Glass Desires Read online

  Chapter 6 – One Snow Globe More...

  None of my medicines any longer give me relief from the pain that swells behind my left eye. When realized, sleep dulls my pain, but nightmares hamper my slumber, so that by morning a migraine lurks above my pillow to stab through my nerves as light fills my bedroom. My days rotate through radiation treatments and doctor consultations. Each chemotherapy pill my drying throat struggles to swallow saps me of more strength. I spend most of my time upon my sickbed, and I feel my zeal for this world fade.

  It is difficult to laugh as my condition worsens, but I giggle to guess what the doctors must think of the maladies for which they find themselves treating me. They ask how I so badly sprang my ankle. I know their training does not help them understand when I explain I tripped while searching for a piece of glass in the mountain crags of the Yell Echo Range with my friend Fay. My physicians frown as they treat the burns my fingertips suffered while sifting through the ash of the volcanoes of the Steam Seas hoping to feel some shard of mirror. They gave me scorpion venom to break the fever of the poisonous llungruel lizard which bit me while I sifted through the tall lom weeds on track of another piece of glass. They have stitched shut the many lacerations I have suffered while navigating through the teetering and rusting piles of the Nyleh scrapyards praying to uncover one piece more of Fay's beloved mirror. What must my doctors think I do between sessions of radiation and consultations? They must think my chances of survival to be very low.

  I will swallow any medicine in my treatment against my cancer, but I will never abandon Fay.

  My body has suffered, but my spirits have soared these last several weeks as Fay daily brings me a new snow globe. I have not failed to smile when Fay's face glows upon finding a new shard of glass. Her halos have never appeared so bright. Fay's magic has never given me such comfort from my hurts.

  I sense that Fay approaches the corner of Water and Fifth. My migraine screams and my vision swoons as I quickly sit up in bed and grunt to place my hurt shoulder into a sling. I hurt the shoulder when I fell from a tree I climbed in a snow globe jungle trying to locate another piece of polished glass.

  No one stands outside my window when I first peek through the glass. I close my eyes, and when I reopen them after a heartbeat, Fay is waving at me through drizzling rain. I cannot make it to my intercom before Fay rings foyer's buzzer, and the shrill reverberates agony through my brain.

  “Show a little mercy, Fay.” I grumble into the intercom. “Take your finger off of the button and just come on in.”

  Fay stands in the middle of my apartment before I sit on the foot of my bed. Her silver hair floats in a shower of pearl motes. Her halos shine and spin. Shards of glass twinkle upon her new necklaces. Fay grins at me, erasing whatever pain lurks in my muscle and bone.

  “You look like you're on the trail of another sliver of your mirror.”

  Fay hops next to me. “I think I might find the frame at our next stop, Adam. That would mean we've found all the pieces. I can start putting the pieces back together again with the frame. Then, I'll bridge the divide that separates me from the Regent. All I need is your good luck, Adam. We're near the end of our search.”

  I wince.

  Fay grasps my hand. “Are you fine? You're pale. And you're sweating.”

  “It's my medicine.” I say. “Part of my therapy. It will pass.”

  “You should have let me speak to your doctors.”

  “They would understand even less than I do, Fay.”

  Fay rests her head for a moment on my shoulders, and her halos envelope me. Their light dissipates much of my pain. Motes of pearl twinkle in my vision and chase away much of my exhaustion.

  Fay lifts her head and peers into my eyes. I try not to, timidly, turn away. I try to return her gaze, to look as deeply into her copper eyes as she does into mine. But I lack either the confidence or the courage to do so.

  Fay sighs and lifts her head from my shoulder. “I know you're in pain, Adam. But will you travel with me again? Can you? It would mean so much to me.”

  “Of course I'll go with you.”

  I answer so quickly despite my hurts, no matter what travails and discomforts might be waiting for me within the waiting snow globe. Will an acidic rain stain my hair green? Will I choke in the fog of some industrial world? The snow globes hold more than I can imagine. I cannot anticipate, and thus prepare for, what dangers might face me. Yet nor can I imagine what treasures I might find with Fay. I cannot know what vistas I will look upon. I will not know what magics will unfold before me. And I know Fay will be next to me, and that is enough to convince me to travel.

  “I have a favor to ask, Fay.”

  “Name it.”

  “Let me hold the snow globe,” I answer. “Let me shake the glass. Let me start the magic.”

  Fay knows her charm has not left her. She grins. “Of course. I will place my hands beneath yours as you hold the globe so that the magic may move through both of us. Shake the globe gently so that we may travel smoothly.”

  Fay's small hands produce a snow globe quicker than I can guess where the glass comes from. My hands tremble as she places it into my open palms. I'm so frighten of jarring the snows suspended in the globe's waters that I don't breath. I raise the globe close to my eyes and squint at the waters. The glass remains dim, and I cannot see any details of where we might next arrive.

  “Magic is like that, Adam.” Fay winks. “It rarely shows itself until the very last moment.”

  Taking a breath, I slowly turn the snow globe upside down and then right-side up. My head swirls as the snows start to swirl. The glass warms my hands. I carefully repeat the snow globe's turning, and I do my best to imagine where Fay and I will next find ourselves when I next open my eyes.

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