked him over. He stood in the doorway, panting, his hat askew and his hair a wreck. The light from a flickering candle by his feet that he did not remember lighting barely reached where the trunk had landed, tipped on its side and scuffed. As he leaned in the doorway, waiting to be able to breathe again, Jervis listened to the sound of his heartbeat. He could hear Alice’s too, beating slower than his. But Alice was dead she was in the back garden her heart wasn’t beating. That didn’t stop him from hearing it. Ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum slowly morphing into a steady tick, tock, tick, tock.And now Jervis sat on the trunk with a pocket watch in his hand. The dirty gold chain ran over his knee. Slowly, he opened the face of the watch. Tick. Tock. The hands spun like mad behind his own reflection. His hat still barely clung to the side of his head, his hair stuck to his face, and he watched as a manic grin spread over his own features. Sometime later, Jon moved in. He hadn’t ever definitively told Jervis he was doing so, he just returned to the town less and less until he no longer lived there. Officially, he had a bedroom, the same one he had used on occasion before. Jervis wasn’t sure Jon had stayed there since he moved in. Most days, they slept on the floor or on a couch or in a chair when their eyes couldn’t stay awake any longer. One of those nights, Jervis had mumbled “Don’t ever leave me” into Jon’s shoulder.He’d never gotten an answer. Possibly, hopefully, Jon had been asleep. Now, Jervis propped the pocket watch open on the table in front of him. Leaning back against the wall, he stared into its face as it ticked out the passing of each second. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Time had stopped, refused to let him pass through and continue living. Tick. Tock. So why had this incessant countdown not ceased? Its ticks signified nothing, frozen as he had become. Tick. Tock. The watch defiantly ticked away.Jon rushed into the room, preceded by the sound of breaking glass. “Do you have—”“In the kitchen,” Jervis cut him off.Jon rushed back out of the room, carrying several glasses in his arms and with a blanket pulled around him as a coat.The room had grown so dark Jervis could barely see the watch still on the table when Jon settled down next to him. He was still wearing the blanket and he had scorch marks on his fingers.“Does it tell you anything?” He asked.Jervis blinked. “It never stops ticking. Every second is so slow, and yet how few days go to make up a century.”“To me, the time seems to race, and yet the days rarely change. Yet I’m finally nearing the end of my great experiment.”“You will bottle fear?”Jon nodded. “And we both will overcome.”Jervis nodded absently and lost himself in the steady rhythm of his watch. Days- weeks- passed. Sometimes, Jervis found Jon slumped over a table in the vacant bedroom he had converted into a laboratory, passed out. Other times he would pass the room at odd hours of the night just to hear the clattering and muttered curses that meant Jon was hard at work. It was comforting to know he wasn’t truly alone in the house.One cold, sunny day, Jervis decided to make another hat. He lost himself in the beginning, in the smooth motion of ironing the linen. The sun passed over the house as he lacquered it, shaped it, let it dry. The windows were black when he made the finishing touches.Somewhere in his waking dream, he heard Alice call to him from outside the room. “Jervis, look what I found!” Her voice was too young, it was the voice of a child, but he would know his sister anywhere. “Come and see!”When he threw open the door, the hall was empty.The next day, he stood in front of the mirror for a long time. He couldn’t remember when he had decided on the mustache and goatee, but he rather liked it. He briefly wondered if Jon liked it, thought back to see if he could ever remember Jon expressing any opinion on his appearance at all, and asked himself why it mattered. Jervis glared at the mirror. While his facial hair might have fit his aesthetic, this hat did not. His new hat, made with black silk instead of the blood red of the first, was in all respects better. It was taller, less lopsided, more authoritative, and yet. Jervis felt like he was playing dress-up. This was a gentleman’s hat. There was nothing mad about it. He sighed, put the hat in a box in his room, and got back to work. When Jervis next looked up, he stood in front of the same mirror. He wore a new hat, a purple one that, when he looked closely, bore a design not unlike shattered glass. A stripe of black ribbon lay around the bottom. It had been made with a purposeful dent in one side, and the top slanted at a not insignificant angle. It was perfect.Behind him in the mirror, a ghostly Alice smiled dangerously. A sliver of pale blue flitted around the corner. Jervis blinked and walked faster to catch it, but when he turned the corner, the blue was just turning the corner at the far end of the hall. It was clearly a dress, one Alice had owned when she was a few years younger. He was running now. Alice was here, she was just around the corner. He turned the corner and there she was, wearing that blue dress that hadn’t fit her for years, standing in the hall, her back to him.“Alice? Have you come back?”Alice turned around. Her eyes were solid black. Under her face, a map of her veins glowed. “Why do you chase me?”“Because I always have,” he sighed, ragged with emotion. “Because you’re so much, and- and you can’t be gone.” “All that running, you’re going to end up someplace you don’t want to be.” Alice smiled, her face twisting impossibly.Jervis shook his head. “It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.”“I think you’ll find yourself in quite a different spot than when you started.” “I must not be fast enough, then.” Jervis reached out a hand. “Come back to me.”Alice shook her head. “Goodbye, brother.”As she began to fade from view, Jon stepped out into the hallway. His clothes seemed more ragged than normal. If Jervis didn’t know better, he could have mistaken his friend for the scarecrow in the field.“Was there someone in here?”Jervis tore his eyes from Alice, still half-visible, almost skeletal, between them. She smiled, and it was the sort of smile he had never seen on Alice’s face. It was pure malice. “N- no,” he stammered.A small plume of smoke burst from the room behind Jon. He glanced at it, concerned. “I thought I heard you talking to someone.”“Nope.” The thing that could not be Alice was still smiling evilly. He looked through her to see Jon rush back into his room. When the door closed, she was gone.Jervis leaned against the wall, his red top hat askew and his hair a long, tangled mess. He did not notice the tears on his face until he could barely see through them. The sound of shattering glass snapped Jervis out of his thoughts. He had been walking somewhere – going outside? It didn’t matter now (if it had even mattered then) because something had broken and that meant –He heard a muffled curse and turned to face the door on his right. As he did, it burst open and Jon ran out, coughing and holding his shirt over his face. He shouted something, but it was too late. A cloud of greenish smoke poured out of the room, enveloping Jon, who squeezed his eyes shut and pushed his shirt more frantically over his mouth and nose. Jervis simply stood, eyes wide and mouth hanging partly open, as it washed over him.He didn’t think, and so he breathed. And that breath turned into a scream.
Jonathan laughed, loud and clear. The storm raged around him and the field spread below him, torn by the wind and pummeled by the rain. He dragged his hand through the wheat. His fingers tore long trenches through the field, dirt and plants ripped up and sucked into the whirlwind. This was his world now.
He laughed, destroying everything in sight with sharp talons and a bone-deep desire for revenge. The village kids who had excluded him, the island too barren to ever be a true home, the father who didn’t want his child. Nothing would be spared from his feverish anger. As he took everything from them, they would watch, frozen in the terror he had always felt and now never would again.
As his fingers ripped through a small stand of trees, he felt something – someone – alive. Standing in the middle of the destruction, head tipped to the sky and an utterly blank expression on his face, was Jervis, softly singing a nonsense song. He seemed to exist somehow apart from the carnage that surrounded him. The wind, strong enough to rip up trees only a few feet away, did not even ruffle his hair, grown too long now that he didn’t care enough to cut it. The rain, though it fell thick enough to render the manor Jonathan knew to be just over the hill invisible, did not touch his shabbily posh coat and ridiculously large hat.
Though Jervis was unaffected by the storm, he was not immune to the fear. Just as with everyone else, the sight of the scarecrow – of Jonathan – caused every bit of color to drain from his skin. Though he did not stop the singing, Jonathan knew he was petrified. He watched his best friend, the only person he truly cared for, mumble and spin his hat in his hands, eyes glued to the ground. And for the first time, Jonathan wanted to spare someone.
He reached down, to pick up Jervis and bring him into the clouds with him, to save him from the Scarecrow in the same way Jonathan had been saved – by becoming it. But instead, his needles stabbed through Jervis’s chest, spattering blood across the grain. As everything faded to black, Jonathan could still hear Jervis mumbling, only now the nonsense song was gone. Instead, as his lungs slowly filled with blood, Jervis repeated Jonathan’s name.
Jervis slowly uncurled himself and sat up, slumping back against the wall. His hair was matted and hanging over his eyes. He pushed it behind his ear and wiped his nose on his sleeve. His eyelashes were stuck together and his face felt damp, but he didn’t remember crying.“What was that?”Jon sat in front of him, sleeves pulled over his fingers. His eyes flickered all over Jervis, cataloguing him. He was worried, Jervis could see that much, but he knew Jon was systematically filing all this in his brain. Observing the effects.“Fear,” Jon said.“Pure fear?” “I’d been trying to make a vaccine,” Jon began. He hesitated, and Jervis nodded, he remembered, but whatever had hit him in that cloud had not been a vaccine. It was something worse.“I couldn’t make it. Every time I tried, with every new formula, it all lead back to this. I couldn’t cure fear, but I distilled it. The problem is, the body can’t overcome the toxin. No matter how I make it, I end up with a form of fear so concentrated it’s poisonous.”“That’s brilliant.”Jon’s shoulders slumped. “No it isn’t. I failed.”“No. With this – Can you imagine what we could do with this?” Jervis couldn’t see himself as his mouth curled up, but he knew he looked dangerous. Dangerous and mad.He watched that calculating spark flicker back to life inside Jon’s eyes, the one that would send any sane person running for their life. It was captivating.“We could be kings.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Someone was knocking.Someone was knocking on the door and they wouldn’t go away.Jervis wasn’t sure what time it was, but he knew it was far too early for someone to be knocking on the door and refusing to go away after being ignored.He opened his eyes without rising from the couch and squinted. The sun, determined to blind him, shone directly into his eyes from where it perched just atop the trees. It seemed to be in the process of setting. He glared at the window and shot a particularly nasty glance at the front door, where the persistent knocker had, finally, abandoned hope of someone answering the door. With a muffled groan, he threw an arm over his eyes and fell back asleep.Several hours later, Jervis woke up in a dark room. He still lay on the couch, but at some point Jon had thrown a blanket on him. The birds had not started chirping and no noise came from Jon’s lab, so the house was completely silent. There were no candles in the room. The only light came from the moon, which looked to be nearly full, so Jervis could see well enough to move around without running into anything. Remembering the persistent knocker of earlier, he opened the front door. Thankfully, no one was there, but a large trunk sat on the porch. Jervis squinted at the trunk. It appeared to really exist, but he kicked it just to be sure. The definitely-real trunk continued to sit in the same spot, completely unaffected by the kick. Only after he had stared at the trunk for several minutes did Jervis realize where he was. Outside on his porch, in the dead of night, wearing nothing but an incorrectly buttoned shirt and pants, an outfit he suspected he had worn for several days. By all rights, he should have been freezing. After all, he had become the hatter sometime around the end of November, and he had not been the hatter for very long. But he was not cold, and the trunk on his porch could only mean that April had arrived.Jervis dragged the offending trunk inside and lit a candle. The warm light did nothing to help the strange feeling of distance Jervis had, like he was watching himself from somewhere far away. His hands opened the latch on the trunk and flipped open the lid. His eyes registered white lace and lavender silk before a haze of anger and sadness overtook him.A few minutes later, he heard footsteps approach from behind and Jon’s voice ask “When did that come in?”In the soft light of a cloudy midday, Jervis noticed the candle had burned down and extinguished himself. He thought he might know how it was April already.“Yesterday,” he said, and hoped it was true.Jon nodded.“He doesn’t know she’s gone. It has been months and he couldn’t be bothered to find out that Alice is –“Jervis knew in the back of his mind that his father had not been told of Alice’s death, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that Alice had been dead for almost half a year and it was all because their father had given up and left them. “He left us here to die and didn’t even know that she’d finally succeeded.”“I’m sorry.” Jon sat down next to him.The longer Jervis sat and stared at that trunk full of things for Alice, the angrier he got. “No. He’s going to be.”“How?” Jon asked, calm but interested.Jervis shrugged. “I’ll pay him a visit, get creative with it.” He paused, took a deep breath, and took Jon’s hand to give himself some courage. “Come with me. Bring your concentrated fear and let’s test it out on him. Have some fun.”“You’re not coming back, are you,” Jon observed with much the same tone he might use to note that it was raining out. Jervis shook his head. He hadn’t consciously made any sort of decision, but as he spoke, he knew what he said was true. “I can’t. I’ve lived my whole life in his house, waiting for a package he sends me. I don’t know what life is like outside of the island, but everywhere I go here, I expect to see her just around the corner, and she’s never going to be there. I need to be somewhere she never was, and I can’t do that here. Please come with me. We could do so much out there.”“Out where?” Jon asked.“Anywhere.”“Let me get my stuff.” Jon squeezed Jervis’s hand before dropping it and leaving the room. Jervis watched him go. He could hardly breathe for how happy and relieved he was. He knew now that he had to leave the island, but he didn’t think he could do it if it meant leaving Jon. As he started packing, a wide smile on his face, he began building a plan of action for when he confronted his father. After all, he had a few days to make it perfect. A day or two later (he couldn’t be exactly sure), Jervis found himself in town, in a store. His arms were full of food, and as he walked to the counter, he grabbed a loaf of bread. Behind the counter, a bored kid that was significantly taller than him, though probably a few years younger, seemed to register his presence. “You got money for all that?” He asked skeptically, looking back and forth from the large pile of food to Jervis’s admittedly disheveled appearance.Jervis dug around in the pockets of his coat - he couldn’t truly have been so absent-minded as to forget money, could he? He pulled out a crumbling flower, a scrap of blue fabric, and his watch from his pocket as he tried to find the money that had to be in there somewhere.The boy behind the counter cocked his head to the side. “Hey, what’s that ticking noise?”“My watch,” Jervis said distractedly.The boy’s fingers started to tap along with the ticking, and Jervis looked up to apologize for how long he was taking when he noticed the boy’s eyes begin to glaze over. The boy stared at the watch blankly, fingers tapping along, tick, tock, tick, tock.“It does have a very distinctive noise, doesn’t it?”“Yes.”If asked after the fact, Jervis would not be able to give a good reason for why he did what he did next. For what happened was that Jervis had an idea. Jon was the one who did the scientific reading; Jervis usually stuck to fantastical stories. But Jon had been telling him something about Mesmer, a man who had done some questionable but fascinating research some time ago, and Jervis had listened. He raised his pocketwatch and flipped open the lid. “Look into my eyes.”With that, the last of the independence drained from the boy’s eyes. “You wouldn’t mind if I took this, would you?”“No.”“Wonderful.”Jervis dumped the food in a bag he took from behind the counter. The boy watched him do it, face blank, and didn’t say a word. For good measure, Jervis grabbed another loaf of bread as he walked out the door. Jervis stood next to Jon at the end of the dock. They’d walked over to the town early that morning, carrying (though in some cases, that meant dragging) the trunks into which they had packed all of their belongings. Or at least, all of the belongings they were taking with them. It was strange, packing up his life, because Jervis was struck by how few things he actually had. He had his clothes, and his hats, and his copy of Alice in Wonderland, and really not much else. Jon had even less, as in place of the rather bulky hats all he had was a ratty scarecrow outfit. “Strange to be leaving.” Jervis looked around the village. He knew he should feel sad he was leaving the only place he’d ever known, or nervous at going out into the world, or even excited at finally giving his father what he deserved. He didn’t. Really, he didn’t feel much of anything, just a mild boredom, like a fog hung in the inside of his head.Though the day was cloudy, Jon squinted against the light. Neither of them had gone outside much in the past few months, with Jon generally leaving his makeshift lab only at night.“Not too strange.”“No,” Jervis shook his head in agreement, “not too strange.”From the ferry, the captain shouted “You two coming or what? I ain’t got all day!”Jervis smiled ruefully as they hefted their trunks. “After you.”Before they could get off the docks, the captain stopped them. “Tickets?” He asked in a flat tone.Jervis dug through his pocket. He didn’t have tickets, but he did have something better, if only he could - there. With a smug expression, he pulled out his pocketwatch. Jon raised an eyebrow, and Jervis got the sense that he would have crossed his arms in judgement had be not been holding a trunk.“You got tickets, or what?”“Yes, tickets. But first, can you hear my watch ticking?” Jervis asked. There was a small chance that this wouldn’t work, that whatever had happened in the store yesterday was a fluke and that he’d get them both kicked out of town. But somehow, he knew that wasn’t going to happen.Jon audibly sighed, presumably in exasperation.“Yes,” the captain said, and though his tone was still flat, its aggressive overtones were beginning to fade away.“The ticking, it synchronizes with your heartbeat. Now, look into my eyes.” When his eyes locked with the captain’s, Jervis felt a sort of thrill, the sense that not only could he do this, he could do anything. He could make anyone do anything. Innocently, he asked, “Do we need tickets?”“No.”“Excellent. You will take us to the mainland, and then you will awaken. You will not remember us.”“I will take you to the mainland. I will not remember you,” the captain repeated in a monotone.He moved to stand behind the wheel and motioned for his scant crew to assist his passengers.Leaving their bags to the care of the crew, Jervis and Jon walked to the front of the boat. As they moved, Jervis reflected on the crew. They themselves were not hypnotized, and yet they were still under his control, merely in a roundabout sort of way. Could he directly control more than one person? He’d have to test that.“So you can do mind control?” Jon asked, just a little too casually, as the ferry started moving.“Hypnotism,” Jervis corrected.“When did you figure that out?”“Yesterday. I didn’t hypnotize you into coming with me, in case you were wondering.”Jon made a hmph noise that was barely too quiet to be an ironic huff and said “I never said you did.”Jervis shrugged. “It seemed like a reasonable assumption. I asked you to drop everything and run away with me, and you did.”Jon cocked his head to the side. “I’m not dropping everything. There will be more books on the mainland, and I can learn more things, and I can make a better lab there.”“But your family?”“I’ve lived with you for months now, Jervis. Didn’t you think that was suspicious?” Jon stared out at the ocean in front of them as he spoke. “I tested my fear gas on my father a while ago. Even before that, I’d never intended to stay.”“Oh.” Jervis hadn’t really thought about why Jon had moved in, he’d just seen that he had and never bothered to find out why. His first thought was to hug Jon, to make sure he knew he cared even if he’d been kind of a bad friend recently, but he knew Jon probably wouldn’t appreciate it. Instead, he stood next to Jon, just close enough that their arms could touch where they’re propped up on the boat railing.“I’m sorry.”“For what? It was my choice.” Jon still looked out to sea, like he was straining to see the land ahead of them when all that was visible was the open ocean.“I wasn’t there for you when I should have been.”Jon shrugged. “It’s been a hard winter.”“I always want to be there for you.” Jervis smiled apologetically, though he knew Jon wasn’t looking. “That’s what friends are for.”Neither of them spoke as the ferry finally pulled far enough away from the island that it disappeared into the blue-gray haze of the sky. Neither of them were looking. Standing on the dock in a strange city with nothing but Jon and a single chest full of their belongings, Jervis felt reasonably confident he’d done the right thing. He was moving on, or rather, he’d find his father and make him suffer, then move on. This was personal growth.“So,” Jon said, “where does your father live?”Jervis shrugged and began rifling through his pockets.“Is it at least in this city?”At last, he pulled out a scrap of paper. On it was the address of the manor, and in the top corner was a smaller address, written in a precise hand. The shipping label for the most recent trunk his father had sent, complete with a return address.“We can find out.” The address was not, it turned out, in the same city, though it was nearby. Jervis spoke to a cab driver, and they were off. Riding in a cab was not something Jervis had done before, or something he’d ever had a particular interest in doing. The horse smelled distinctly horse-like, which while it couldn’t be smelled from inside the cab, was a reminder to keep the windows closed. Roads were bumpy, as the rain had hollowed out spaces between the stones seemingly designed to trap wheels. Still, this was a new experience, and he was determined to be delighted with the journey. It was certainly faster than walking, anyway. And he had to admit that, when his hypnotized driver opened the door for them and handed them their luggage, he felt important in a new way. Almost respected, though he knew the mindless zombie of a driver could no more respect him than could a rat. Jervis’s father lived in a tall row house in a neighborhood that appeared to either have once been fashionable or was in the process of becoming fashionable. The houses were freshly painted and some even sported fake columns outside the door, but the street itself was barely held together. His father’s house was a light blue, and the front door bore a sign: Tetch, MD. Only a couple of blocks away, the neighborhood gave way to houses where the columns were slightly off-kilter and the roofs sagged dangerously. The small flowerbeds in front of the windows were still full of dead stalks from the previous fall, but small green shoots were beginning to spring up among them. “That one,” Jervis said, pointing to a listing house painted a faded pink. One window near the front had a jagged crack running through it, and the house number had fallen off. The house was empty, so they dragged their luggage into the front room, where it left a trail through the dust. “Acceptable?” Jervis asked, surveying their surroundings. Jon coughed, whether from the dust they had kicked up or in judgement Jervis didn’t know. “It feels like someone took all the furniture out of the parts of your house no one uses.”Jervis kicked a leaf that had blown in through the cracked window. It fell to dust under his shoe. “We can find someplace else if you want.”“No, it’s fine. Probably as good as we’re going to get for squatting, anyway.”“I’m pretty sure I could ask someone for their house.”“No.”“Okay.”Jervis perched on the luggage while Jon half leaned, half sat on the windowsill. The street outside was still empty even as the sun began to set. The golden rays warped as they passed through the cracked glass, leaving a scar in the illuminated square on the floor.“How does this all work, anyway?” Jervis asked.“It’s not like I’ve done this before either, Jervis. How should I know? Besides, didn’t you say you had a plan?”“Oh, yes!” Jervis jumped up, suddenly remembering. “I should visit the house before the sun completely sets, just to leave a little surprise.”Jon raised an eyebrow. “Care to tell?”“Hm. No, I think it’s going to be a surprise for everyone.”“‘kay. Hey, with the mind control thing -”“Hypnotism.”“Yeah. D’you think it has to be with that specific watch?”Jervis sat back down. “Hm?”“Well, like does the hypnotism work because of you, or because of the watch?” Jon gestured with his hands as he spoke, words coming slowly but his hands moving far faster. “Because the science says it should be able to be done with any watch, but if that’s the case, why don’t we hear of people successfully hypnotizing others all the time? So the question remains. Is it you, and so you’d be able to hypnotize someone with any watch, is it the watch itself, which would be able to be used by anyone, or is it the specific combination of the two?”“I’d never thought of it, really,” Jervis said, tilting his head to the side. “We could test it. If you take the watch, can you hypnotize someone?”Jon held out his hand, and Jervis gave him the watch.“So how do you do it?”“I’m not entirely certain. I generally ask if someone can hear the watch and make eye contact with them, the rest kind of just happens.”“I can’t test this on you,” Jon reasoned. “That would add in a confounding variable. Should we find someone else?”Jervis shook his head. “Tomorrow. I really do need to speak to my father’s family before he arrives, and I’d rather not miss my window.”Jon handed the watch back with a sigh. “When you get back, you get to help me make this place livable. There’s enough dust to actually choke someone if they tried to sleep on this floor.” He kicked a floorboard, which obligingly produced a horrifyingly large puff of dust, to prove his point.“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Jervis said wryly before dropping the watch back into his coat pocket and heading out. Jervis waited until late to sneak back into his father’s house. In the daylight, it had been rather nice. Calm, anyway. He’d left his surprise and walked out the front door. He didn’t know how to whistle, but if he did he would have been whistling softly to himself. It was that kind of day.Returning at night was completely different. No longer did Jervis feel light, like all the pieces of his plan were perfectly slotting into place. Now that it was the night of the crime, he felt only a deep excitement tempered by a tingling fear that his plan would fail. He shook that aside as he and Jon snuck in a back door he’d unlocked earlier. Everyone else in the house was asleep, and the night made the darkness nearly impenetrable in the shadows. Jon, in full Scarecrow attire, leaned on the wall in one of those dark corners. Jervis sat in a nearby armchair and crossed his legs. “Now,” Jervis said with a smile.Jon pushed a framed family photograph off a nearby shelf, the glass shattering as it hit the floor. Upstairs, feet hit the floor, and the footsteps passed above them, heading to the staircase.“Good evening, father.” Jervis lit a candle, its small flame the only light in the dark house. The light flickered and bounced, casting odd, dark shadows across his face. “Or should I call you Dr. Tetch, the name carved upon your door? For, Dr. Tetch, you are my father no more.”“Jervis? Is that you?” A voice came from near the stairwell.He could barely remember that voice. It trembled like a child’s, confusion and worry threaded through every note. Before, Jervis could have forgotten it. Now, he wished he had. When he was done here, he would never see his father again, never hear his voice. If he left him alive, that was.“A man who cannot recognize his own son.” Jervis raised an eyebrow, words dripping venom. “Is Alice here?” His father walked toward the center of the room, trying to keep his voice steady. It didn’t work.All Jervis had done was light a candle, and his father was already afraid. Perhaps his entire plan was not needed. He heard the unending ticking of his pocket watch and the rustle of canvas, and all he knew was rage. “Alice has gone where the good all go, the place you doomed her to so long ago.” “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. There was nothing I could have done.” He did not sound sorry. He sounded like a man who had convinced himself he was blameless when nothing was further from the truth.“You could have stayed. Tried to help her, to help us! But you didn’t, did you? You’re nothing but a coward.”“Why are you here, Jervis? There is nothing more I can do for her now.” He held up his hands as if to demonstrate his lack of ability. They shook slightly, uncontrollably.Jervis stepped forward. The candle fully illuminated his face as he said “No. It is much too late for that. But I am not as good as Alice, and there is still much you can do for me.” He smiled his most dangerous smile, the one he had honed until it spoke every threat, wordlessly promised pain.His father broke. “Please don’t hurt me,” he begged.“Oh, I won’t,” Jervis said, satisfaction coating every word. He looked to the stairs and called in a sing-song voice, “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” A little boy emerged from the shadows of the stairwell, dragging a small, worn blanket behind him. His brown hair was rumpled from sleep and his eyes were still half closed. Behind him walked a little girl, maybe a year or two older. Her hands were empty and her eyes dead. Following them was a short, round woman whose hair was only half down, like she had stopped taking the pins out halfway through the process. She was young, but had the beginnings of crows’ feet from too much smiling. Now though, her face was just as blank as the children’s.They stood in a line and turned to face Dr. Tetch. Like good little marionettes, Jervis thought.“What have you done to them,” his father demanded, voice still uncertain but threaded with a steel that hadn’t been there a moment before.Jervis smiled. “So it’s only now you have some spine? What do you want me to say, that they’ll be fine? Why should I promise that now, before my work is done? Why, that would ruin all the fun!”He took a step toward his father. “I can make your son take the life of your wife.”The little boy shuffled into the kitchen, where he pulled a knife from a drawer. He walked closer to his mother, whose face remained impassive, until Jervis shook his head.“Why, I could make your daughter believe she can fly,” he giggled. (He was not sure if he could actually do this, as he hadn’t tested whether survival instincts overruled hypnosis yet. He was, however, reasonably confident.)The color drained from his father’s face as the little girl began to walk back up the stairs.“But I won’t,” Jervis said, smile slipping from his face, replaced with an exaggerated sadness. As he spoke, the footsteps on the stairs stopped. “They’re not to blame in this little game. You thought you could run, but you can’t escape what you’ve done.”A pointed cough came from the dark corner behind him, and Jervis resisted the urge to roll his eyes.“But alas, I’ve said my piece. You’re dismissed,” he added almost as an afterthought, waving a hand to his father’s still-hypnotized family. They filed back upstairs, gaze as vacant as before. “But before I go,” Jervis added, “shall I introduce you to my Scarecrow?” Jon stepped out from the shadows. Even to someone who knew him, he was barely recognizable as a person. His eyes, the only part of him visible underneath the costume, glowed black when they met Jervis’s.Jervis stepped around Jon, placing his fingers on the rough burlap of his chest possessively. “Don’t have too much fun.” He spoke just loud enough for his father to hear, mouth inches away from Jon’s ear. “It wouldn’t do for him to forget any of this.”He could hear the smile in Jon’s voice when he said “My pleasure.” Jon slowly walked toward Mr. Tetch, the light from Jervis’s candle flickering off the green vials and sharp needles he held.Jervis flashed his father a self-satisfied smile and sat back in the shadows, content to watch Jon do his work. “Well,” Jervis said when the first bird of the morning started to chirp, “that was nice.” Jon stood in the center of the room, over the collapsed body of Jervis’s father, whose body had recently decided it couldn’t take any more fear while remaining conscious. Jon nodded slowly. “Shall we?” He rose from his chair and offered Jon his arm in an exaggerated fashion. Jon didn’t take it, and Jervis tried not to be offended. He mostly succeeded.They made it to the front step before Jervis asked “Are you feeling alright? You seem awfully quiet.”Jon shrugged. “It feels different, wearing the mask. I feel,” he trailed off, looking for the right word before continuing. “Powerful. It’s different than just being me. It’s like I’m more than me.”Jervis nodded. He was not entirely sure he understood what Jon was trying to say, but Jon had always had a far different relationship to the concept of self than he had.“And don’t call me your Scarecrow, either. It’s not yours. It’s barely even mine.” Jon hadn’t taken off the mask, but he picked at his sleeve in a familiar way he never would have done a few moments ago.“Apologies.”In silence, the two of them walked into the street. Though the far-off birds signaled the approach of sunrise, the night was still dismally black. The street, lined with the houses of rich families like the one he had just torn apart, was vacant. It must have rained while they’d been inside, though the clouds were gone now - dark puddles reflected the sliver of a moon countless times on the sidewalk.Jervis’s life had long been an exercise in mimicry. Since he had never had a mother and barely had a father, he had learned how to be a person from books. For the most part, that had worked. He had done well enough for himself, and he had cared for Alice above all things. Books did not help him now, as he and Jon stood in the street outside his father’s house. Jervis had considered killing his father, as he lay there unconscious in a puddle of his own urine. A life for a life, he had thought. In the end, he let him live simply because he did not matter. Because he could not remember Alice, and how he had failed her, if he was dead.Below the euphoria, below the sense of righteousness, lay an aching sense of want. This was not the ache of missing Alice; that had become ever-present but muted. He did not think he wanted the kind of stable life and family his father had, though he knew he had wanted it in the past and could again in the future. Since he could not identify it, he ignored it. After all, he did not know what revenge should feel like.Generally, in the books about revenge Jervis had read, the revenge resulted in the death of the protagonist. Even if it was not a revenge tragedy, if the book was about the actual acquiring of the revenge, it ended once the goal was accomplished. Neither of those could help Jervis, who had accomplished his goal without his story ending. In the twenty-one years of his life, Jervis could not think of a time, before the last week when he had decided to leave the island, when he had a plan. Plans had never mattered before. Now, he stood in the middle of a dark street and realized that he had nowhere to go. A tattered, water-stained piece of paper fluttered down the street towards them. It came to rest in a puddle, where they both looked down on it. Red text on a yellow background advertised a circus in town. Below the text (two words embellished more than the rest - “Knife Thrower”) was a simple drawing of a young woman with a long ponytail, tight black outfit, and lots of knives.“Shall we go see a show?” Jervis asked.Jon shrugged. “Might as well.” Understandably, the circus doesn’t tend to be performing before dawn on drizzly spring mornings. They weren’t performing in the afternoon either, which was when Jervis woke up. Not long after dawn, he and Jon had collapsed on the floor near their trunk, with only a blanket in between them and the splinter-filled floor. The floor was an incredibly uncomfortable place to sleep, Jervis noted as he sat up and his back cracked, but at least he’d slept. Beside him, Jon lay curled up in a ball and with another blanket (Jervis didn’t know where this one came from; he was quite certain they had only packed the one) pulled over his shoulders. His hair stuck out in every direction and his eyes were tightly closed. The Scarecrow costume was thrown haphazardly across the room, burlap and straw blending in with the abandoned feeling of the whole house. “I’ll be back in a bit,” Jervis said softly. Jon just pulled the blanket up and over his face.When he returned, carrying a bag of food he had requested from a very rich-looking man who lived a couple of streets away, Jon had put away the scarecrow costume and sat back down with the blanket on his lap. “Breakfast?” Jervis asked cheerily.Jon eyed the bag suspiciously. “Thanks.”“So did you want to do that test today?” Jervis asked several minutes later around a mouthful of sandwich. “See if you can hypnotize people?”“We probably should. For scientific integrity.” Jon threw an apple in the air until it almost hit the ceiling and caught it again.“Aren’t you curious?”He nodded. “That too.” The first test told them everything they needed to know. Jon, pocketwatch in hand, had approached a middle-aged woman on a side street as Jervis lurked around a corner.“Can you hear my watch ticking?” He’d asked.The woman looked down her nose at him, a truly impressive feat considering Jon was nearly a foot taller than her. “Whatever you’re selling, I’m not buying. Move along.”“It has a very distinctive noise, don’t you think?” Jon said, looking her in the eyes.“Kids these days!” The woman tutted, sidestepping Jon and walking away. Jervis winced.“So we know it’s not just the watch,” he offered, stepping back out into the street as the woman turned a corner at the end of the block.“Definitely,” Jon said, shaking his head. “But the question remains if you can do it with a different watch, or if the combination is necessary.”“This is the only watch I have.”Jon raised an eyebrow at him. After successfully lifting a watch from the pocket of a gentleman walking in a nearby park, Jervis was ready. The new watch didn’t have a gold cover like his; it was a silver-faced thing with the time permanently displayed. It felt different in his hand somehow. If he didn’t know that both were inanimate, he would have almost said less alive. This time, their target was a young man emerging from a carriage. “Excuse me, sir,” Jervis said walking up to him. “Can you hear my watch ticking?”The man raised an eyebrow. “Yes, what of it?”“It has a very distinctive noise, don’t you think?” He looked into the man’s eyes, which was somewhat difficult as the man was taller than him and not paying him much attention. “It almost matches with your heartbeat.”“So it does,” the man observed. “I really must be going.”“Just a moment - the ticking is rather curious, isn’t it?” He refused to break eye contact, and slowly, he could see the will to leave drain from the other man’s eyes. “Yes.” “Would you tap that street sign?” Jervis asked, pointing to one at the far end of the block.“Why?”“Just do it.”Much to the puzzlement of the still-present carriage driver, the man walked back the way he had come, tapped the street sign, and walked back.“Like that?”“Just so, thank you,” Jervis smiled. “Well, I think that settles it,” Jervis said as he and Jon walked back to their temporary home. “That was much more difficult with the new watch, so it has to be some sort of combination of me and my watch.”“But it did still work with the new watch, so it could just be you.”“True, but shouldn’t it have been easier if it was just me?”“This seems like the sort of thing that needs practice. You’re more used to your watch, so it’s easier with that one.”“True.” Then, almost as an afterthought, he added “I like my watch, though.”“It certainly is stylish,” Jon laughed. For a few minutes, they walked in silence, passing block after block of houses. The sun was starting to dip lower in the sky, and taller houses occasionally blocked it out, sending long shadows over the streets. “Does this mean you’re magic?” Jon asked, determinedly looking at the sky.“I don’t think so. That would be,” he trailed off for a second, “incredible.”“Yeah. But so is mind control.”Jervis sighed. “I guess so.”When they were almost back to their house, they passed a row of posters tacked up on the wall of a building. They were done in the same red and yellow as the poster they’d found the previous night, but there were so many more of them. The dangerous-looking woman labeled “Knife Thrower” was still there, but she was joined by a man so muscular he was almost square-shaped, lifting comically large barbells while roaring, labeled “Strong Man” and a small woman with curly brown hair in a shiny leotard whose body was twisted into an impossible shape labeled “Contortionist.”Jon pointed at the posters. “Hey, weren’t we going to see the show?”“That was the plan, yes,” Jervis said with a smile. The circus was nothing like Jervis expected. It was just so much, all the time. So many people, probably more than he’d ever seen before. It certainly felt that way, at least. So many attractions - in addition to the main show in the big tent, there were at least a dozen smaller ones along the side, each offering a different sort of spectacle. There was someone who could eat fire, and someone said to be the world’s strongest man, and a woman who could twist her body into unnatural shapes.In each tent, and in the walkways in between, was a sea of people. They came out in droves - the rich in their furs and silks, and the poor in their ragged clothes with soot or oil still under their fingers. The sun was setting, and they were cast in the yellow glow of lamps placed at strategic intervals, leaving no room for the oncoming shadows. It must be the opening night, Jervis guessed. Either that, or there were more people in this city than he had ever thought possible.The crowd was intoxicating. Everyone rushed around, but no one saw them. To everyone else, Jon and Jervis were just two more bodies in this sea, completely overlooked except for when they happened to be standing in someone else’s way. Just for now, he was no one, and it forced him to stay in the present, in his own mind, in a way he didn’t entirely enjoy but which was too different for him to do anything other than get swept up in it.“Where should we go first?” He asked, his gaze flitting over the countless different signs before them.Beside him, Jon shrugged. When he looked over at him, Jervis saw that Jon had hunched his shoulders and generally retreated into his clothes in what appeared to be an almost unconscious effort to make himself look smaller.“Hey, are you okay?”Jon nodded. “Yeah. It’s just a lot - it’s different.”Jervis nodded in agreement.A few minutes later, they sat down in the big tent. The seats were staggered, with each row being a little higher up than the one in front of it. Their seats were near the back, so they sat high above the ring. The ring itself was empty, as the show here hadn’t quite begun yet, but most of the seats were full, and boys carrying trays of popcorn and peanuts walked up and down the aisles selling their goods. “Would you like anything?” Jervis asked.Jon raised an eyebrow. “We don’t have money.”“I don’t need money.”“I know.”“So would you like me to get you anything?”“It’s a lot to get used to.”Jervis raised an eyebrow. “All of this.” Jon waved his hand at nothing in particular. “The people, the city, everything. We moved. And you can control people’s minds! It’s just a lot to take in.”The elderly couple in the seats next to them turned their heads when Jon mentioned the hypnosis, but they quickly pretended not to have heard when Jon gave them his best death glare. He could be terrifying even without the mask, Jervis thought proudly. He just hoped that death glare was never turned on him.“I know.”Jon opened his mouth to speak and promptly shut it again. “Does it bother you?”The crowd hushed as a tall man in a red and black outfit walked to the center of the ring. “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to tonight’s show!” He said, and somehow his voice boomed through the entire tent. Jon gave Jervis a ‘We’ll talk later’ look, then turned to the ring as an elephant entered. The show was the most fantastical thing Jervis had ever seen. Every part of it was brighter than anything he’d ever seen - the elephants, draped in their red cloth and gold adornments, were just the beginning. The light bounced off the skintight green and pink costumes of the jugglers, who rolled around the rink balancing on giant balls while tossing glinting knives in the air. The clowns, with their painted faces and red wigs, were dressed every color of the rainbow as they joked with the audience. And when the acrobats came out, he thought it surely must be Wonderland. They soared through the sky above him, flipping in midair as they threw each other from beam to beam fearlessly. The wind howled outside, but somehow the thin canvas walls protected them, kept Jervis hidden in a beautiful world he half thought he was imagining.Afterwards, though the wind had died down, the night air was too cold for April. Jervis barely noticed it. He and Jon did not speak as they walked back to their hideout together; Jervis was far too lost in his head. When they arrived, though it was late and he should by all rights have been tired, he was far too wired to sleep. Instead, he merely dressed for bed and lay down, intending to run through his memories of the evening all night. Alice would have liked to see it, he thought. “Jon?” Jervis asked much later, lying on his back and staring into the dark that blocked his view of the ceiling.“Hm?” Came the response from the patch of floor next to him.“Everything is so different here. It was so bright, and the people - it looked like they were flying.”“It was loud,” he said, and Jervis knew he didn’t just mean the volume.“It was like a dream, but all right there in front of me.”A few moments passed before Jon spoke. “What happens now?”“Whatever do you mean?” Asked Jervis, who knew perfectly well what he meant.Jon sat up and looked down at Jervis. “We are sleeping on the floor of an abandoned house and the only reason I know we will have food tomorrow is because you can make people give it to you, which is scary, not just because it makes me totally dependent on you, but also because you can do mind control and yes I know you’re going to say it’s hypnotism so it’s ‘different’ but it’s not, really, and neither of us knows anything about where we are, and we have no path forward.”“You carry concentrated fear in your pocket, so I think we are even,” Jervis said, sitting up and pulling the blanket over his shoulders, though the night wasn’t cold.“That’s hardly the extent of what I said, and you know it.”This was quickly shaping up to be the first time he had ever fought with Jon, and he didn’t like it at all. Even when Jon hadn’t been speaking to him, Jervis had never had this creeping sense he’d done something wrong before. He twisted his fingers in the blanket.“Tonight was fun, right? Why can’t we just have fun?”“Because we’re not kids anymore, Jervis. Because you decided we were leaving home, and now we could get arrested, or murdered. If we hadn’t found this house, we would be sleeping on the street. And because while I don’t know about you, I didn’t leave to have fun. I left to finally become something, and I certainly can’t do that if we are just going to the circus all the time.”“Why not?” Jervis asked, and when Jon gave him a look and opened his mouth to speak, he hurriedly continued. “I could take as much money as we need, but you don’t want me to do that, though I don’t understand why. So if we worked at the circus, they would pay us, and I believe they provide food and accomodation as well.”“What would I do? Your skill is obvious, they can market the hypnotism, but they wouldn’t take kindly to terrifying their patrons, and I’m not going to shovel elephant dung for a living.”Admittedly, Jervis hadn’t gotten much past the initial idea in his spur-of-the-moment plan. He tried to make his face unreadable as he racked his brain for an idea, but wasn’t sure if he succeeded. “You can draw.”“Caricatures?” Jon asked with a look that made his view of that idea very clear.“Do you have another idea?”“No.”“Then we’ll see about it tomorrow.” He lay down, facing away from Jon, and wrapped himself in the blanket once more. There was a rustling behind him as Jon too lay back down, and he didn’t need to look to know that Jon lay with his back to him and his arms crossed.A few minutes later, Jon spoke into the darkness. “If we work at the circus, you’re getting me books.”“As many as you’d like.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The sun was high in the sky when Jervis approached the site of the circus the next day, wearing his best hat. This was not his favorite (the purple one) but rather the one in which he felt people would take him seriously (the black one). Unfortunately, he realized, there were some times in which people had to view him as a sane adult, and this was one of them. Jon had made no such effort. He hovered slightly behind him, shoulders hunched under a threadbare jacket and hair clearly unbrushed. Something about him looked distinctly out of place - quite possibly the way he squinted in the sunlight as though it was unfamiliar to him.Around them, the circus was empty. Metal sheeting had folded down over the window in the ticket seller’s booth, and a hand-lettered sign reading ‘closed’ leaned against it. The big top’s fabric, though vibrantly painted under the spotlights of the night’s shows, was slightly faded in daylight, and the sideshow tents set up in a semicircle around it were all closed off and uninviting.“So what happens now?” Jon asked, raising his eyebrows with mock innocence and looking around. Jervis shrugged. He hadn’t thought that far ahead.“Are you going to ask someone to come talk to you, or what?”Jervis shot Jon a glare that was not nearly as full of irritation as he thought it should have been. “Who should I ask?” He gestured expansively at the completely empty circus before them.“There’s no gate,” Jon said, pointing with his head towards the unblocked walkway toward the tents. “Come on. There has to be someone around.” While the night before the circus had been magical, its impermanence only adding to the air of wonder and spectacle that permeated it, that air faded in the daylight. The sideshow tents no longer promised a world of impossibility (for a small extra fee, of course). The frantic rush of people to see, to experience everything was gone, as was the music that trumpeted over their hubbub. As they wandered, looking for anyone they could find, the circus showed them this, its true face, in an attempt to scare the newcomers away.It didn’t work.“Are you sure this is where you want to be?” Jon asked for what must have been the third or fourth time in the last day. “Everything seems… almost like an illusion.”“In what way?”Jon shrugged. “It’s only pretending to be magic. What you can do is real, but you let yourself get caught up in this anyway.”“It’s real enough. “ Jervis did not consider his hypnotism to be real magic any more than the acrobats that seemed to fly the previous night. Real was, in his opinion, more about the effect the magic had on the viewer than whether it truly existed or not. He wasn’t sure how to go about saying that, so instead he said “Anything can be magic if you believe it is.”“Hmm.”“And I am sure I want to be here,” said Jervis, who had never been sure of anything in his life. “Do you want to be elsewhere?”“No,” Jon said in a tone that indicated he might mean yes but would never say that.“Okay then.”“Okay.”Jon crossed his arms, then immediately uncrossed them to point at someone emerging from the back of the big top. “Did you see him?”Jervis smiled as they walked over to the man. He was tall and incredibly muscular, the kind of person that looked like they could probably snap bones like they were made of paper. “We’re closed,” he said, voice short and snappish. “Show’s at 8.”“I know,” Jervis said, maintaining a calm, pleasant smile. “We are seeking employment, so if you could direct us to whomever we should speak to about such a matter, we will gladly be on our way.”“Show’s full, kid,” said the man, who couldn’t be more than a year or two older than Jervis. “Scram.”“I told you this was a dumb idea,” Jon muttered.“Oh, of course. But first, I was just wondering if you’d noticed my watch ticking? It makes a very distinctive noise.”Jon rolled his eyes in the most obvious manner possible as Jervis pulled his watch out of his pocket. The other man’s eyes began to grow hazy. When they had completely fogged over, Jervis put his watch away. “What’s your name?” He asked. “Butch.”“Well, Butch, lead the way!” Butch was less than amused when Jervis pulled him out of his trance in front of the ringmaster. He cracked his knuckles threateningly as he stalked off, and Jervis knew he could remember everything that had happened while he was hypnotized. Most embarrassingly for Butch, the ringmaster had asked Jervis for proof of his skill, and he had made Butch dance like a ballerina, a task for which the man was not suited in the slightest.Jervis passed the ringmaster’s little test with flying colors, and was given permission to join the circus as a sideshow act (apparently they’d had a vacancy since the snake dancer went missing a few years ago).“You’ll have to set up and refit the tent for your purposes, of course,” the man said. “During this time, you will design your act and perform it for me and the other performers, as it has to be perfect before it can begin. And we reserve the right to discontinue your act if it does not prove profitable. You’ll be assigned an area to sleep, and you’ll eat with the rest of the crew. Any questions?”Jon raised a hand and pointed at himself, a clear gesture of “What about me?”“You?” The man echoed, seemingly just realizing Jon was present. Jervis felt a sharp flare of anger on Jon’s behalf.“It’s a package deal,” Jervis said with a clearly feigned apologetic tone.“What does he do? Doesn’t look like much of a performer.”“I can draw. Good for posters, caricatures, whatever you need.” Jon didn’t say “Don’t disparage me, I can make you so scared you’d wish you were dead,” but Jervis got the feeling that’s what he’d rather be saying.“You’re gonna have to work on your customer service voice, kiddo. And you have any kind of a portfolio?”“No.” Jon pulled his sleeves farther over his hands.They hadn’t exactly brought everything with them when they’d left the island, but Jervis hadn’t realized that Jon had left the sketchbooks he’d been so determined to keep for all those years. He made the best ‘I’m sorry’ face he could while trying to remain professional.“No?” The ringmaster asked.“That’ll be my fault,” Jervis explained. “We’ve been traveling light.”With a big sigh, the ringmaster said “Well, we’ll have to see some of your work first, but for the next week you can help out with other stuff behind the scenes. Grunt work mostly. You think you can manage that?”“Yes.”“Excellent. I really must go - customers to attend to, show to run. Butch will get you settled in.”Butch walked back in, glowering. His refusal to look directly at either of them and the way he held himself in an attempt to appear even taller and more intimidating than usual led Jervis to believe he was still shaken by having his mind controlled. He’d probably just made an enemy, or at the very least, someone with whom he would never be friendly. This was no great loss.They took their leave of the ringmaster, after he said a few enthusiastic and heavily disguised words about the impermanence of their situation and their newness to the show, words which were repeated with much more clarity and emphasis by Butch after they stepped outside.Jervis simply smiled, nodded, and gestured for Butch to lead the way. He did. On Jervis’s first night in the circus, he woke in the dark to the sight of a candlelit grin.“Jon,” he said sleepily, “it seems the Cheshire Cat is in our tent.”From his bed on the other side of the room, Jon grunted and threw a pillow at Jervis. It hit the floating grin, which swore loudly.“Are you quite alright?” He asked.The candle moved, and its light showed a face attached to the grin. The face was very pale, had spiky red hair above it, and possessed eyes that were, Jervis ventured to guess, crazier than his own. It was also talking. “You coulda made me drop this and catch the whole tent on fire!” The intruder admonished.“Can you two shut up so I can sleep?” Jon mumbled.“Jon, there is an intruder in our tent!”“Yeah,” the redhead smiled lazily, “there’s an intruder.”Jon sat up and narrowly opened his eyes. “If you’re going to kill me, get on with it or leave me alone.” He flopped back down and pulled his blanket over his eyes.“I’m not gonna kill you. I just wanted to see what you’d do. I’m Jerome,” he said, doffing an imaginary hat.“Jervis Tetch,” Jervis said.“I know. Welcome to the family,” Jerome said sarcastically.“I’m gonna kill you,” Jon muttered.“This place sure is -” he whistled expressively. “It’s somethin’ all right. Does he make death threats often?”“I’m afraid it might not be a threat if you remain in this tent longer yet.”“Oh you rhyme!” Jerome exclaimed. “I’ve gotta tell Miah. And to think I make fun of him for being a nerd! Y’know, I never thought I’d find someone who could out-nerd him, but I think -”“I think it would be best if we continued this conversation when we’ve all gotten more rest.”Across the tent, Jervis could see the metallic glint of one of Jon’s fear toxin needles shine in the candlelight. He wasn’t going to use it, as he didn’t sit up fully, but he still waved it at Jerome threateningly.“Okay, okay, I’m going!” Jerome laughed. “Think of this as… a little test. Tomorrow you can meet the rest of the crew.” With that, he disappeared out the open door.Jon dropped the needle. “What the hell is this place?”Jervis shrugged. “Somewhere new.” Jervis watched in disbelief as the tent pole fell down yet again. The sideshow tents clustered around the big top in a semicircle, and he’d been assigned an empty space at the far end of the row. He was trying to set up the old snake dancer’s tent so he could see what space he would have to work with and would need to be changed, but he had absolutely no idea how to put up a tent. Jon laughed. He’d found a small stack of crates nearby and had immediately sat down and curled up against one with his sketchbook. Later, he’d have to go wash the dishes from lunch (when the ringmaster had said grunt work, he’d apparently meant doing anything and everything that needed doing), but for now he was free.“You could help me with this, you know.” Jervis was not being serious. He did not expect Jon to help him.Jon just smiled softly and went back to his drawing. When, some time later, Jervis had finally gotten the tent to stand upright of its own volition, a much harsher laugh sounded.“I was beginnin’ to think you’d never get it.” Jervis looked up and spotted the redhead that had broken into his tent - Jerome - walking towards him. Except, for some reason, there were two of him, and one wore glasses. “That’s going to fall,” said the other Jerome, who was looking skeptically at the tent. “You have to -” he kept talking, explaining how the tents were set up and how exactly this one needed to be fixed while actually doing the fixing. “There,” he said when he was done.“Aw, come on. You couldn’t’ve let it fall? That woulda been funny.” Jerome-with-glasses glared at Jerome. “For you.”“Anyway, this killjoy is my brother Jeremiah. He’s a nerd.”Jeremiah glared at him. “I take it you already know Jerome. He thinks setting things on fire is the pinnacle of entertainment.”“When they come up with something cooler, I’m willing to change my mind,” Jerome shrugged. “Miah, this is… oh fuck, what’re your names again? They’re new.”“Jervis Tetch.” If Jervis had been wearing one of his hats, he would have tipped it. As it was, doing any kind of manual labor made wearing a hat nearly impossible, something he dearly regretted, so he nodded.“He rhymes,” Jerome stage-whispered to Jeremiah. “Like a kids’ book. It’s weirder than you.”Jon looked up from his sketchbook, which he had been focusing on in an attempt to pretend that Jerome and Jeremiah were not there. “Jonathan,” he said.“And he threatened me with a knife, which makes him much cooler.”“I don’t rhyme all the time,” Jervis said, before realizing that he had in fact just rhymed.“And it wasn’t a knife,” Jon added, though he sounded pleased that Jerome thought this made him cool. “Though if it had been, that would have been a reasonable response to finding you in my room while I was sleeping.”“Why did you join the show?” Jeremiah asked, suspicious. “Usually, you’re born into it or you’re running from something. People don’t just join.”Jon pointed to Jervis and said “Followed him” at the same time as Jervis said “I’m not sure.” “I see.”“The real question is: are you boring?” Jerome asked, adding some jazz hands at the end for good measure. “Not that I don’t hang out with boring people, because I mean, just look at Miah, but they’re… boring.”“Depends on your definition of interesting,” Jon said.“Okay, surprise me. Craziest thing you’ve ever done.”Neither of them spoke. Both, if they were to be completely honest, would answer either “Torturing my father” or “Joining the circus,” but the second option was obvious and the first wasn’t something you brought up upon first acquaintance. Or ever, really.Jerome yawned exaggeratedly. “That’s a point for you, little bro. Guess nobody’s any fun anymore.”“He means nobody else will go along with his half-assed plans and that people occasionally stop him from committing serious crimes.” Jeremiah glared at Jerome.“Why do you want us to be your friends if you think we’re boring?” Jervis asked.Jon had stopped drawing and was slowly flipping his pencil between his fingers. “They never said that’s what they wanted.”“It is,” Jeremiah confirmed. “He’s just hazing you.”Jerome put a hand to his heart in the most theatric, over-the-top manner possible. “Me? Haze the new recruits? Never. I’m the welcoming committee!” As an afterthought, he added “If I were hazing them, I’d make them torch Butch’s tent or steal the ringmaster’s coat or something.”Jeremiah glared at him.“Anyway! Open invite to our little post-show gathering, if you don’t want to sit on your asses all night. Come meet the crew, I guess. See ya there!”Jerome turned and walked away, having said his piece. Jeremiah shrugged before following him. “He’s always like that,” he said. “You get used to it.”“I can hear you!” Jerome called, laughing.“I know!”After the twins had left, Jervis and Jon shared a glance. “That was a lot,” neither of them said, but both wanted to. Instead, they sighed and Jon rolled his eyes.“So do we go with them?” Jervis asked after a very quiet thirty seconds.“Is that what everyone here is like?”“I don’t know. Probably.”“Then yeah, I guess.”Jervis paused for a moment, looking at his now-stable tent. He really needed to learn how to do whatever it was that Jeremiah had done to set it up. “They never told us where to go, did they?”“I think it’s part of the mystery.”“Mystery?”“Jerome wants to be mysterious, to have us interested in him but never understand enough to predict him. Jeremiah wants people to appreciate him and think he’s smart.” Jon shrugged expressively, an impressive feat considering he was still wedged into the corner between the tent wall and the crate he was leaning on. “They’ll make sure we get there somehow, if they want us there.”Jervis nodded, letting his attention drift back to the scene in front of him. Somehow, he had to come up with a show, and he had no idea where to start. That night’s show was just as impressive from behind the scenes as it had been the previous night from the stands. Despite consisting entirely of the same acts in the same order, it felt entirely new. Now, the real show wasn’t the acrobats soaring through the air or Butch lifting a man with each arm. It was watching how everything was done from backstage. Seeing everything that needed to be done (cuing fire at the right second, etc) added a new layer over the show’s fantasy, and Jervis had trouble with it. He felt like he was watching two things at once, the show itself and the backstage, and they were layered over each other but wouldn’t quite match up for him. He spent the show equal parts impressed and confused, not sure which show he was supposed to be watching. The constant thought that he was going to meet friends afterward kept him from projecting his mind off into Wonderland. He’d never had friends before. Except Jon, and Jon hardly counted. Jon was quite literally everything he had in life, and that was a bit more than friends. Regular friends would be a new experience.Having never had regular friends before, Jervis had no idea what to expect. Aside from tripping over Jon in a cornfield eleven years ago and Jerome showing up in his tent, he had no prior experience from which to judge this encounter. Still, it’s safe to say he didn’t expect someone to actually drop from the sky.A girl in a skintight black bodysuit with impressively curly hair did a backflip as she fell from the supports above him, landing gracefully on her feet. No one reacted except for Jervis, who jumped almost a foot into the air and nearly tripped. “Are you Jervis?” She asked.Jervis’s mouth hung open in shock. Did she fall out of the sky often? He resolutely tamped down the impulse to ask if she could fly and nodded a bit overenthusiastically instead.“I’m Selina,” the girl said. “A friend of Jerome’s. He asked me to get you.” She turned around and started to walk away, clearly expecting Jervis to follow, before turning around and walking back. “Wait, where’s your friend?”Jervis shrugged somewhat helplessly. There were just only so many things he could keep up with at once, and two versions of one circus, a girl falling out of the sky, and Jon were far more than he could handle.“So why’re you here?” Selina asked, weaving through the crowd exiting the big top with ease and not waiting to see if Jervis could do the same. “This is usually a pretty tight-knit group. Show hasn’t seen a new face in years.”“Jerome asked us that too,” Jon said, stepping out of an alley between tents. His sleeves were pushed up to his elbows, and in the dim light his skin looked washed-out, almost ghostly. “And who are you?”“You know Jerome is like, actually a loser, right?” Selina said. “Yeah,” Jon said with a short laugh, “but so is he.” He tilted his head to indicate Jervis.“Whatever makes Jerome a loser?” Jervis asked at the same time before processing Jon’s remark and exclaiming “Hey!” Selina stopped walking and turned around to face them. “Jerome is a loser because he thinks he’s way cooler than he is. He once thought it would be funny to try and break in to Buckingham Palace when we were performing in London and ran away as soon as the first guard looked at him funny. Also he rides a unicycle every night in the show which is, I have to say, lame. I’m not sure if you’re a loser,” she said, pointing at Jervis, “but I’m pretty sure you’re creepy.” She pointed at Jon.“I’m not creepy,” Jon grumbled. “That’s just discount scary. And I still don’t know who you are.”“You appeared out of a small alleyway and jumped into conversation,” Selina pointed out. “That’s creepy. And I’m Selina, but the audience calls me Cat. Since I’m in the sideshow, I wrap up earlier than the rest of them, so I got to collect you guys. Come on.” She turned and started walking again. The crowd was still steadily streaming out of the big top, but this time she made sure to slow down a little so they wouldn’t get separated. “I still want to hear about why you’re here.” The rest of the crew, it turned out, consisted of the two most intimidating people Jervis had ever seen. (Though admittedly he hadn’t seen many people in his isolated life, he felt he would be intimidated by these two no matter what.) The knife thrower from the posters stood in front of him, towering over him through a combination of natural height and heels that looked just as dangerous as the knives strapped to her belt, legs, and wrists. Next to her was a woman Jervis assumed from her sparkly, skimpy outfit and overly dolled-up face must be her onstage assistant. Instead of her attire making her look ditzy, however, a sort of manic intelligence sparkled behind her eyes, the sort that made you perpetually unsure of her next move and knowing that whatever it was, it would be brilliant.The intimidation may have also been due to their first encounter - the assistant, who would later introduce herself as Barbara, was in the middle of arguing for bedazzled knives in their act when the knife-thrower, Tabitha, spotted Jerome trying to sneak up behind Barbara. (He would later claim he’d been trying to see if she would jump if he yelled ‘boo’ in her ear. No one knew whether to believe him, as while it truly was a stupid thing to do, it also seemed very likely.) Without so much as blinking, Tabitha flicked one of the knives from her wrist over Barbara’s head, where it whizzed through Jerome’s spiky hair and landed solidly in the wooden post behind him. “I’m being attacked!” Jerome yelled in surprise. “You’re being warned,” Tabitha said. She didn’t smile, but her voice seemed warmer and friendlier than Jervis had expected from such a greeting.“It wasn’t going to work anyway,” Barbara shrugged exaggeratedly, without turning to face him. She hadn’t flinched when the knife had flown over her head, and hadn’t even seemed surprised. “I can see you from a mile away in that outfit.”Barbara really had very little room to talk, as although Jerome’s rather too-tight clothing was painted with a truly alarming color combination, her outfit wasn’t much better. Both shared an overabundance of glass gems to reflect the light and eyeliner that, while helpful for defining faces from a distance, was excessive from any short distance. “I look fabulous, thank you very much,” Jerome said. “Mhm.”No matter how fabulous Jerome thought he looked, it didn’t stop him from changing into non-performance clothing as soon as the group, which was now complete (they’d met Jeremiah as he left his backstage post), arrived back at his tent. The weird thing about their ‘gathering’ was how absolutely literal its name was. Jervis had assumed that Jerome had some sort of plan, and it turned out that the extent of the plan was to see if anyone else had a plan. Since that had been everyone’s plan, the seven of them just perched around the tent (after first rejecting several offered plans, most notably Barbara’s suggestion of stealing fireworks and setting them off over a nearby river, which had been enthusiastically supported by Jerome and which it seemed to have physically pained Selina to reject on the grounds that ‘You almost got arrested last time.’). Jon, who Jervis could tell was tired and didn’t particularly want to interact with anyone from how close he stayed to Jervis, started discussing how to make their own fireworks with Jeremiah. From how seriously they seemed to be considering it, the project seemed likely to happen in the future. The necessity of several materials obtainable only through theft didn’t seem to put them off the project in the slightest.After about an hour and one truly unfortunate rhyme from Jervis, Tabitha unfolded herself from where she and Barbara had been practically laying on top of each other.“Leaving already?” Barbara asked.“I have somewhere to be,” Tabitha shrugged.“Oooooooh!” Jerome sang, mocking. “Butch and Tabby, sitting in a tree, F - U - C - K - I - N - G.”Tabitha spoke over him and rolled her eyes. “Besides, there’s only so much weird I can take.”“I’m weird.” Barbara put a hand over her heart in mock offense.Tabitha leaned closer to Barbara, her ponytail falling over her face in a way that seemed to separate them from the rest of the room. “And I love you. But I’d use him for target practice.”“Rude!” Jerome called, clearly not offended.Tabitha held her middle finger up to Jerome as she kissed Barbara longer and deeper than was, in Jervis’s opinion, absolutely necessary. The whole exchange had felt slightly stilted, and that kiss only confirmed his suspicions - they’d had this interaction so many times it was practically a show to them. Tabitha couldn’t just leave without the intricate pattern of insults they’d probably spent years ironing out.When they’d finished their little display, Tabitha shot Barbara a low smile filled with enough promises of ‘later’ that just seeing it made Jervis feel dirty. Barbara sent back an exaggerated wink, and Tabitha rolled her eyes at Jerome as she walked out. Almost as soon as she left, Jeremiah started glancing toward the door. He’d long since dropped the fireworks conversation with Jon, but the two of them had still been talking until Jeremiah seemed to become distracted with something outside the tent. Jon had simply looked between Jeremiah and the exit with a raised eyebrow before shrugging, pulling a charcoal pencil out of his pocket, grabbing Jervis’s wrist, and starting to sketch. This was very inconvenient for Jervis, as he’d been right in the middle of trying to explain how he hypnotized people, and this explanation had required a lot of rather dramatic hand gestures that were abruptly cut off.While Jon may not have commented on Jeremiah’s sudden antsiness, the others certainly did.“Sneaking out?” Jerome asked with an exaggerated eyebrow wiggle.“I am not ‘sneaking out,’” Jeremiah said with a glare. “I’m just going out. I’ll be back later.”“Get ‘im!” Selina called, laughing. Barbara whistled loudly.“Is there something we should know about where he is going to go?” Selina shrugged dramatically. Jeremiah’s face flushed bright red and he hurried out of the tent, refusing to acknowledge his friends’ mocking. “That man wouldn’t know romance if it bit him on the ass,” Barbara said, shaking her head sadly. “And it probably has.” Not long afterward, the rest of the gathering dispersed. Jon let go of Jervis’s wrist, which now bore a rough, smudged sketch of the Cheshire Cat, as they walked back. His fingers were almost black from the charcoal, which he rolled between his fingertips instead of trying to clean them. “Do you approve of our new compatriots?” Jervis asked. He had no idea what Jon would say - he thought they were entertaining, if a bit strange and complicated. However, they were all so much. Jon had always preferred quieter things, and he certainly wasn’t the type to particularly enjoy the type of loud socializing and gossiping that Jervis thought was probably the group’s main pastime.He still couldn’t quite believe that they had friends at all. Friends was such a novel idea, and one that he found himself very much enjoying. These were people who, even if they mocked him for rhyming, didn’t truly mind, because they were just as strange as he was. Jon paused for a moment, considering. He put the pencil back in his pocket and nodded. “They’re interesting. I like them, but they confuse me.”“Why?”“Do they not confuse you too?” Jon cocked his head to the side.The issue was, everyone confused Jervis. He had absolutely no idea how people’s minds actually worked, he only knew how to control them. His mind didn’t work the way other people’s did, he was fairly sure of that, but he didn’t really care. Other people couldn’t go to Wonderland or blink out of reality, and he thought that must be pretty boring for them.“I suppose.”“Hm.”They didn’t speak further that night, but Jervis noticed Jon changed into his scarecrow shirt instead of a pajama shirt when he lay down to sleep. As their first week at the circus drew to a close, Jon slept in the scarecrow shirt more often. Once, the mask lay discarded on the floor when Jervis woke up. Though neither of them saw, that morning the newspaper published an account of “a demonic visitation” that brought “dreadful terror” to a wealthy household a few blocks away. Jervis meant to ask him about it, he really did. It’s just that with the stress of building a show and the newnesss of everything and how fast the time seemed to go (he blinked and somehow, three days passed), he forgot. And besides, everything seemed - well, not normal. Normal hadn’t truly existed since they’d boarded the ferry away from their island. But it was similar, an easy routine where the most concerning elements were their friends fondness for crime (which admittedly wasn’t particularly concerning, as neither of them cared overmuch about laws anyway). They started their real jobs - Jervis thoroughly enjoying the theatricality and thrill of his performance, and Jon grumbling about stuck-up customers with a small smile and graphite-stained fingers.On their first official day, Jon sat with one other artist, an easel propped open in front of him. Opposite him was a young girl, smiling wide as she waited for her sketch. She held a tub of popcorn and had a flower in her hair, both of which were larger than life on Jon’s paper. Behind her, a tall woman with a pointy nose and a fur collared coat stared at Jon menacingly, as though if he took much longer she would demand to speak to his manager.Jervis waved, and Jon smiled with half his mouth and rolled his eyes at his customers with good-natured irritation. A second later, he was already looking back down at his art.For a reason he couldn’t quite place, that small smile left him feeling strangely light. Just happy to see his friend happy, he guessed. A crowd gathered in Jervis’s tent, hushed and expectant. It was his first performance for an audience other than other members of the circus, and he knew it was going to go perfectly.Jervis held up his pocketwatch. “Can you hear the ticking?” He asked the woman in front of him. She was older, with hair starting to gray and the beginnings of crows’ feet, but her eyes were so alive. “It synchronizes with your heartbeat. Look into my eyes. Not above them, not below them, but deep into their center. Are you ready?”All the light that had been in that woman’s eyes was gone, glazed over by his hypnosis.“Yes.”“Excellent.”In the rest of the tent, the crowd whispered to each other dismissively. They didn’t believe in what he could do yet, but that was okay. He would show them.“Cluck like a chicken.”The woman brought her hands to her shoulders, forming wings with her elbows that she flapped as she squawked. A wave of laughter rushed through the crowd.“When I clap my hands, you will become a cat.” Jervis couldn’t keep his enjoyment out of his voice. He could do anything he wanted (Well, within reason. He did have a job to keep.) and this woman would be utterly powerless. He clapped his hands.Immediately, the woman stopped flapping her arms and began meowing, high and shrill. This time, Jervis knew he had the crowd. Everyone in that tent saw what he could do, and they were awed by it. Was it always like this here?Sadly, the sideshow couldn’t last forever. He’d embarrassed this woman enough, and besides, the night was almost over.“I will count to three, and you will awaken with no memory of your animal impersonation. One, two, three!”The woman stopped meowing and shook her head. The life flooded back into her eyes and Jervis smiled over his disappointment. It had been fun, having a plaything. The audience clapped for him, and Jervis knew he had done the right thing in coming to the circus. “Do we have any other brave volunteers?” He asked, scanning the room despite knowing there was no time. Looking out at all of them, he knew he could do anything if he wanted to. More than making a potbellied man do a perfect headstand - he could make a little girl rob a bank if he wanted, and if he asked her to whistle while she did so, she would. But he didn’t even need to hypnotize them to make them applaud. They were impressed by him, by his talent and the way he commanded the stage.This was going to be so much fun.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Jervis wandered in and out of the maze of tents. Tonight’s show had ended hours ago, and by now even the last of the crowd was long gone. The circus was quiet around him – this part of it, anyway. He knew parties raged in the clowns’ tent and out behind the acrobats’ section. The same thing happened after every performance. The light from their trash can fires and the tipsy, off-key singing filtered to where Jervis stood, but if he really concentrated, he could block it out. When he looked up at the sky, it looked nothing like the sky on the island. The clouds, when they came, felt sick. Even on a clear night (as this was) tendrils of a thick, brown-grey smog curled just above him. But if he looked beyond all that, he could still see the same stars he had always known. Alice or Jon might know the names of the constellations. He had never bothered to learn them. Still, they gave him a form of comfort. Everything had changed when they left the island, and he had truly found himself here, he thought. Sometimes though, he needed a reminder that the two worlds existed under one sky.As he wandered, Jervis noticed a noise coming from one of the tents. Light shone out from under the opening and from where it had not been properly closed. Who was in this tent? As far as he knew, no one lived here. He hadn’t been paying much attention to where he had walked, but he had made sure to stay as far away from the gatherings of drunk carnies as possible. That meant he should be near the big top, and that this was a sideshow tent. Someone had clearly left their lantern in the tent, Jervis decided. A simple mistake (and one he had made more than once, in his early days when he still lost large patches of time), but a fire hazard nonetheless. He began to pull aside the thick canvas over the opening when he heard the noise again. Jervis froze. He had opened the tent enough to see inside, but not enough for him to be noticed by the tent’s occupants. He’d been right, this was a sideshow tent – Selina’s tent, to be specific. Inside was a small, boxy wooden stage that rose a foot or so off the ground and sported a shimmering red backdrop. Clearly there was some sort of wall under the red cloth, because a tall dark-haired boy a year or two younger than him had pinned Jeremiah to it with what looked like excessive force. The boy’s suit jacket lay discarded behind them on the stage. He stood in an unbuttoned undershirt, suspenders pushed back off his shoulders, legs intertwined with Jeremiah’s. Jeremiah’s shirt and sweater were nowhere to be seen. They kissed like for them love was violent, each trying to completely claim the other, biting and bruising with their mouths while their arms pulled each other impossibly closer. The boy’s mouth dipped to Jeremiah’s neck. The wall behind them creaked as Jeremiah’s whole body shivered in ecstasy. Jervis knew he should go. What Jeremiah and this boy were doing was private. But he couldn’t move. He was stuck in that place, watching. If someone were to ask, he would say it was shock that kept him rooted to the spot. But he knew it wasn’t. In his brief time off the island, he had of course encountered husbands and wives and mistresses, was aware of ladies of the night of all ages. Somehow, he had thought that what he had seen was the limit of desire. That there were some things that were acceptable – the married couple holed up in their home at night – and things that were not accepted but somehow understood and overlooked – the gentleman stealing moments alone with his servant, or with another’s wife, or with some girl they would pay for their short time. But Jervis had lived on this earth for twenty-one years, and he had never dreamed that there were men who would rather fall into each other’s beds (or, in this case, take each other on a wall).Of course, he knew Barbara and Tabitha were together, as they certainly had made a big enough show of it. But that was different, somehow. He’d been introduced to them as the two-headed entity Barbara-and-Tabitha, and though he’d started to get to know Barbara since then, there was no room in Jervis’s mind for the two of them not being in a relationship. It was simply how things were. And even then, for how much they loved flaunting their relationship with kisses that lasted just long enough to make everyone uncomfortable, he just hadn’t gotten it. But now, he could only stand rooted to the spot as his brain flew through several hoops previously so well hidden he hadn’t even known they were there and watch as they clicked into place.He stood and watched as the boy’s hands fumbled at the button of Jeremiah’s pants, both their eyes closed and their mouths never losing contact. His mind went into overdrive as he stood there, vacantly taking in the scene in front of him as the last few years began to make a lot more sense. Now, he knew exactly what that burning feeling deep in his gut had been as he watched his Scarecrow work. It hadn’t been pride, or a bitter happiness at his revenge, or anything he had tried to convince himself it was. It had been desire. Desire for Jon, when he had finished his twisted work, to make Jervis belong to him in a similar way to he saw in the tent before him. (Just maybe not quite so intensely, or so violently.) But more than that, now he knew why he always felt so protective of Jon, why he found himself suddenly wanting to take his hand when he knew Jon didn’t need to be comforted. Why he felt happier and calmer just because of his presence. It wasn’t simply that he wanted – he stopped himself. It wasn’t that he just wanted his best friend, it was that somehow, he had fallen in love with him without even realizing it. Somehow, Alice had known. He remembered her teasing him about “finding his Rochester,” and wondered how he had missed what had been clear to her. How he had never realized that he could love Jon when there had never been any other possibility for him.The scene in front of him quickly snapped him out of his thoughts. He couldn’t stay there, looking in on them losing more and more clothes, without getting caught and having some unfortunate questions asked of him. He made up his mind to leave. He was still watching, however, when Jeremiah breathed “Stay with me,” to the boy in front of him. The boy’s hands were down Jeremiah’s pants, and Jeremiah appeared to be standing by virtue of the stage backdrop behind him. He opened his eyes. “Stay with me,” he said again. “Just this once.”The boy froze. “You know I can’t,” he said, but he made no effort to remove his hands from their present location. “Why not? No one will find us. Everyone’s out drinking so we’ll have my tent to ourselves for hours.” Jeremiah spoke faster, rushing through his words, begging this boy. “Just think of how good it would be there, with that much time, with a bed – ““I thought you liked this,” the boy said, affronted. His arm moved, and Jeremiah’s eyes fell closed for a second.“Oh, I do.” Jeremiah made sure he conveyed in that word just how much he liked it. “But there, it could be amazing. It wouldn’t feel like we’re sneaking around. I could love you like I’ve wanted to for a long time. Properly. Because,” he took a deep breath, “I love you, Bruce.”Bruce pulled his hands out of Jeremiah’s pants and walked away from him with a sigh. “No, you don’t.”And now Jervis was entranced for a different reason. There was about to be a huge fight, and he wasn’t going to miss a second of it. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he felt bad for spying on his friend having sex and now, he guessed, being dumped, but it really was far too interesting for him to leave.“Yes, I do,” Jeremiah said, hurt and angry and buttoning his pants as fast as possible. “We’ve been doing this for two years. Did you really expect me not to feel anything for you?”“You can’t love me.” Bruce sat on the edge of the stage and ran a hand through his hair, which did not help its extremely disheveled state. “You don’t even know me. Not really. Hell, you’ve never even seen me outside of nights like this. And even if you did, I’m still the richest person around and you’re a circus freak who killed his mother. No one here would catch us, but that doesn’t mean people wouldn’t notice if I didn’t come home.”“That was Jerome,” Jeremiah muttered reflexively. “It was both of you. God, you got rid of your mother’s corpse and you didn’t even care!” Bruce snapped back, voice flat, like this was an argument he’d had before.“You’re right, I didn’t. But that hasn’t kept you away. Why did you keep coming back even when you were engaged if I’m so repulsive to you? Am I just the only guy around who would fuck you and keep quiet about it?”“I care about you, Jeremiah. But it isn’t love, and it never has been.” Bruce grabbed his jacket off the stage and stood up. As he did so, Jeremiah sat down shakily. The last thing Jervis saw before he finally made himself run away was the shine of unshed tears in both their eyes. No one saw Jeremiah the next day. His jobs were done, somehow, but no one could say for certain that they saw him doing them. After the show, Jerome poked his head into Jervis’s tent.“D’you know what’s going on with Miah? He’s been weird all day.”“He’s always weird,” Jon muttered from his bed, where he sat reading a new book. He’d just stolen it that morning, and he loved it.“You’re not wrong,” Jerome said, pointing at Jon. “But he’s weirder than usual. Like hiding-under-the-covers weird. I think he’s been crying.”“And you don’t know why?” Jervis asked. He had to be careful here - if he and Jeremiah were friends, which he thought they were, then he should help him. However, if they were friends, he absolutely could not say why he knew what was wrong.Jerome shook his head. “I think it’s somethin’ to do with that billionaire of his, but he won’t talk to me. D’you think he’d talk to you?”“I’m not hypnotizing your brother for you, Jerome.”“No, not -” Jerome shook his head. “Just talk to him, will ya?”“Okay.”Jervis stood up, looked at Jon, and motioned toward the exit. Jon raised his eyebrows in a clear “Do I have to?” Jervis narrowed his eyes, and Jon put down his book.“We barely know these people,” Jon muttered as they followed Jerome.Jervis shrugged. “I’m trying to make friends.”“Weird way to do that.”“Do you have a problem with them?”Jon shook his head. “They’re fine. Sometimes I just need a break from people after dealing with them all day.”“Friends are different from customers though, aren’t they?” Jervis asked, genuinely confused.“You hypnotize your customers. That’s different.”“Oh. Well you don’t have to come, if you don’t want to.”Jon sighed. “Yes, I do.” When they arrived at Jerome and Jeremiah’s tent, Barbara and Selina were already there. Selina had somehow, defying both gravity and the construction of the tent, perched on one of the tent supports several feet in the air and hovered over Barbara, who had claimed the chair. Jeremiah sat on his bed, shirt wrinkled from being slept in and blankets still piled around him. His hair stuck up in odd angles, and if he looked closely, Jervis thought he could see tear tracks on his face. “Any luck?” Jerome asked as he walked in.Barbara shook her head. “Nope. He’s sitting up though, which is an improvement.”“I’m right here, you know,” Jeremiah said, sounding less angry than he probably meant to.“Yes, you’ve been there all day,” Barbara said. “Well, the gang’s all here.” Jerome motioned for Jon and Jervis to join them inside and sit down. “Anyone here you’ll talk to?”“Can I just go back to sleep?”“Miah, we’re here because we care about you,” Selina said. “So no, we’re not just going to let you sit in here and cry by yourself.”“I haven’t known you long,” Jervis said hesitantly, “but I and everyone else here want you to be happy, and right now, you’re not. So we’re here to help.”Jeremiah dramatically fell back down on his bed, landing face-first into his pillow with a muffled ‘oof’. “Fine. He said he didn’t love me, implied I wasn’t capable of loving him, and I would say broke up with me except apparently we were never together in the first place. Are you happy now?”“Shit, I’m sorry.”“How can we help?” Jervis asked.“D’you want me to kill him for you?” Jerome grinned.Jeremiah didn’t move from where he lay face down on his bed. “You probably shouldn’t.”“Well that’s no fun,” Barbara said. “We can’t even mess with him a little?”“I could scare him for you,” Jon offered. Everyone else looked at him in confusion.Jerome raised an eyebrow. “You’re not exactly the scariest person here.”Jervis patted Jon’s knee to stop him from potentially murdering Jerome. “It’s fine dear, maybe best not to.”“I could break into his house and move all the furniture three inches to the left,” Selina offered.“You’re going to get arrested,” Jeremiah mumbled, sitting up.“But it would be funny,” Selina pointed out. “And he’d be pissed.”“Totally! Come on Miah, live a little.” Jerome punched his arm. “Jeez, where’s your muscle?”Jeremiah rubbed his arm instinctively and shot Jerome a withering look.“I’m just saying,” Jerome said, shaking his head in an exaggerated performance of disapproval, “how did he get the billionaire?”Selina rolled her eyes. “Because anyone could see the hearts in his eyes from a mile away.”“Like you were any better,” Jeremiah shot back.Selina hooked her legs over the beam she sat on and fell backwards, dangling from it. “I was never in love with him,” she said, bopping Jeremiah’s nose. He swatted her hand away with a halfhearted glare. “Did you want the billionaire?” Barbara asked Jerome, mocking.“No. But it’s the principle of it.”“What principle?” Jon asked, raising an eyebrow.“Jerome, can things not be about you for one second?” Jeremiah glared at him.“Fine.” He grabbed the back of a chair, spun it around, and sat down so that he rested his chin on its back. “How would you like to celebrate getting played?”Jervis lifted his watch from his pocket. “I could go talk to him for you.”Jeremiah looked vaguely horrified at the concept. “Can I just have a moment to wallow in self-pity?”“You could always get shitfaced. Helps with most problems.” Barbara gestured in his direction before taking a swig from the bottle she held.“Actually, that sounds better.” He held out his hand, and Barbara passed along the bottle.Between the six of them, Barbara’s relatively small supply didn’t last long. Jerome and Barbara laughed when Jervis wrinkled his nose after taking his first drink. He’d never had anything that strong back on the island, and it burned his throat. But it felt pleasantly warm in his chest, and he wasn’t about to back down from what everyone else was doing, so he took another drink the next time someone handed him the bottle. Soon enough, Barbara and Selina had left to pilfer some more – Barbara because she was the only one who knew where the cook kept the good stuff, and Selina because she was quiet enough to steal it. When they returned, the rest of the group had migrated to the outside of Jerome and Jeremiah’s tent and congregated around a trash barrel they’d filled with scrap wood and set on fire. Something usually tended to be on fire, when Jerome was around.Jeremiah had a smile on his face now. Looking just at his eyes, he looked like he could break down into tears at any moment, but for the moment he seemed to be taking Barbara’s advice – getting wasted and having a good time.Jervis stopped drinking long before most of the rest of the group. Jon hadn’t had any, and though he didn’t offer an explanation, Jervis knew it was because he wasn’t fond of mental impairment. But Jervis’s head was buzzing, and he felt like he was floating just an inch or two off the ground, and that kind of mental impairment was, in his opinion, beautiful. Then again, he’d never needed substances to go off into his own little world, so this wasn’t altogether new. What was different was the fact that now, he felt like he could do anything, except maybe walk up stairs really fast.Really, alcohol felt like he had superimposed Wonderland on reality, looking through two different warped lenses at once. And it was fun! For a while. When he tried to fully slip into Wonderland, (which he didn’t quite want to do, for once) he found that he couldn’t. He couldn’t get rid of it either - he was stuck in between two worlds, and if he thought about it at all, he found himself wanting to choose. If he ignored it and let himself float along with the night’s chaotic energy, the world was dazzling.Jeremiah threw something into the fire that exploded with a loud “pop” and made Jerome look at him with an appraising light in his eyes and say “You know what, maybe you know how to have fun after all.” Barbara snuck up on Jeremiah and wrapped her sparkly feather boa around his shoulders when he wasn’t looking. He rolled his eyes, but he didn’t take it off. Looking at them, Jervis thought maybe this was what having friends was like. They were all a bit crazy, but then again, so was he. And maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.Jervis closed his eyes and leaned on Jon. They sat a few feet away from the chaos, using the side of the tent as a backrest. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Jervis knew he hadn’t been this close to Jon recently. He knew there was a reason for it, something more than being busy and not working together anymore. But right now, the pleasant static that filled his head drowned that reason out, so he laced their fingers together and closed his eyes. “Love you,” he mumbled, and he was fairly sure he wasn’t supposed to say that, but it didn’t really matter anyway. Jon didn’t say anything, but he squeezed Jervis’s hand, and that felt like a reasonably good response, so, he told himself, clearly there hadn’t been a good reason for him not saying that.He opened his eyes when a loud, angry yell came from another part of the circus.Barbara laughed. “Guess cook found out what’s missing,” she said, gesturing expansively with the mostly empty bottle she held.“Hey Jerome?” Jeremiah slurred. “D’you want to kill Uncle Zach?”Jerome’s face lit up. “I thought you’d never ask.” A drunk clown found the cook’s body later that night. The ringmaster stood in the entrance to his tent, silhouetted by the light shining from within. Eyes glazed and emotionless, the ringmaster proclaimed “He died of a reaction to spoiled meat. His body will be buried tomorrow.” Behind him, the strong man, eyes similarly glazed, cracked his knuckles in time to the ticking of a clock only he and the ringmaster could hear. Inside the tent, just out of sight, stood Jervis, pocketwatch open and a smile on his face. In the morning, the circus closed down and prepared to move on. The cook’s murder hadn’t slowed them down; if anything, they seemed to be more eager to get out of town. Jervis supervised the burial (private, with only the ringmaster and strong man present) before swinging by Jerome and Jeremiah’s tent.“Do things always move so fast around here?” He asked.“Gotta move fast in case the cops decide they wanna come around,” Jerome explained as he and his brother took down their tent. “Day we stop countin’ on ‘em is the day they’ll show.”
Jeremiah glared at him.“14 stab wounds don’t exactly look like food poisoning, brother dear,” Jerome said. Jeremiah huffed.“Sounds almost like you’ve done this before,” Jervis remarked. Jerome just laughed.Jervis nodded absently and returned to find his and Jon’s tent already taken down. He looked at it, puzzled, before deciding he should probably find something else to do. He didn’t see Jon until that night, when he rolled out his bedroll next to Jervis’s and promptly fell asleep. The next day, they arrived in a new city. Everything was the same, but it was hotter. The May air was muggy in the day and still uncomfortably cold at night. Aside from that though, the circus was the same - same people, same tents, same arrangement. No cook.By the end of the day, the vacancy had been filled. Nobody was quite sure where the new cook came from, though Jervis assumed he was from the city. Someone waiting for their chance to leave. Whatever the case, less than two days after the cook’s murder, the circus had removed all evidence. There was the same buzz in the air that there had been the night Jervis had been to see the show - a flurry of activity, an excitement that was almost contagious. He’d set up his tent in its designated location and wandered around the show as the first trickle of tonight’s crowd drew in. Despite being in a different city, the setup was eerily similar. If it weren’t for the thicker, more humid air, he could have almost been fooled into thinking the show had never moved.Even from across the walkway, Jervis could see that Jon was not having a good time. His shoulders were hunched as if he wanted to disappear, and his frown was sharper than usual. He wore the circus’s mandatory outfit (caricature artists were apparently not of high enough status to choose their own clothes), which did not suit him at all. It was red and yellow and had, of all things, ruffles.
While nowhere near as gaudy as the clown costumes, it was still incredibly bright and a far cry from the patched-up clothes of a somewhat faded brown he was used to.
Jon had customers. Jervis did not care. He crossed through the sea of people to stand near Jon, and asked “Why the long face? Is something wrong?”The customers, a young couple Jon was drawing as sitting astride an elephant, shot him a look of disdain.Jon gave Jervis a look that made him feel very stupid and gestured with his hand, still holding his pencil, at everything around them.“My apologies. Do you care to tell me what it is?”“I’m busy.”“I see that. I was just wondering -”“Jervis, if I want to speak to you, I’ll do so after the show. Right now, I’m working.” He turned back to his customers and smiled. As he walked away, Jervis could hear Jon saying “I’m sorry about that” in a strained fake-chipper voice.Neither of them spoke after the show. Jervis wanted to, but he felt as though he couldn’t, while Jon clearly didn’t want to talk. Still, they walked together in an uncomfortable silence to where they knew their friends would be waiting. (The first time they’d really had an uncomfortable silence, Jervis noted.) “Congratulations. You got away with murder,” Barbara said, deadpan, when they arrived. “Drinks?”The crowd lounged in Jerome and Jeremiah’s tent, which had somehow become their unofficial gathering place. Selina refused to sit on the ground, instead preferring to perch on the back of the tent’s sole chair, which Barbara sat in.Selina raised an eyebrow. “You realize the last time you got this crowd drunk they killed someone, right?”Barbara gave her a look. “Obviously. And we’re going to celebrate!”“Do you ever think you have a bit of a drinking problem?” Jon asked wryly.“So none for you,” she said.“More for me!” Jerome cried, grabbing the bottle while Barbara wasn’t looking and taking a swig. He made a face as it went down, but everyone except Jeremiah pretended not to notice, and all Jeremiah did was laugh quietly.This time, when the bottle got to him, Jervis simply passed it along without taking any for himself. No one commented on it, but Barbara did raise an eyebrow at him. If anyone were to ask, he would say that he didn’t particularly want to drink (ever again) for the following reasons: one, he did not now and indeed had never needed alcohol to separate himself from his body and his problems. Two, he was not a fan of getting preventable headaches. Three, it was (as he had discovered when trying to cover up Jerome and Jeremiah’s rather enthusiastic murder) incredibly difficult to hypnotize someone when he was not fully sober. His fourth reason, and one he would never publicly admit to, was that (as he had discovered that same night) when drunk, he was not smart enough to follow along when Jon talked about science. This was bad. Not only did it make him seem unintelligent, but it also made things very awkward. Jon talking about science was, in Jervis’s opinion, one of the most attractive things he had ever seen. This was one of the only times Jon rambled, and when he did he talked with his hands and his face lit up and he had a little, unconscious smile. Jervis was quite sure Jon was now well aware of how he felt about this and simply choosing not to bring it up, as while Jerome and Jeremiah had been committing murder and the rest of the crew had gathered out back of the kitchens, Jon had attempted to tell Jervis about some discovery he had read about and Jervis had completely zoned out staring at Jon’s face. He had no recollection of what discovery Jon had been so excited to share. He did, however, remember his drunk train of thought, which had centered largely around a long and varied list of ways he could tell Jon he was beautiful and the nearly overwhelming urge to kiss him.Needless to say, he was never drinking again.That didn’t stop everyone else, though. Barbara and her seemingly unending supply of alcohol probably shouldn’t be around a depressed Jeremiah, but no one had any better ideas on how to cheer him up. Jerome smiled more the more he drank, but those smiles ranged anywhere from delusional to threatening. He and Barbara both got louder (and more prone to concocting elaborately violent plans that would hopefully never see the light of day) as the night went on. Jervis wasn’t even sure if Selina drank or if she just liked perching above everyone else and watching their stupidity. Not long after Jerome had announced his intention to freak people out by cutting the eyes out of the Wayne family’s portraits, Jon muttered something about being tired and ducked out, shooting Jervis a small, tired smile that did funny things to his heart as he did so. “You two,” Barbara announced twirling to face Jervis, “are adorable.” Drunk Barbara was much the same as sober Barbara, Jervis had noticed, only louder. It seemed the only effect alcohol had on her was increasing her natural love for drama.Jervis was no stranger to seeing things, but he felt he should let Barbara know that he was, in fact, sitting alone. “Dear, I am the only one sitting here.”Barbara waved a hand impatiently. “You know what I mean. It’s always been -” she leaned in, presumably to whisper, but didn’t lower the volume of her voice at all, “Jeremiah pining, and pining, and sometimes fucking but mostly pining.” She gave up on the fake-whisper pretense. “And we all know Jerome’s a lost cause.”“Hey!” Jerome smacked her arm good-naturedly. “Anyway,” Barbara said, ignoring Jerome, “that gets old. There’s so much potential for new drama here!”“I’m glad to know you think my issues are boring,” Jeremiah said sarcastically.“Shut up,” Jerome said, “I wanna see where she’s going with this.”Barbara smiled and crossed her arms, giving no indication she had heard them. “Spill. I want to know everything.”“Barbara,” Selina said, slinking around to stand beside her, “right now? Don’t you think this seems a little insensitive?”Barbara sighed a deep, dramatic sigh.“It’s only been three days,” she said, nodding at Jeremiah.“Exactly!” Barbara said. “It’s been three days of moping, and, in case you don’t remember, he was the same when his boy got engaged last year. Excuse me for wanting to hear from the only one of you lot in a cute relationship.” She turned to Jervis. “And I say cute despite the fact that you are one of the weirdest people I’ve ever met, which is saying a lot.”Jervis was glad he was not holding a drink, as he felt sure he would have dropped it. “Forgive me if I seem shaken, but I’m afraid you must be mistaken.” He was entirely lost. Did Barbara really think he and Jon were together? Did everyone?“No way,” Jerome said, sitting up from where he had been inelegantly sprawled across his bed. “You two are disgustingly sweet all the time.”Even Jeremiah looked shocked, though he still had his arms crossed in disapproval of the topic of conversation.“You two are giving Babs and Tabby a run for their money for highest PDA levels, and you’re not together?” Selina asked, forgetting her attempt to change the subject.Apparently everyone, in fact, did think that. Drat.He shrugged awkwardly. “No?”Barbara and Jeremiah sighed theatrically for what Jervis assumed were completely different reasons.“I’d better not have to deal with any more dramatic pining. It’s exhausting.” Jerome laughed and dodged the shoe Jeremiah threw at him. “Love ya little bro!”“For the last time, I am literally older than -”“Would you care to explain to me,” Barbara asked with a threateningly sweet smile, gesturing first to Jervis and then to the twins behind her, “why I am living in a dime novel?”Jervis hesitated before saying “I’m mad. You’re mad. We’re all mad, here.”“Yeah, I’ve read the book. What I meant was, why the fuck are you not together?” Barbara looked around for the chair, only to realize that Jeremiah was sitting in it, and sat on his bed instead. “And before you start, I almost got a cavity from how sweet you two were the other day. I’m not blind, you know.”He had a lot of reasons. Really, he did. Good ones too, like how he was pretty sure Jon was mad at him for something and how Jon didn’t like him as anything more than a best friend anyway and how he wasn’t going to mess up his relationship with his best friend in the world, but for some reason what came out of his mouth was “I don’t know.”“Then get out there and find out!” Barbara spun around in her seat to point at the door, and in doing so she almost fell off the bed. When Selina also nodded towards the door, he stood up and left.
As he walked out, Barbara muttered (Or, he thought she meant to mutter. She actually just spoke at a normal volume.) “I do all the work around here!” Jervis stood outside the tent and looked up at the sky. It was dark, but he thought it looked like rain. Selina snuck out behind him.“Is she mad?”“Nah. It’ll blow over by tomorrow. For now though, you’ve got two choices. Actually take Barbara’s advice, which is usually a bad idea but in this case it might be good for you, or don’t and find something else to do.”He stood still long enough for a raindrop to fall on his nose. Behind him, Selina waited, arms crossed.“So everyone thinks that -” He fumbled for a second. All the words in his head were the wrong ones, they didn’t - they couldn’t sum up his feelings. “You all shared the same idea?”“Even drunk you did.”Without turning around, so Selina wouldn’t be able to see how red his face had turned, Jervis asked “What should I do?”“If you’re asking me how to be less obviously head over heels for your best friend, I’m not really qualified to give advice. If you want relationship advice, do whatever feels right. And if you think it’s something Jeremiah would do, maybe don’t do it.”With that, she slipped back inside, leaving as a particularly large raindrop landed right on top of Jervis’s head. He looked up at the sky and sighed, fingers running absentmindedly along the watch in his pocket. Things, it turned out, were much harder to deal with when he couldn’t just make other people see his point of view. He didn’t talk to Jon that night. It wasn’t the time, and he certainly didn’t have enough of a grasp on what he actually wanted to say to him. He had some thinking to do first, otherwise his words would come out all in a jumble, and that certainly wouldn’t help matters. Instead, he went for a walk. Though he had no destination in mind, he enjoyed walking through the slowly increasing rain. This was the second city he’d ever been in, and, as it turned out, it wasn’t too different from the first. Cities, he guessed, were cities, no matter where they were. Or maybe it was just the cities he’d been to. Something about this one felt cleaner than the first. Maybe that was the distance from his father, from everything he’d left behind. Maybe it was the rain, soaking through his clothes and dripping from his hair. It was almost freeing, simply standing in the rain. He’d meant to think as he walked, but thinking didn’t really work that way. There were inevitably distractions and tangents that took you down a completely different path than the one you meant to travel, and it was easier to simply work out what your brain wanted to think about than what you thought you wanted to think about.In Jervis’s case, that meant he only thought about how to do what Barbara wanted and tell Jon about his feelings for a minute or two. He only got as far as realizing that he couldn’t do what he did in every other situation: take cues from the books he’d read, as the few romances he’d read didn’t really offer much in the way of admitting feelings to a lifelong best friend, and certainly not in a situation where neither of the characters were female. But it didn’t really matter, after all. Because soon his mind drifted to why he loved Jon, and while that wasn’t something he’d spent a lot of time thinking about in the past, he got the feeling it would be a heavily revisited topic in the future. There was the obvious fact that Jon was something familiar, something safe. But because of that, Jervis had been able to spend years playing and exploring and laughing, just him and Jon and Alice, kings and queens of their island, and over that time he’d gotten to know Jon. Or at least, he thought he had - he knew surprisingly little other than what Jon had volunteered, and that had never been much. But even if he knew nothing about his home life, he knew Jon. Knew how he was when he went on a research spiral and forgot to sleep. Knew that a new scientific discovery (even if it was only new to him) would leave him excited for days. There was a particular spark Jon got in his eye when he was explaining something he’d learned, a particular way he would read with enough intensity to seem to absorb the book. That side of Jon wasn’t something he’d seem recently, and he missed it. Jervis emerged from his thoughts just long enough to note a small bookstore on the dark street - closed now, but the thin door and windows piled high with volumes meant it would be a good place to take Jon later. He’d probably spend all day in there if he could, Jervis thought fondly. As he slowly wound his way through the now-pouring rain back toward the circus, he let his mind wander off once again. Jon really was beautiful, he thought. Not in a typical way - the world was far too used to the square jaws, gelled hair, and lavish dress of men like Jeremiah’s Bruce. Jon was too skinny for his height, though not sickly, and he’d so rarely gone outside recently that he’d become almost eerily pale. Getting his hair cut and getting clothes that fit were either too much of a hassle or something he actively avoided, meaning his hair was almost long enough to tie back and, when he wasn’t wearing a circus-mandated colorful outfit, he retreated back into his oversized, roughly patched clothes. They were almost a human equivalent of the scarecrow costume, now that he thought about it. He’d only ever seen Jon fully become the Scarecrow once, but it had been beautiful. He’d certainly enjoyed watching his pathetic father squirm, but (now that he knew that’s what he could have been feeling) he had also loved watching the Scarecrow work. Most people would think it weird that he’d found that attractive, he realized, but he certainly had. Besides, he wasn’t sure he was capable of not being weird at this point in life.Gradually, his thoughts trailed off, leaving him with three coherent emotions - he wouldn’t go so far as to call them fully formed ideas - as he slipped back into his and Jon’s tent still soaked through and with a silly smile on his face: beautiful, genius, and a longing so intense it hurt. To hold Jon’s hand like he’d done countless times when it didn’t matter, to hold him and be held by him, to tell him he loved him. Maybe Barbara had been right after all.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Whether or not Barbara was right was irrelevant, Jervis decided when he woke up. The air in their tent smelled faintly chemical, and the makeshift gas mask inside the scarecrow mask lay carelessly on the floor. Jon was still fast asleep, and where his arm hung over the side of his bed, Jervis could see he still wore the rest of the costume. Apparently, he hadn’t been the only one out last night.Even though Jervis was in love with Jon (and he certainly was in love with him, even if he’d only figured this out a few days ago), this wasn’t the time or the place to tell him. Not this specific moment, but more generally not in the current situation, where Jeremiah was still moping and Jon seemed to have a shorter fuse than normal. He wanted it to be the right moment. To be special.Still, that’s not to say he put it out of his mind. He seriously considered it when he saw Jon’s face as they entered the bookstore Jervis had found - wide-eyed and awestruck, looking like he was cataloguing how long it would take him to read every book in the store. Outside was hot and muggy, but the books that blocked almost every inch of the store’s windows had prevented any of that heat from getting inside, so the air was cool, if musty. The books weren’t just piled in the windows to block the sun, however. They sat there merely because every other available space had been filled - shelves lined the walls and formed pathways through the rooms. They reached to the ceiling, though the room wasn’t tall, and were so stuffed with books the shelves bent under their weight. Small piles of books sat elsewhere as well - on the floor, in a corner, dangerously suspended on the doorframe to the back of the shop. A small table with a few simple wooden chairs, the only book-free spot, was set in the corner of the main room, a rather halfhearted invitation for a customer to sit down with a book. Most of the books looked old. This store clearly wasn’t for new books; it seemed to have accumulated old volumes worn down with use. Though a few shiny, new copies stood out, most of the volumes’ bindings were thin or tattered, and the titles had been worn off the spines of many. Jon looked like he was in heaven. His eyes went wide, and he slowly turned his head to take in the whole store. Admittedly, it was a small place, but Jon didn’t seem to realize. Jervis understood - the store itself might be small, but all the books it contained were worlds of their own, just waiting to be explored.“Thank you,” he said quietly before wandering off to explore. He hadn’t turned to face Jervis when he spoke, and he didn’t speak again for the rest of the afternoon, but that was fine. He dove into his books, and Jervis wasn’t sure he would have noticed if the shop burned down around them. Jervis didn’t immediately pick a book. There were just so many, and he wasn’t sure how he would know which book to read. He hadn’t read anything except Alice in Wonderland in such a long time, he wasn’t even sure he remembered how to lose himself in a book like he used to. “Can I help you?” A slightly grumpy voice asked. Jervis turned to see a slightly grumpy man, presumably the owner of the store, standing near the counter. “I’m simply deciding on a book,” Jervis replied. “Do you have any recommendations?”He hadn’t really asked that last part. He’d just said it to be polite - he was scanning the shelves, waiting for something to pop out at him. Some interesting title, or a colorful binding, or even a certain font in the title. It could be anything, really, but he’d find the right book.“Your friend seems to have more than enough books,” the man said, shooting a mildly judgemental look at where Jon had hoarded six or seven books near his seat on the floor. “Why don’t you ask him?”And that was rude, but Jervis didn’t comment. He looked at the books Jon was reading; they looked vaguely scientific to him, something full of long and complicated words and concepts he really didn’t feel like deciphering. A small red book tucked away near the floor caught Jervis’s eye. The binding wasn’t as worn as many of the others around it, suggesting it hadn’t been read often, though it did appear to be slightly stained, possibly from water on the cover. Something about it looked familiar, like something he really should remember.“I think I’ve found one, thank you,” he said as politely as possible.The shop owner glanced down at the book Jervis had pulled from the shelf. “Fan of kids books? Or are you taking it home for someone?”Jervis felt a flash of offense that this man thought he was old enough to have children, ignoring the fact that, technically speaking, he was, and looked down at the book. Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. Of course.“It’s for my sister,” he said, desperately trying to pretend that he hadn’t just gotten extremely emotional. “Her name is Alice, too.”And Jervis knew, logically, that he shouldn’t be on the verge of tears in a bookstore over a random book he’d picked up. He knew that. But it didn’t help. Because the first book he’d picked up, somehow, had been exactly what he’d needed. There was more to Alice in Wonderland, and he’d never known until this moment in a secondhand bookstore. Alice’s story wasn’t over yet, and he didn’t even bother pretending he wasn’t thinking about his sister instead of the fictional character when he thought that.“Well that’s awfully nice of you,” said the man, who clearly hadn’t noticed anything amiss. “How old is she?”“She was 17,” Jervis mumbled, and even to his own ears he sounded upset. The man clearly noticed this time - he nodded and made his excuses and retreated to the back room, from where he could supervise his customers from afar.He didn’t start reading while he sat with Jon in the bookstore - by the time they left, Jon had worked his way through two books and carted several more with him, and Jervis had made it to the title page. He just wasn’t ready quite yet. He barely had to think at all when he hypnotized the owner to think they’d already paid for their books (it was habit at this point rather than necessity), which was good. He didn’t think he could have concentrated if he’d needed to. In the last few weeks, he hadn’t thought about Alice often. First, the anger at his father had staved away how much he missed her, and then the shock of being in a completely different environment. But he gently traced the cover’s golden inlay on the walk back to the circus, vaguely listening to Jon recounting the discoveries contained within his books, and he desperately missed Alice. He wanted to be back on the island and he wanted to have her back and he wished nothing had changed, but everything had. “Are you okay?” Jon asked abruptly. Jervis laughed sadly. “No.”Jon raised his eyebrows. Why not?, he didn’t say. How can I help?“I don’t know who to be.”“Just. Be you?”Jervis held up the book with a defeated sort of sigh. “Hatter, then?”And Jervis didn’t know how to say that he didn’t know how he fit into this new book, or the new world he had created around them. That he’d found a place for Hatter, but he couldn’t quite fit there somehow. That he was afraid. So he just said “Yes.” and thought he’d have to work on that. The next day, Jervis found himself at Jeremiah and Jerome’s tent shortly before lunch, unsure quite why he was there but knowing he must have a reason. “Jeremiah?” Jervis called as quietly as he was sure could be audible inside the tent.Jeremiah poked his head out, hair still tousled from sleep and with deep eye bags to match. “Jerome’s not here right now. I think he’s in the big top rehearsing?”He’d begun to withdraw back into the tent when Jervis shook his head. “I came to speak with you.”“I’m fine.” Jeremiah sighed pointedly in a way that showed that he clearly was not fine and did not wish to discuss it.“Not that, either.” Jervis smiled. “Would you teach me to play chess? When you’re free.”“Chess.”Jervis nodded, still smiling.“Why?”Jeremiah asked, raising an eyebrow.With a shrug, Jervis held out a pristine red book with thin gold lettering on the side: Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. “I don’t know how.”“I didn’t read that book, Jervis,” Jeremiah said, crossing his arms and finally stepping out from his tent.Jervis opened his mouth to remark on his astonishment that one of his friends had never read a book about Alice, then took a deep breath and reminded himself that Jeremiah had never met Alice. “The man at the bookshop told me it was based on a game of chess, so I need - I don’t - I would like to learn to play.”“Why me?”“You seem like the sort to know how.”“And what does that mean?”Jervis shrugged.“I’m free tomorrow after lunch,” Jeremiah said. “And I know how to play, but I don’t have a chess set, so you’ll have to bring one. I still think this is a weird interest, but I don’t have anything better to do.”“Great!”Jeremiah shook his head and went back inside as Jervis walked away. He would have to find a chess set today, but that shouldn’t be too hard, he thought, thinking of his pocketwatch. The next afternoon, Jervis sat on the floor of Jeremiah’s tent, a chessboard spread out between them. The pieces were all in their starting positions, and Jeremiah had just attempted to explain the overcomplicated rules. Jervis had stopped paying attention partway through, as he wasn’t sure which piece was which, exactly, and why it mattered. “You have first move,” Jeremiah gestured to the board.“Why?”“Because you’re playing the white pieces.”Jervis muttered something about how arbitrary and meaningless that was, and then moved a piece to about halfway up its current row. Jeremiah moved a similar piece from his set, and on his next turn, Jervis decided to move one of the tall pieces. After all, he had moved a short one the first time.“No.” Jeremiah shook his head and sighed. “The knight is the only piece that can jump.”“That’s a stupid rule.” Jervis placed his rook back behind his pawn.“If there were no rules, the game would be impossible to play.”“Not an impossible game, merely one that is not the same.”“Everything has rules.” Jeremiah rolled his eyes and advanced his bishop.“Rules to break are not impossible things, for there are places where the ground is the sky, and pigs have wings,” Jervis said in a singsong voice. He jumped his knight over a pawn and set it down four squares away diagonally from its original place. He looked into Jeremiah’s eyes as he did this, daring him to correct his move.“If you’re talking about Wonderland, you are aware that it isn’t a real place.” Jeremiah moved his pawn out two spaces from its starting position.“Rude. Real, fake, somewhere in between.” Jervis copied Jeremiah’s move for no reason other than it made their two pawns look like they were in a standoff.“Something can’t be both real and fake.” “Numbers,” he countered, sliding a pawn four squares from start. Jeremiah just sighed, more dramatically than last time.“Numbers are not fake.” Jeremiah did not make a move. He looked up from the game, eyebrows raised and a look of assumed intellectual superiority on his face.“Have you ever seen one? What do they look like? Where can you find one?”“Numbers are an intangible concept,” Jeremiah grumbled.Jervis picked up his queen in a completely illegal move and set it down halfway across the board, ignoring the other pieces in the way as he did so. “Wonderland is an intangible concept.”“Why did you want to learn chess again?”“To navigate the chessboard on the other side of the looking-glass.”Jeremiah crossed his arms. “And does ignoring the rules of the game help with that? You’ve had three turns in a row, by the way.”“I believe that is the purpose of the Looking-Glass. Thank you for the game.”Jeremiah looked at the board, then back up at Jervis. More than half the pieces still sat in their original positions. He nodded.“I bid you adieu,” Jervis said as he stood to leave. He did not know French, he just thought it was a very much fancier way of saying goodbye. As he left, he thought that maybe he’d learned to play chess after all, just not the chess Jeremiah was trying to teach him. Jon lay on his bed, holding the scarecrow costume’s right glove in the air above him and poking the needles with the tips of his fingers. “Do you like this place?” He asked.Outside their tent, the air was still and thick, the early June air hotter than it should be and refusing to let go of that heat even in the dead of night. The show had long since closed, and even the parties were winding down - Jon’s words were the only things to break the absolute silence.“I don’t particularly care for this city, no,” Jervis said, though he knew that wasn’t what Jon had been asking. He’d been lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling, not quite asleep but not awake either, when Jon spoke.Jon continued to examine the glove’s needles, though Jervis suspected he was not actually looking at it anymore. “I mean this place. The circus. Do you like it here?”And Jervis thought about the absolute thrill of hypnosis that he still felt every time, the rush of power when he took over someone’s mind, and he thought about their friends, and he said “Yes.”“Okay.” Jon dropped the glove and curled up under his sheet, though Jervis didn’t know how he managed to find that comfortable, given the heat and Jon’s insistence on wearing long sleeves at all times.After a long moment in which Jervis was sure he was missing something, he asked “Do you?”“Mm.” The sheet moved in a way that suggested Jon had shrugged. He said nothing else.Jervis blew out the lantern and stared at the dark ceiling he could no longer see. He was definitely missing something, but he had no idea what. Rainy days were, in Jervis’s opinion, the best days. When the show was on, a clear night was best - the thin canvas walls didn’t keep out the rain and barely stopped its noise, and the sight of the stars in the light-polluted sky afterward was always reassuring. Storms were still difficult, as when the thunder crashed outside he was starkly reminded of stormy nights curled up in the attic with Alice. Watching the lightning, he always thought he could look over and see her next to him. He was glad he hadn’t had to deal with snow yet.But rain? Rain was beautiful. It washed away all the dirt and grime of the world, and left in its place a shining, slick surface that promised both danger and safety. It was less beautiful in his and Jon’s tent, as it inevitably dripped through, staining the roof and filling it with a faint smell of mildew. But that was a perfectly fine price to pay for a rainy day spent anywhere else.On this particular rainy day, Jervis and Jon had retreated back to the bookshop. The circus would be moving soon; it never stayed in one place for too long. But until it did, Jon was seemingly determined to spend as much time in the small bookshop as he could. Jervis was still working on reading Through the Looking-Glass, but he hadn’t brought it with him today. Today wasn’t a day for reading, it was for sitting on the shop’s table, regardless of how much it annoyed the owner, and watching the rain.At some point, his attention shifted from the rain running down the shop’s window to the books that nearly blocked it, stacks of volumes in every color imaginable, some brand new but most faded from use. Slowly but perhaps inevitably, his gaze drifted from the books in the window to those piled on the sagging shelves around him to the four or five Jon had scattered across the table to Jon himself. Jon had long ago picked up a thick book Jervis took to be a manual or treatise of some sort (the writing was all very dense and technical, and the pages were very thin), curled up in a moderately uncomfortable wooden chair, and settled in to read. As he read, Jon occasionally wrinkled his nose in confusion when he came across something he didn’t understand, or tapped on the armrest of the chair when he pulled the book so close to his face Jervis wasn’t sure how the words were still in focus. If Jervis had the power to take a moment out of time and preserve it instead of sliding through time uncontrollably, he would probably choose this one. The spectacle of the show was something he loved, but he wouldn’t want it to be eternal. Even the thrill that came with taking someone’s mind and making it his own faded eventually (new minds, new tasks, kept it fresh, sustained that high of control). But this, sitting with Jon in a bookshop, zoning out while Jon read something he would definitely use to improve his experiments with fear later, this was perfect. Briefly, he registered the thought that this was the first time he’d ever let himself think about the future.So he said it. Why not? What did he have to lose?“I love you.”“Love you too,” Jon replied, not looking up from the book.Jervis bit the inside of his lip, concentrating on the physical sensation to distract himself from the nagging thought that he was saying something he absolutely should not say. “I meant that romantically, dear.”“I know. And I love you, too.”Though he was still seated, Jervis felt as though the ground had dropped out from under him. A pit had opened up in the bottom of his stomach and he was falling. He gripped the armrest of his chair tighter than was strictly necessary and asked, “If you would say, how long have you known I meant it that way?”“A while. A couple years.” Jon shrugged and closed his book. “Definitely longer than a year.”This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. Jervis didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but it wasn’t this. He knew he’d left the territory covered in his books a long time ago, but somehow he’d still thought his life was book-adjacent, as though there was surely a book that covered his specific situation that he simply hadn’t read. Maybe he and Jon didn’t fit into the upper-class Gothic courtship usually covered (neither of them was a Jane Eyre, or a Mr. Darcy, and he certainly hoped neither of them was an Emma Woodhouse), but surely there had to be a book he’d missed about developing mind control - hypnotism, he corrected himself - powers and falling in love with your best friend. He was pretty sure, however, that there was no book he could’ve read to prepare himself for the fact that he’d apparently been dating said best friend for over a year.“Did- did you not mean it that way before?” Jon asked hesitantly. “I’m sorry.”“Sorry?”Jon’s fingers twitched, like he was eager to grab his book, not even to read, just to be holding it. Jervis did that sometimes with his copy of Alice. For him, it was both an anchor to reality and a ticket away from it, but no matter which, it was always a comfort.“I’m sorry I assumed. I should have asked. But instead I just let myself think I was in a relationship with you. I shouldn’t have done that.”“If I had known we were already dating, I wouldn’t have spent the last few weeks confused and scared because I’d fallen in love with you,” Jervis said wryly, “so we could both use work on our communication.”Jon shifted his weight so that he was sitting on the edge of his chair, perched to take off at a second’s notice. His hands gripped the seat next to his legs. “The last few weeks?”Jervis nodded hesitantly.“I need to be sure we’re on the same page here,” Jon began, voice slow and measured. The longer he spoke, the sharper his words became, until they were nearly an accusation. “You were not in love with me when you would laugh off Alice’s extremely obvious comments about us. We were not together when you asked me to leave everything I’d ever known and run away with you. And you did not have feelings for me that night at your father’s house, even though I could feel your eyes on me the whole time. But you do now.”“I believe I might have, but I didn’t know it.”Jon took a deep breath. “Okay. That’s - Okay.”“Is it?”Jon looked at him like he had just suggested that there really were dragons out in the ocean, like they put on the edge of maps. (This would not have been that unusual a suggestion for Jervis, though unless he were truly having a bad day he wouldn’t think it was true in the real world. Wonderland, however, was a different story.) This was a look designed to indicate the true idiocy of a statement, and it had been honed to perfection.“How can I make it be okay?”“You can’t just make things be okay, Jervis,” Jon snapped. “Do you ever look around you? Real life isn’t something you can use your pocketwatch on to make your problems disappear.”He knew it was a bad idea. He truly did. And there were other things he wanted to argue, too, like how he paid more attention to the world around him than he had in a year, and that Jon was being a bit hypocritical by accusing him of escaping reality as though that was a bad thing when Jon was the one who dressed up as the scarecrow from his nightmares. But there was no power in this world that could stop Jervis from saying “Usually, it is, actually.”“Jesus-” Jon muttered under his breath. “Do you ever think before you say things?” He practically jumped out of his seat, grabbing his book as he stormed to the door. He opened it and was met with a gust of wind and rain when he realized that he hadn’t paid for the book he was holding, so he marched back to the table and dropped it there before leaving in a huff again. As the door closed, Jervis saw him tilt his face to the sky and heard, over the pounding rain, the words “Why did it have to be him?”“I’m sorry,” Jervis called at the closed door.“Young man, this shop isn’t the place for your squabbles,” the shop owner said threateningly from the back room.Jervis looked at the door to the back room, then back at the book Jon had left on the table. He picked it up and walked to the register. This time, he even paid for it.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Fighting with Jon would be a lot less awkward, Jervis decided, if they didn’t live in the same room. Jon was obviously mad at him, though he wasn’t sure why, and this made being in his vicinity difficult. That’s not to say he regretted anything he’d said. He was just… confused.What had happened didn’t make sense. Jon hadn’t gotten mad in the beginning, so it couldn’t have been the confession he objected to. Besides, it had seemed like Jon had reciprocated. He must, to have thought they’d been together for years, right?So then what was he angry about? It couldn’t be that Jervis hadn’t known - that wasn’t his fault. There was no way he could have known. And he’d already seemed upset before Jervis had made that unfortunate remark about making his problems disappear, so it couldn’t have been that.The only possibility left was that Jon was mad Jervis hadn’t realized his feelings for him earlier. But he’d gotten there eventually, so why was that a bad thing? He just didn’t get it.He’d have to ask Jon, he guessed. Jervis left the book he’d purchased on Jon’s bed and, as an impulse, left the receipt tucked in behind the cover. Later that night, Jon slipped into the tent. The rain had long since stopped, but his clothes and hair were still noticeably damp. His shoulders were hunched, and though he was trying to hide it, his eyes were red. Jervis opened his mouth to say something. Most likely ‘Hello,’ though it could easily have been something like ‘Are you all right?’“Don’t,” Jon said before he could say anything. “I can’t right now.”There was something so raw in his voice that Jervis immediately abandoned all plans to talk to him. Jon sounded upset, but drained of all the anger he’d had earlier. All that was left was exhaustion. No part of his expression changed when he noticed the book on his bed, though he did place it in his bag before he climbed under the blanket and curled up with his back to Jervis. Though the damp clothes couldn’t have been comfortable, and though he didn’t fall asleep for a long time, as revealed by periodically shifting to curl into an even tighter ball, Jon didn’t move until morning. Jervis still hadn’t talked to Jon by the time his performance started the next night. He’d still been sleeping when Jervis left the tent in the morning, and Jervis hadn’t seen him at lunch, though that was no surprise. Jon was adept at not being noticed when he didn’t want to be. It was a little concerning though, as he was also prone to forgetting to eat when he was thinking.So when Jervis took the stage, in front of a small crowd eager to witness what they thought was magic (and, in Jervis’s opinion, they might be right), he was distracted. There was always something thrilling about hypnotism. Even if he ran through the same routine, the same commands, every night, it had never felt boring. Each time, it had felt new, like he was still doing it for the first time, and in a sense, he was. Never the same people, and no matter how easy it was taking over someone’s mind, especially when they had consented to being hypnotized, there was something slightly different about each person’s mind. Something that he usually found thrilling.Tonight, he found his thoughts slipping. Keeping a smile on his face became an effort, and once, he even forgot part of his script, leading to a scrambling thirty-second monologue as he attempted to get his thoughts in order.Because doing this was important. And it was fun. But he could barely convince himself of that when he didn’t know what was going on with Jon. Had he eaten? Was he still mad at him? Were they together? It was too much.The audience still clapped when he made volunteers think they were chickens, but his heart wasn’t in it, and theirs wasn’t either. The applause was lighter than on most nights, and Jervis breathed a sigh of relief when the show concluded. He had to go talk to Jon. Jervis found Jon sitting outside the big top, holding his closed sketchbook in his lap. Though the show was clearly in full swing inside, the rest of the circus was deserted. Clouds were starting to fill up the sky, and the colorful lights created an eerie atmosphere when deprived of the cheer of the crowd.“Hey,” Jon said when Jervis sat down beside him, carefully leaving a good amount of space between them.“Are we still fighting?” He hated how uncertain he sounded, the fact that he didn’t know.“We were fighting?”Jervis couldn’t conceal his surprise. “I can’t think of another explanation for your behavior. Somehow, I upset you, and we fought.”Jon turned to look at him. “I was upset, and I left to calm down.”“... Could you tell me why you were upset?”Jon’s mouth fell open. “You don’t know?”“No.”“Fine. I was upset because I had taken for granted something that apparently did not exist but which I had thought was a major part of my life. Also, you’ve had that hypnotism thing for maybe two months but you act like it makes you better than everyone else.”Jervis’s brain felt like it was going far too fast; he knew he was missing something, but there was just so much going on. “So you aren’t upset anymore?”Jon shrugged. “I’m still mad at myself. I’ve decided to forgive you, though.” He smiled out of the corner of his mouth, to let Jervis know he had never been in danger of not being forgiven.“I’m glad,” Jervis said with a smile.Jon snorted a laugh. “You’re an idiot, you know.”“That’s a little harsh.”“It’s okay. Apparently I’m an idiot too.”“Jon, you’re the smartest person I know.” Jervis wanted to put a hand on his arm, to comfort him in some way, but he thought that was probably a bad idea.“That’s not saying a lot.” Jon rolled his eyes.“You are not an idiot.”“Yeah, I am. I have to be, otherwise I would have noticed that we weren’t together. That’s a huge thing to not notice.”“That’s a miscommunication.”“A complete lack of communication.”“We are communicating now. And I’m glad we finally got around to it,” Jervis said with a small, hopeful smile that he hoped was reassuring.Jon pushed his hair behind his ear and looked Jervis in the eyes. “I have been in love with you for five years. I liked you for years before then. That’s a third of my life I’ve had feelings for you. That’s not a miscommunication, Jervis. That’s. A third. Of. My. Life.”“I apologize. I didn’t realize.” He really hadn’t. He didn’t know how Jon had managed. How he’d gone five years without saying anything when it had barely been a month for him and sometimes he’d felt so much emotion he could barely breathe.This time, Jon’s laugh was hollow, sounding more despairing than humorous. “No, you didn’t. But what would you have done if you had?”“There’s little point dwelling on such hypotheticals,” Jervis said because he didn’t want to say ‘I don’t know.’ “But I’m here now, if you’ll have me.”“Is that a question?”Jervis hesitated. “It was an offer.”Jon sat up straighter. “Did you think I would say no?”“I’m still not sure,” Jervis admitted.“You’re kind of an idiot, but I accepted that a long time ago. You’re my idiot. It’s been five years; I’m not going to say no now.”“Oh,” Jervis said with a ridiculous smile on his face as Jon hugged him. “Wonderful.”The hug was a little awkward; they’d been sitting too far apart, and they had never been in the practice of hugging anyway. Jon had to lean over so far that even though he was much taller than Jervis, his head hooked neatly onto his shoulder.There was a significant amount of space between them still due to their positioning, but Jervis resisted the urge to pull Jon closer to him. He wanted to hold Jon close enough that there wasn’t any space between them at all. He was so happy, and his heart was so full, and this - Jon - was everything he wanted but he still wanted so much. Then he thought of something. Pulling back slightly, he asked “Can I kiss you?”Jon’s eyes flickered to the ground and a brief look of confusion passed over his face before he nodded. “Yeah.”“Was that okay?” Jervis asked when they parted, suddenly filled with the fear that it hadn’t been okay, that Jon had realized that he only wanted to be friends, actually, that he’d horrifically overstepped his boundaries. Or worse, that he’d somehow been bad enough at kissing that Jon didn’t want him.Jon’s gaze moved from his hands to Jervis’s face. “We could try again?They leaned in again, and really, this kiss wasn’t any different from the first. It was short and awkward and unsure of itself, a mere press of lips to lips. Jervis had the uncomfortable realization that his mustache was probably scratchy. Neither of them knew what to do, so they just lingered there.Objectively, it was quite a bad kiss. That didn’t matter though; as they pulled away, Jervis felt like he could fly. The only thing that convinced him they were in the real world instead of some fantasy world of his own creation was the hard earth he sat on and the light drizzle. When he opened his eyes, he immediately knew something was wrong. Jon screwed his face up in confusion and resolutely looked at the ground. His hair fell over his face, and though it was starting to get wet from the rain, it still provided a nearly impenetrable curtain.“I’m sorry. If you didn’t want to or were just going along with it or -”“No, it’s not that.” Jon shook his head. “It’s just - how did that feel, for you?”Jervis had no idea what was going on. Were they just friends and he’d made a terrible mistake? But if so, why would he ask that? And how did that make sense with everything they’d said earlier? He thought for a moment before beginning to speak, unsure if he could find words anywhere close to how he felt. “I felt stable. It was as though I’d been growing and shrinking at random and you were the mushroom that let me stop.” He hated that the only way he could speak was through Alice metaphors, but he trusted Jon would understand. He always understood. “I don’t think it would have felt like anything if it wasn’t you.”Jon let out a small, unexpected snort of laughter. “That really shouldn’t be cute.”“What did it feel like for you?”“Nothing.” Jon shrugged and kept looking at the ground.“Nothing?” He was so confused. How could Jon not have felt anything? Jon pulled the sleeves of his shirt down over his hands and worried at the hems with enough force Jervis thought they might rip. “I didn’t have whatever great cosmic realignment you did. It just felt like there was someone very close to me, and it was okay because I knew that it was you, but if it hadn’t been I -” He broke off and took a deep breath, rushing through his words like they wouldn’t count if he said them fast enough. “I would’ve been terrified. It was too close and it felt weird and I don’t understand why this seems to be a common relationship activity when it isn’t even a pleasant sensation.” He hugged his legs to his chest. “Because it’s supposed to feel nice, right?”Jervis let out a breath in relief, then immediately realized Jon would probably think he was sighing in disappointment. “I think it’s supposed to. It did for me. But you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.” He still had very little idea what was going on. All he knew was that Jon was unhappy, but somehow not telling him he didn’t love him, and he was not at all sure how to go about helping him.“But you wanted to. Most people do want that with someone, I think,” he mumbled.“I wouldn’t advise using me as a baseline of normal under any circumstances.”Jon finally looked up, though he didn’t move his hair out of his eyes. He laughed, just once, a dry, sarcastic laugh that said ‘yeah right.’ “It’s not just you. We both know Jeremiah didn’t go off to hold hands and chat with that rich boy, and we know how Barbara gets those bruises on her neck. If Jerome and Selina weren’t more interested in arson and petty theft than other people, I’d use them as examples too.“And there has to be something they get - you get out of it, because otherwise why would anyone bother? It’s just…” He wrinkled his nose. “Whatever it is, I - I don’t get it. I’d never even thought of kissing anyone before, really.” Jon scrubbed his hand, still pulled inside his sleeve, over his face like he was trying to get rid of tears that weren’t falling.Oh. This was bad. Over the past eleven years, Jervis could count on one hand the amount of times he’d seen Jon cry. He hadn’t thought Jon was capable of crying, the first year or so he’d known him. He’d only been proven wrong when Jon broke his pinkie when they were out in the woods - though he’d come close to crying when it actually broke, he didn’t truly cry until the next day, when he’d come back with his finger in a splint and still tried to draw, only to find that he couldn’t. Even when he was upset, Jon just shrunk into himself or got angry. And he was doing that now, but instead of his anger exploding out of him in the form of a thrown book or a punched table, it was all turning in on himself. Jon sat in the dirt and refused to look up, hugging his legs as his voice shook from trying so hard to explain himself, and Jervis had no idea what to do except to make Jon feel better.That didn’t stop an incredulous “Never?” from escaping him, a word he regretted as soon as he heard it.“No. We never talked about it that much, and when we did, I - I was too busy being jealous of whatever fictional girl you’d invented. So I thought about it enough to decide it didn’t sound fun, and then I stopped thinking about it.”“You let me kiss you. Twice.” He knew it wasn’t helping, but he was curious. This wasn’t the sort of thing he could enjoy more because it didn’t make sense (which was how he viewed most unfamiliar things in life).“Thought it would be better, because it’s you. Wasn’t.”As they’d sat there, Jon had been steadily twisting his fingers into the sleeve of his shirt, sometimes untangling them enough to start over but never letting them reach outside the sleeve.“That’s okay. We don’t have to be like anyone else, you know.”Jon nodded, slowly and with his head cocked to the side, in a way that conveyed that he understood what Jervis was saying but was skeptical of its truth.“We can just be us, in whatever way you want.”“Okay.” Jon took in a shaky breath. “I’ll just - can I think about that? What I want?”“Of course.” Jervis was terrified. He was so far out of his depth he felt like he was drowning, but he knew two things. One, that he loved Jon enough to do whatever he asked. He thought he could even do it if Jon asked him to leave him, though it might tear him apart. And two, that Jon needed to be alone right now.“Love you,” he whispered, almost like a reflex, as he stood and walked out of the dingy alleyway between tents. Jervis didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t go back to his tent, and even if he could, he wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway. He was terrified. This, he reflected, would have been a good time for that fear vaccine Jon had tried to develop to have actually worked, because this was horrible. He tried to run off in his head, escape to a magical place where he wouldn’t have to worry and he always had company, but he couldn’t. The fantasy shattered behind his eyes. The only thing he could do was sit and try not to think about how alone he was.Being alone wasn’t something especially new to Jervis. After all, the closest thing he’d had to a parental figure had been a governess who’d left when he was fourteen. But he’d always had Alice, and he’d had Jon. And now Alice was dead and he was trying to fill some of that absence with new, wild friends and it didn’t quite work. And he didn’t even want to think about Jon leaving him. Alice hadn’t chosen to - she had died and he hated it and it had cost him his mind. But if he drove Jon away, he wasn’t sure he would be able to get through that. So he grabbed his watch out of the tent, deliberately not looking at the small mound on Jon’s bed where he had curled up under his blanket, and stalked out into the night. He hypnotized the first person he saw - a businessman walking home after a late night at the office, or more likely the pub. He made him juggle knives and wouldn’t let him scream in pain as they sliced his palms, but it didn’t distract him. He let the man go with a sigh of disappointment. He lent his coat to a shivering woman sleeping in a doorway as he took her mind. She walked with him through the streets as he vented, telling all his fears to ears that only listened for commands. “What should I do?” He asked her almost an hour later, after he’d exhausted his mind. She blinked. “What should I do?” She did not say anything. He had not told her to, and she could only follow orders. And if he didn’t know the answer, she couldn’t give it to him. He screamed at her to go away as she blankly stared at him, and he only barely remembered to lift the spell. He’d made it almost back to the circus grounds before he realized he’d forgotten to retrieve his coat.He knew Jon wasn’t asleep when he finally returned to the tent. The sky was as dark as ever, the kind of pitch-dark that only came right before the sun started to wash out the stars. Jon was still curled up in the exact same way he’d been before. If he’d been sleeping, he would have turned down the blanket so he could breathe. Jervis climbed into bed and faced the canvas wall, exhausted but mind still whirring far too fast for him to sleep. “Hey.” Jon kicked the side of Jervis’s bed softly. “Are you awake?”Inside the tent was still dark, but there was a thin line of gray under the door that made Jervis think the sun was probably starting to come up outside. He sat up and nodded. “Yes, dear?” He immediately cursed himself for saying ‘dear’. He was supposed to be letting Jon make all the decisions, but apparently he couldn’t stop himself from constantly professing his love and adoration for his best friend.“I think. Um. I’m ready to talk now.”“Alright.” Jervis stifled a yawn; he really was tired, though he knew he would only continue to lay there and worry if he didn’t have this conversation. Jon was still hovering in the same spot, seemingly uncertain of what to do, so Jervis motioned to the edge of the bed next to him and asked “Why don’t you sit down?”Jon perched on the edge of the bed, leaving a considerable amount of distance between himself and Jervis. More distance than there would have been a week ago, Jervis noticed regretfully. “So.” He said. He was silent for a long while. “I wish I didn’t have to say anything.”“You don’t have to if you’re not ready,” Jervis said even as he was absolutely sure that he would worry himself to death if Jon never clarified what was going on.“No, I do. I need you to understand why I - I just shut down yesterday. But I don’t know why. And I hate not knowing.”Jervis nodded. He was fully awake now, and he was so nervous his stomach hurt.Jon took a deep breath before he spoke. “I talked to Selina. And Jeremiah, but he seemed upset still so I only asked him a couple of questions. But they didn’t really make sense and I’m still confused. Because it seemed like, to them, being interested in someone or, um, being in love with someone also necessarily included kissing them and. Er. Havingsexwiththem. And Selina made it seem like the feelings part was less important to her? Which confused me. Because that’s the only part I understand.”“So those things don’t go together for you?” Jon shook his head. “I wish they did. It would be simpler that way. But, and I know this sounds stupid, but I always sort of thought people wanting to do those things with other people was fake? And I don’t know how to deal with that being real.”Jervis couldn’t imagine being in Jon’s situation. He was freaking out, and he wasn’t even the one having to go through all of this. He wasn’t very good at understanding other people - he tried to be as polite as possible, but genuinely understanding how non-hypnotized people thought wasn’t something he could do. Instead, he’d just assumed everyone thought pretty similarly to him, only without the constant daydreaming and strange disconnect from reality. When he’d found the (admittedly small and well-hidden) section of romance novels in the manor’s library, he’d eagerly devoured them. They’d all been filled with descriptions of the love interest’s mind and body that had practically dripped longing, and those passages had always felt somewhat illicit - he’d craved that kind of love, and assumed that everyone else did as well. “So what do you want to do?”Jon looked over at him, confused. “What?”“I can’t read your mind, Jon. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but to make sure I don’t I need to know what your boundaries are, and that means you have to tell me.”“Okay. Stay out of my head.”Jervis was hurt. He would never destroy Jon’s trust like that. Besides, if Jon was hypnotized, he wouldn’t really be Jon anymore, just an empty shell, and he certainly didn’t want that. “I assumed that was a given. Do I have to ask you not to fear gas me?”“No,” Jon grumbled, irritably flicking his fingers at the mattress. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”“Okay then.”Jon was silent for a moment. “I don’t know what else. I want to talk about it, but I don’t know how.”“Why don’t we just start with what you’ve already said? So, no kissing on the lips?” He unintentionally brought three fingers to his own lips before noticing them and putting his hand back on the bed beside him where it belonged.“No. Um, I mean, I think? Maybe. For now, no.” Jon looked everywhere but at Jervis, and his face turned a truly impressive color of pink.“What else?”“Holding hands is um. It’s good. I - I really like doing that.”He smiled softly. “Me too.”“I don’t know what else,” Jon said in response to his unasked question. “Ask me.”“What?”Jon turned to look directly at him. “You know what you want. So ask me.”Jervis did not know what he wanted. That was a lie. He did not know specifically what he wanted; he couldn’t define it as anything more than a feeling, that feeling when your heart is so full you’re scared it might stop working entirely. He wanted to shower Jon in all the affection he hadn’t been able to give before, to understand Jon and himself and maybe even who they were together. But he didn’t say that. Instead, he asked “Am I allowed to hug you?”Jon nodded. “If there’s ever a time you aren’t, you’ll know.”“Cuddling?”“I think I’d like that.”“If we’re sitting next to each other, for example at one of Jerome’s gatherings, am I allowed to do this?” Jervis scooted closer to Jon until they were sitting so close together that their legs and sides pressed against each other and he could feel the heat from Jon’s body.“You do that anyway,” Jon said with a wry smile.“No, I was asking about this.” He leaned further into Jon’s side and rested his head against his shoulder. Sitting like this, he felt almost as though he was a part of Jon, or Jon was a part of him. He was so happy his chest felt tight, and yet he still wanted so much.“Oh,” Jon said with so much surprise and affection his voice came out higher pitched than normal and so quiet it was almost a whisper.“What about this?” He turned to face Jon and looked into his eyes as he pressed a light kiss to his shoulder.“Yes.”“This?” He kissed Jon’s cheek.Jon smiled and closed his eyes for a moment. “Yeah.”“This?” His eyes closed as his lips lingered for a second or two on the base of Jon’s neck. He’d run out of questions, but instead of the answers allowing him to relax, each question seemed to dig out part of a hollow space in the center of his chest. That’s not to say he wasn’t happy, because that would be incorrect. It’s just that he wanted and wanted, but he didn’t know what. The only thing he could think was more.Jervis was unfamiliar with the word ‘horny’, but if someone were to have sat him down and explained it, he probably would have found that word applicable.Jon shook his head. “I know what you want, and I can’t. I’m sorry.”Jervis immediately stopped leaning on Jon and put a few inches of space between them. “How do you mean?”“It feels different.” Jon closed his eyes in an attempt to not have to look anywhere and took a deep breath. He sat in silence for several seconds before continuing in a slow, level tone that he couldn’t quite keep from shaking. “I’m not going to have sex with you. Probably ever. And anything that feels like - like you want more than I can give, that’s what’s going to make me uncomfortable. Also the kissing on the lips thing, except I don’t have a reason for that one. It just feels wrong.”“You don’t have to have reasons for everything, you know,” Jervis said, choosing to bypass what Jon had said about sex. He really hadn’t meant to be asking that, anyway, and he had no idea how to respond. “If it feels wrong, that’s all the explanation you need.”“It really isn’t, though.” Jon’s tone was brittle, filled with a sharp anger that could shatter at any moment. “I just- I’ve tried so hard to be normal, to be what people want me to be, and it never works. I couldn’t cure fear properly and I couldn’t be a good enough son and now I’m going to be a disappointing boyfriend and there has to be a reason, because otherwise it means there’s something wrong with me. “When I’m the scarecrow, I forget, because fear itself can’t be afraid. I’m powerful and I can just exist however I want to. But I can’t be the scarecrow often, and I hate just being me.”Jervis sat very still and ignored the competing urges to either give Jon a hug or wrap him up in blankets. As he spoke, he kept his voice low, almost a whisper, though he couldn’t have said why. “You could never be a disappointment. I hate that other people have made you feel like you are, and if I have too, I’m sorry. You are so much more than I deserve, and if you want me to be your boyfriend, I’d be so happy. “I really don’t mind about the kissing thing, or the sex thing. I fell in love with you, not your body, and if all that ever happens between us is sitting in the same vicinity and holding hands, that would be enough. I don’t want you to be normal, or the person you think I want. Normal is overrated. I want you to be whoever you want to be, and I want to be able to show you how much I love that version of you, in whatever way you will be comfortable with. Okay?”Jon nodded slowly. “You’re sure?”“I’ve never been more sure of anything.”“Oh. Good.”Jon smiled, tentatively and shakily, and Jervis smiled back. They were going to be okay. While the previous night, Jervis hadn’t been able to concentrate on his show because he was worried, now he was distracted for a completely different reason. Well, not completely different - he was still thinking about Jon. He was so happy.Once or twice, he went off-script due to zoning out, thinking about sitting next to Jon that morning, being able to hug him and hold his hand and - he blinked hard to re-center himself. He was performing. He had to focus.This time, his distraction wasn’t evident. His smiles came freely, and to his ears, that show received the loudest applause yet. It was almost as though the world knew what a momentous day this was. After the show, the crew gathered in Jerome’s tent once again, this time to celebrate their last day in this city, or, as Jerome eloquently put it, “Here’s to getting outta this shithole.”Tabitha joined them again, and Selina lay down with her head in Tabitha’s lap and her feet propped up on Jerome’s pillow. The dark circles under Jeremiah’s eyes were receding, and he laughed with real humor. Things were looking up.Jervis and Jon sat next to Jeremiah on his bed, though before long Jeremiah was talking over Jervis to Jon, who, he had decided, was the only other intelligent person present. Barbara had threatened to throw her shoe at him for that comment, and Selina had just laughed.As they talked, Jon slid an arm around Jervis’s waist. Jervis leaned against him, almost melting into his side, and when Jon stopped using his other hand to illustrate whatever point he was arguing to Jeremiah (Jervis didn’t have a clue what they were talking about; he’d long since stopped listening in favor of nonsensical, fleeting thoughts like warm and the colorful shimmer of fireworks in the night sky), he tangled their fingers together. Jon glanced down at him and smiled, and Jervis thought that he’d been wrong earlier. He’d thought that morning that he couldn’t get any happier, but this was the happiest he’d ever been.“Congratulations,” Selina said, raising an eyebrow at them. Barbara just shot them a knowing glance. The circus moved the next day, and even the ordeal of packing everything around them in the span of a few hours wasn’t enough to dull Jervis’s good mood. It rained their first morning in their new city, and putting up flyers that were rapidly soaking through didn’t manage it either. Eventually, Jervis knew, he would have to come down from this. But right now, that didn’t seem inevitable. He thought (hoped?) he could keep this same euphoria indefinitely. Every time he saw Jon, he thought that it was possible. Gotham was a strange city, Jervis thought as he walked through it, Jon at his side. It wasn’t raining this time, but the sky still looked as if it might break any moment. The precipitous feel of a cloudburst about to happen had never gone away in the days they’d been in the city. The circus had set up shop near the edge of the city, on an empty lot near the stunningly polluted river. From here, the downtown skyline was visible, and it was taller than any of the other cities Jervis had seen. Out of the shacks and rundown storefronts near the fairgrounds rose steadily taller buildings, first of brick and then of steel. Downtown glittered like a diamond through the thick haze that settled on the city.Jon grabbed his hand and pulled him down small street after damp alley, roaming through the nearby neighborhoods without any specific goal in mind. Jervis was content to walk slowly, observing, but Jon was impatient, so they hurried. Small, thorny weeds grew out of cracks in the sidewalks, and many of the roads were the type of unpaved that suggested they might have been paved years before. Gotham dripped. Old, brownish water collected in puddles that refused to dry and fell from gutters in steady streams even when the rain had stopped. More cats than Jervis had ever seen lingered in the alleys, always hiding just deep enough in the shadows for everything to be invisible except their eyes. The cats loved Jon, would cluster around his feet when he was far enough from Jervis, and he would tolerate them without encouraging them. As soon as Jervis approached, they scattered.Despite everything, like the distinct smell of rotting garbage in so many of the side alleys and the surprising amount of gunshots in the middle of the night, Jervis liked Gotham. It was disgusting, true, and the level of disrepair was exaggerated by the shining downtown that was always just out of reach. But Jon liked disappearing into the shadows that seemed far too long here, and Jervis knew he could walk into downtown society if he only said the right word.The first day of their explorations, Jon had practically dragged Jervis into a small bookstore. In almost every respect, it was the same as the one where everything had started. But that one had felt cozy because of its clutter. Safe. This one felt as though, like much else around it, it was still standing out of sheer determination not to fall. Dust floated in the air, swirling from the piles of books that seemed to almost act as structural supports. Jon, of course, had loved it, and blinked like he hadn’t seen daylight in years when Jervis finally dragged him away from the books and back to the circus, barely in time for the night’s show. It wasn’t later that same night, but it could have been. It had become somewhat of a routine, for them to come back from the show, or Jerome’s, or wherever the crew had decided to stage their gathering, and just lay together. The beds in their tent were barely big enough for one person, but Jervis didn’t mind. He and Jon lay next to each other on Jervis’s bed (they both knew Jon would retreat to his own bed if, or more likely when, he needed more space), hands tangled together between them, close enough that their foreheads almost touched. Something in him still couldn’t believe it. The past days had been so nerve-wracking and surreal - he’d fallen (down the rabbit hole, his mind supplied), and the Wonderland he’d found wasn’t some intangible concept he could live in when reality was too much. This was real and wonderful and he was scared that it would blink out of existence like Alice had.Jon had never been big on physical contact of any sort, hand-holding excluded, so Jervis suppressed the urge to scoot even closer to him and hold onto him forever, or at least for the foreseeable future. Instead he let his thumb draw circles on the side of Jon’s finger and tried to convey everything he felt in that single gesture.Maybe later, Jon would move just a little closer, and Jervis would wrap his arms around him and whisper “I love you” into his shoulder. Maybe he wouldn’t. For now, he was content - this was something safe, a small moment of stability.“I used to believe you liked Alice,” Jervis admitted. The words sounded almost too loud in the night.“Were you jealous?” Jon smiled with the corner of his mouth.“Maybe.”“I used to want to like Alice. It would have been easier than liking you, I thought. But she was only ever a sister to me.”“Alice was perfect.”“She was.”They lay in silence for an unknowable amount of time that felt like hours but in all likelihood was only a few minutes. The weight of memories pressed down on Jervis, reminding him of everything he’d lost and left behind. It hurt, but for the first time, it didn’t feel like a knife to the heart. Jon took a deep breath and spoke in a shaky voice. “He never said anything, but I always thought my dad would have been less disappointed if I had been interested in any of the girls from town. I thought about taking Alice there sometimes, just to see. But I couldn’t ask her to lie for me.”“I know you introduced him to the Scarecrow, but I wish I could hurt him for you. You deserve so much more than him.”“I took care of it.” The corner of Jon’s mouth turned up in a small smile, but his eyes were sad. “Now we’re both free.”“Are we?” Jon furrowed his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”“I get the sense that you don’t enjoy being here. At the circus, that is, not here with me.”Jon shrugged, though since he was lying on his side this mostly consisted of him raising one shoulder. “You do. And it’s not so bad.”Jervis looked him in the eyes. “Given the choice, I am always going to choose to be where you are. Now, do you like it here?”“Not really.”“Where would you like to be?”“We can figure that out tomorrow.”And Jervis wanted to figure it out now - or he wanted to have already figured it out, wanted to be able to snap his fingers and give Jon whatever he wanted. And he almost could. He could ask for anything, and that was close enough. So he said “Tomorrow,” and it was a promise. Tomorrow, they would leave this place. They would find something permanent, if they wanted, and life would once again start anew. But tonight, Jon smiled sleepily at him with his eyes half closed, and the only thing he could do was squeeze Jon’s hands a little bit tighter and whisper “I love you.”Jon muttered something that sounded like “You too,” back.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
There was something bittersweet about knowing he was leaving the circus. Perhaps there was just something bittersweet about endings. Not every ending is a new beginning, Jervis knew that well enough, but this one was. “Where do you want to go?” He asked Jon.Jon shrugged. “What do you want to be?”“Respected,” Jon said. It was early enough that the generally noisy circus was still around them, and Jon spoke firmly and with conviction from where he sat in the center of his bed with his sheet pulled over his shoulders like a cape. Jervis nodded. “Anything else?”“I want to be the only person in charge of my life. Also, I want there to be books.”“I would like a grand house, a place that’s impressive.” Jon wrinkled his nose. “Why?”“I want to be fancy,” Jervis said, back straight and elbows resting on the pillow in his lap.“Only if there’s a place for me to set up my lab.”“Of course.” Jervis thought for a moment, then asked “Would you mind terribly if I joined high society? I think it could be fun.”“As long as you don’t make me join,” Jon said, a flash of horror passing across his face. Jervis smiled briefly at the thought of Jon sitting at a long table, wearing his patchy, Scarecrow-like clothes in the middle of everyone else’s finery, making small talk while pretending to drink wine. He would probably end up fear gassing all the other guests. There was something exciting about planning a future. Time stretched out so long in front of them, and Jervis felt more grounded in it than he had been in some time. Maybe ever. “Shall we stay in Gotham?” He asked Jon. Jon nodded. “Not this part, though.” “Then I’ll look elsewhere.”A small yawn broke through Jon’s smile, and once again Jervis was struck by how much he loved Jon. Best friend wasn’t enough to describe it, and no matter how giddy he got when he thought the word ‘boyfriend,’ that wasn’t quite it either. He didn’t have a word; the closest he got was thinking his Jon. He hoped Jon felt the same way. He wanted to be Jon’s.“You okay?” Jon asked through the end of his yawn. “Zoned out a little there.”“I really love you.” He said it so often, and every time it was true.Jon rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. “So I’ve heard.”“It’s true.”“I know.”Jervis cocked his head to the side. “Will you tell me if you’re unhappy, in the future?”Jon pulled his blanket cape a little more over his shoulders. “I’ll try.”“I want to make you happy.”“You do,” Jon said, and Jervis felt like he could fly. As it turned out, looking for real estate in Gotham was startlingly easy when the wishes of the homeowner didn’t matter at all. Every home was on the market, and the asking price was free. Even getting a tour wasn’t hard - all he had to do was knock on the door.The issue was that there were just so many houses in Gotham. He hadn’t really considered that before, but it was a city, and a big one at that. Still, there were only so many in so-called respectable areas of town (the impression he got was that most of Gotham was somewhat of a pigsty), so that narrowed his search considerably. Selina went with him on one tour. She got bored halfway through, remarking that the house “looks easy to rob” and that “the whole looking-for-a-house thing is stupid anyway. What are we, adults?”Jervis was pretty sure she spent the entire time stealing small trinkets from every room.There was one thing that these tours accomplished (besides seeming to drag on for ages while simultaneously taking up no time at all). Jervis was getting a crash course in the style of the rich and famous. After a week or two, he could distinguish between the old money families and the new rich simply based on their interior decoration. The circus was just getting ready to leave Gotham when Jervis found the perfect place. It was nothing like the house where he’d grown up, but there was something about it that reminded him of that place regardless. It wasn’t particularly isolated, and it hadn’t fallen into disrepair, but there was something odd about the hallways, and the ceilings were strangely tall, and some corners echoed in a way he could only describe as spooky.He thanked the homeowner and exited. The man would remember nothing of his visit, but if all went well, he would be down a house very shortly. All that was left was to make sure Jon approved. “This.” Jon said. He did not look impressed.They stood on the doorstep of the house. It was late, and dark enough even with the working streetlights in this part of Gotham that most of the house was in shadow. But shadowed or not, it gave off a certain air of wealth and respectability. This was what his house could’ve looked like, the one on the island, Jervis thought, if only. If only everything that had happened had been different, somehow.He isn’t sure whether he would have preferred that. It’s almost too distant to consider.“If you want.”Jon sighed. “Somebody lives here.”Jervis crinkled his forehead in confusion.“You can’t just kick people out of their house, Jervis.”“Yes, I can.”“No -” Jon closed his eyes, tired and disappointed. “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”“I think we ought to be well beyond ‘should’ and ‘should not.’” Jervis did his best to sound light and distant. He’d worked so hard on this, why wasn’t Jon happy about it? “You shouldn’t torment people with their worst nightmares when you’re sad or angry or just curious.”“I am working.”“So am I.”This was not, strictly speaking, true, and Jervis knew it. Saying what he’d said had been a low blow, but he didn’t regret it. He just wanted to have nice things; was that so wrong?Jervis knocked on the door. A graying man in nightclothes answered.“Who is it?” The man squinted his eyes. “If you’re here to convert me, piss off.”“Hello,” Jervis said, smiling his most genuine smile. “What’s your darkest secret?”The man’s eyes glazed over. Jervis had been practicing, now the beginning of his show was just that - a show. He could hypnotize anyone with just a word.“I made my money embezzling from the government and my wife doesn’t know the baker’s youngest daughter is my child.”“His family has a house in the country anyway,” Jervis said. “I could make them think he sold it to us.”“Fine.” Jon tilted his head back to look at the top of the house. “It’s a nice place.”“You can go,” Jervis said, waving the man away.”“Thank you,” Jon said. “So lemme get this straight,” Jerome said. “You stole a house and you’re leaving?”Jervis nodded.“Epic.”“Get out while you can,” Jeremiah grumbled from the other side of the tent.“I mean, not epic, ‘cause you’re basically a real adult now, which, boring.”“We’re happy for you.” Jeremiah’s voice was strained, clearly from putting up with Jerome. They were both in a mood today.“Thank you,” Jervis said.Jerome continued, seemingly oblivious to his brother. “Still, stealing a house? Epic.”“I just asked for it.”“Disappointing there was no sneaking around. No diabolical plots. No -”Jeremiah cut him off. “We’ll miss you. Come see the show next time it’s in town.”“We wouldn’t dream of missing it.”Jervis hugged them before he left. The sky above him was still cloudy (he had never seen a clear day in Gotham), but they were a light gray. The circus was silent except for his footsteps. Jon met him at the gate, and Jervis slipped his hand into Jon’s as they walked away. * Frost started to settle on the street outside. Jervis sat as close to the fireplace as he could, soaking in the heat. It would get much colder later in the year, he knew, but that only meant an excuse to cuddle with Jon more. This was a good thing. “‘M going out tonight,” Jon said around a mouthful of sandwich, poking his head in from the kitchen.“Okay,” Jervis said absentmindedly. Then - “Wait, why?”“WayneTech has some chemicals I think could be useful for a highly concentrated fear gas.”Jervis sighed. “You are going to rob WayneTech?”“Mm.”“Tonight, of all nights?”There was nothing particularly special about that night. However, Jervis had been planning on sitting down and rereading Through the Looking Glass, and he would not be able to do that if he was worried about Jon out robbing a highly secured corporation.“That was the plan, yeah.”“You could get arrested.” Jervis was concerned. Jon was putting himself in harm’s way for what was, in his opinion, something completely unnecessary.Jon narrowed his eyes in a look that clearly stated “I know that.”“I could get that for you,” Jervis offered. “You don’t have to steal it.”“It’s stealing either way.”“I ask for things. That’s different, they’re giving them to me as gifts.”“You’re stealing them, and I can do that myself.” Jon sounded strangely defensive, though Jervis had no idea why.“You don’t have to.”“Yes, I do.” Jervis opened his mouth to speak, but he didn’t get a chance. Jon continued, words sharp. “I’m not going to sit here while you get me things, Jervis. I’m not incompetent. You got us the house, and you get us the food, and if the only thing I’m capable of doing is getting supplies for my experiments, that’s what I’m going to do.”As Jon spoke, Jervis recognized the signs that he was getting closer and closer to storming out of the room. There was the short tone, the dropped eye contact mid-rant, the fingers curled inside his sleeves. Jervis still wasn’t sure he knew the right things to say when Jon got upset like this, but he wanted to. “Please be careful.”Jon nodded slowly. He wasn’t sure he’d said the right thing, but he didn’t appear to have said the wrong one.“I know,” he said.“Are you angry with me?” Jervis asked. Jon seemed to be angry a lot, or at least not as happy as he would like him to be. Jon shook his head quickly and took a breath. “No. I … resent that much of our life relies on your hypnotism, and I don’t … I value my independence and so don’t like feeling like you do everything for me. But I’m not mad.”Jervis thought for a moment. Jon’s words had felt stilted, like normally, he wouldn’t be saying them. And he wouldn’t - he would ignore his feelings until he got too upset or angry and then he would explode. Normally, Jervis wouldn’t see that coming; he’d say something insensitive that would only make things worse. But he was trying, so he thought for what felt like too long, carefully choosing his words, before he spoke. “I apologize. I will not involve myself in your Scarecrow-related activities in the future.”“Thank you. And I get that you were trying to be nice, it just didn’t come off that way.”They stood in silence for a few seconds that felt more like hours before Jervis said “Thank you for letting me know. I’m afraid I should go.” He pointed with his head and one of his hands to a room that had absolutely nothing of any pressing importance in it.“Yeah. I’ve got a factory to rob.” Jon hovered there for a second before impulsively leaning forward and kissing Jervis’s cheek. “See you later, yeah?” It had been only a few months since they’d officially gotten together. Jervis knew that wasn’t a long time, and it certainly wasn’t compared to the amount of time Jon had thought they were together, but he thought it should be long enough that he wouldn’t be awestruck every time Jon did anything even mildly romantic. It still took him until after he’d heard the front door close behind Jon to recover enough to respond. “Yeah,” he said to the empty air, smiling like a fool. It could’ve been the next night, or the next week, or the first day they moved into their house. The routine was always the same.Jon pulled on his old burlap mask and strapped his toxin dispensers to his wrists, and Jervis picked out a hat to suit his mood (but one that was crooked, always a little crooked). He tipped it to Jon while he held open the door. When it shut behind them, he was no longer Jervis Tetch, newly rich member of the upper class after a suspicious inheritance and with a suspiciously affectionate relationship with his grumpy roommate. They were the Hatter and the Scarecrow, and the city would bow to them.There were rumors. Stories children told in hushed whispers and stories adults only brought up when they’d had a glass or two too many. Stories of meeting a terror on the streets. A scarecrow that lurked in the dark alleys of Gotham by night to show you your greatest fear. Sometimes, there was a man with the scarecrow, a man with a tall hat whose face no one could recall and whose watch ticked in your mind long after you woke up the next morning.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.