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Sleep my little babby-oh
Sleep until you waken
When you wake you’ll see the world
If I’m not mistaken…
* * *
The first thing Bod did after leaving the little graveyard was to buy a bus ticket to whatever town it was cheaper to travel to. He knew that staying anywhere near the graveyard would be counterproductive: after all, did he not challenge himself to see as much of the world as he possibly could? He would return, one day… many years away.
As he got on the line to the bus entrance, he glanced one last time behind him, at the Old Town and the Graveyard on the hill. He waved, smiling; maybe Silas and his parents would see him, maybe they wouldn’t. He liked the first option better.
The bus driver looked at Bod, and the boy flashed his ticket. After a nod from the tall, moustached man, Nobody Owens entered the bus that would take him on the very first voyage of his life.
With eyes wide open and a smile tugging at his lips, he enjoyed every single second of it.
*
The second thing was, of course, to find a place to stay after he arrived to his destination. The city of Guildford was a new and slightly scary place, for a boy who had lived in a graveyard all of his life, but he wasn’t afraid. He had read about many different things that existed in the world, in the months before he had left the graveyard: things you should be careful of, places you can travel to, different jobs and how to apply for them, tourist information, cinemas, the internet, television… Just in case he didn’t remember things correctly since he had been at school, years ago.
Needless to say, it paid off: a couple of hours later and Bod found himself the proud (and temporary) occupant of a small room in a Youth Hostel-- with a shared bathroom, a shared kitchen, four cockroaches living cosily underneath the windowsill, and an unidentified noise coming from the room above.
He placed his belongings carefully on the tiny dresser (a toothbrush, the miniature Golden Bridge that Silas had given him when he was a child, and a pocket watch that had belonged to Mr. Owens), and looked around his room. It was small, cramped, and dark. The wallpaper was peeling off in places and one of the cockroaches had decided to come out of its hiding place to see what the fuss was all about. It was quite possibly unsanitary.
It was perfect.
*
Gildford, it seemed, had a University. The University of Surrey was the first place he had decided to explore, and he didn’t regret it. The sheer amount of people, of all kinds and looks and races and ages and all of them breathing-- it left him feeling amazed. Slightly claustrophobic, but still amazed.
Contrary to what he had noticed on the bus to Gildford, no one seemed to stare at him or look oddly in his direction. Here, he was just another person, another student, or maybe someone who was just strolling by and who happened to be, quite obviously, alive.
Bod decided to go to the library and sit down, to look at others more closely and maybe even read a little when he was done. In the end, things didn’t go according to plan, but he didn’t exactly mind.
*
“Excuse me, is this seat taken?” asked a voice in front of him, a little loudly. Bod looked up from his book and shook his head. “Oh, thank goodness,” the girl replied, dumping all of her books in the massive table with a large bang, earning a sharp “SHH!” and a deadly glare from the librarian. She shrugged it off and sat down, getting to work. “Bloody old bat, always in a grumpy mood. She knows we have exams coming up, we need to study! But no, she only pisses us off more, and--“ the girl stopped, then, and stared at Bod. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m disturbing you and haven’t even introduced myself.” She extended a pale hand. “I’m Jo. Jo Addams.”
Bod didn’t mind the disturbance one bit; in fact, he was so mesmerized by this new person that he almost missed her introduction. “Hello. I’m Bod Owens,” he said, shaking her hand.
If she thought his name was weird, she didn’t mention it. Or perhaps she just didn’t have the time to, because a hand came out of nowhere and clapped Jo on the back, with enough force to push her forward against her pile of books.
“Why hello there, little cousin!” Said the owner of said hand, cheerfully, before sitting down next to Jo. She glared at him and composed herself, but Bod could say that she wasn’t that upset by the newcomer. “Meeting new people instead of studying, are we?”
Jo sighed. “Sod off. As it just so happens, I found the only free spots left in the whole library.” But the boy, who seemed to be a few years older than Bod, wasn’t paying her any attention; instead, he was looking at Bod curiously, a twinkle in his eyes.
Jo noticed it, and sighed once again. “Bod, meet my unfortunate cousin, Harry Abbot. Harry, meet Bod Owens. He was the poor soul using this table before we arrived.”
At this, a smile lit up Harry’s handsome face, and he offered his hand for the younger boy to take. “A pleasure to meet you, Bod Owens.”
And so Bod met his first, real friends: a tall and freckled redhead girl with the most piercing blue eyes Bod had ever seen, and a curious boy with dark eyes and even darker hair, and a bright smile that reminded him of Scarlett.
It was going to be a fantastic afternoon.
*
Kiss a lover
Dance a measure,
Find your name
And buried treasure…
*
From then on, the three of them were inseparable. Bod laughed and ate and drank and ran and lived, and his friends were by his side, doing the exact same things. It was just like what he had imagined life outside the graveyard to be, or perhaps even more. After all, he didn’t imagine that one day he would be cramped with his friends inside a tiny photograph booth and take very silly pictures, or that he would laugh so hard that his drink would come out of his nose, or that he had an impressively high tolerance to alcohol and would just sit back and watch his friends make a fool out of themselves.
He also didn’t imagine that his (very) tipsy friend would clumsily wrap his arms around Bod’s shoulders and lean in for an awkward kiss.
But most of all, he hadn’t imagined he would kiss him back.
*
Things didn’t change after that moment. They didn’t change the next day, or any of the days after that, or in any of the months that followed. Their friendship didn’t change-- Jo and Harry still bickered like proper cousins, Bod and Jo still had deep philosophical discussions about certain books, and Harry still interrupted them when they were about to reach a conclusion, thus murdering all train of thought in the conversation. No, things didn’t change that much… except, perhaps, for a warmer gaze, a softer chuckle, or a more lingering touch.
However, just as Bod had told Jo and Harry on the first week they met, there would be a day when he had to leave. He had promised to himself, to his family, that he would go and see every little wonder this world had to show him: and no one, not even his friends, could hold him back.
*
A week after New Year’s, he told them he was leaving soon. Jo nodded sadly but didn’t say anything else; Harry opened his mouth to complain but a glare from his cousin cut him off. “I’m sorry, I really am,” Bod said, honestly, running a hand through his hair (which was shorter, since Jo and Harry had decided that it was their duty as his friends to give him a proper haircut). “I wish I didn’t have to leave you two. But I’ve told you I wouldn’t stay long, ever since the beggining…”
Jo shook her head. “It’s fine,” she whispered, even though her smile said it was anything but.
Harry left without saying a word.
*
On his last day at Gildford, his friends offered him a camera. “So you’ll remember us,” Jo had said, after giving him a peck on the cheek. Harry’s eyes twinkled, even as he smiled sadly and pulled Bod into a bone crushing hug. “Come back one day,” he whispered, tightening his hold for a moment. Bod felt his face warming up. Then, more audibly as he pulled back, Harry said, “And don’t forget to mail us pictures of all those brilliant places you’ll travel to, aye?”
With a firm nod and a slightly shaky smile, Bod held the camera tight to his chest, and got on the bus to yet another different place.
It was only after his friends were nothing but a couple of dots on the horizon, that Bod allowed himself to examine his gift more carefully. It was a Polaroid: old and battered, with the paint coming off in the corners and quite a few scratches thrown in for good measure; and yet, despite its apparently low commercial value, Bod thought that it was one of the most precious things he had ever owned.
He aimed the camera at the landscape outside of the bus window, and pressed the little red button.
* * *
Three months after and Bod saw himself saying goodbye to other, new friends, whom he had met after leaving Guildford. Five months after that, in another different place, and the same thing happened again. Smiles, hugs, and sometimes even tears. And to remind himself of every single departure, he had a Polaroid Picture.
He liked to call it his Memory Maker-- even though he knew he could not possibly forget any of his new and exciting adventures, a part of him worried, somewhat, that his mind would just burst with the sheer amount of memories he kept storing inside of it. And so he took pictures: of friends, of places he visited, of people walking down the street at the end of the day, of a couple smiling coyly at each other in a city park… of everything that he considered meaningful.
He kept the small photographs inside an old shoebox (which soon became his Memory Box), and he would write on their backs: dates, places, and sometimes even notes to his family or friends, either from the graveyard, Guildford, or all the other places he had visited and lived at. Dear Mother, I saw a vase of petunias that you would love to have on your tomb, or: Dear Harry, I think I found the person who stole your dark blue scarf two Winters ago.
He didn’t write for Silas. Not because he didn’t think of him (which he did: more frequently than he thought of anyone else, if he was honest with himself), but because he thought that Silas watched over him, somehow-- and writing for someone when they could be reading it at the same time was rather silly, in his opinion.
* * *
Seven years after leaving the graveyard, Nobody Owens found himself in Portugal, in a place by the name of Nazaré: a picturesque seaside town, with a bright blue sky and sandy beaches. He breathed in the salty scent of the sea, as he got out of the car that had brought him there.
“Well, it’s not a deserted island,” he said to himself, a big smile on his lips. “But it will do.”
Just a few minutes after he had arrived, he was approached by a small, plump woman wearing a headscarf, an intricately embroidered apron, and what seemed to be an awful lot of skirts. She flashed a cardboard sign at him, with the word ROOMS written in many different languages, followed by the price. Bod nodded and smiled curiously, and the woman smiled back, and gestured for him to follow her through the maze of narrow streets and white painted houses. She was talking animatedly in a language that Bod assumed was Portuguese, mixed with a few English words here and there (which, he thought, were meant for him to maybe understand what she was talking about, which he didn’t), until they reached their destination: another white house, bigger than the others, with tourist information pinned to the side. The woman smiled again (which, Bod noticed, made her look many years younger than what she probably was), waved, and walked off to where they had come from.
He walked off to the counter, where a girl stood organizing some papers. She seemed to be around his age, probably a little younger, and had warm brown eyes and hair. She smiled when she saw him.
“English?” Bod nodded. The girl continued. “You’ll have to forgive my mother; she can be truly enthusiastic sometimes.” She chuckled and waved around her. “Would you like to rent a room?”
*
Nobody Owens liked to explore. Years before, he had explored the graveyard to his heart’s content: he had poked around its inhabitants’ graves, examined every stone and tomb, every little detail, whenever he hadn’t been around Silas, his parents, or Miss Lupescu. Of course, he couldn’t explore as much as he wanted now (he didn’t think it would go down well with the population if he just entered their houses randomly), but it was enough.
Which was why he was now a little lost, and hadn’t he walked through that street ten minutes ago? Only one way to find out. Bod crossed the street and took a turn to the right--
-- only to walk right against a couple who were kissing discreetly, while leaning against a wall.
Bod blinked and blushed, despite his 23-or-so years of age. “Terribly sorry!” He said, just as quickly as he walked away from the scene. In his hurry; he almost didn’t notice the muffled laughter from the couple he had interrupted, nor that he was heading towards the beach, which was exactly where he had intended to go to in the first place.
Bod sat down on the warm sand, and looked at the sea. He couldn’t help but wonder if, one day, he would have what he had witnessed just now: a companion, someone to be with, who he could have the kind of relationship that his parents at the graveyard, or his other parents before that, surely had had. Perhaps he would, after he explored the world to his heart’s content. Or perhaps he could find someone who would explore it with him.
He thought of Harry, of six years ago, and brought a hand to his own mouth, unconsciously. He thought of home, of the graveyard, of how he would return there one day, when his path was finally over.
He thought of Silas.
*
Bod decided it was about time he organized his Memory Box. Carefully, he sat down on the bed of his small room, opened the box, and let its contents fall slowly on the white bed sheets. He began to sort them, placing the most recent pictures aside, along with other trinkets he had collected along the way.
There was a soft sound, like a flutter of wings, almost camouflaged between the soft rustle of photograph paper. Bod looked up from the pile of photographs and other mementos. No, he thought, as his eyes examined the darkness carefully. Definitely not wings. He watched as the shadows unwrapped themselves from a familiar figure: someone he had cared for and admired for as long as he could remember.
“Silas!” He said, a smile morphing his expression into what most people would comment as ‘like a child on Christmas day’. He got up from his bed, causing a few photographs to fall unnoticed on to the floor, and walked the few steps to his former guardian. For a moment, he forgot himself, and almost threw his arms around the older man, like so many of his new friends had done to him in greeting. But he caught himself in time, and glanced up at Silas through eyes half covered with messy, light brown hair, feeling slightly embarrassed.
There was the smallest of curls at the corner of Silas’ lips, that might have been just the trick of the light. “We have not met for seven years, Bod. I will not think less of you if you decide to behave in an affectionate manner.” As if to prove his point, the taller man ruffled the smaller’s hair, somehow making it even messier than before. It made Bod feel like he was a child all over again, sitting with his guardian at the top of the hill while watching the town below.
Bod’s smile did not waver. Still, he decided not to act on his first impulse, choosing instead to hold out his hand, like he had done when he’d left the graveyard seven years ago. Silas took it, and his hand was as cold and pale as Bod remembered it, but not as big. Even the man himself didn’t seem as tall as before, though he was still taller than Bod, of course (even though a few growth spurts had ensured that Bod was quite the tall young man, these days).
Bod didn’t know what to say, what to talk about. There were so many things he wanted to say to his guardian, so many experiences he wanted to describe, all mingled with the desire to know what had happened in the older man’s life. “How have you been, Silas?” He asked, eager and happy.
“Didn’t you know that curiosity killed the cat, Bod?” Silas shook his head softly. “I have been well. As well as someone like myself could ever be, that is.”
Bod chuckled. “Of course,” he whispered, before taking a step back and sitting at the end of the bed, just as Silas sat down in a chair located a couple of feet away.
“Did you return to your land? Was your house still alright?” The young man asked. He had been curious about it ever since Silas had mentioned the matter, years ago. It was still strange to think of his guardian having a home somewhere else other than the Graveyard.
“It was… tolerable,” the pale man replied, prefering not to give too many details, as usual. “Still habitable by one of my kind. But to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t there for too long.”
Bod raised an eyebrow, even more curious than before. “How so? I thought you were going to return to your native land?”
“I did return,” Silas replied with a nod. “I just left soon after. Some businesses to take care of, other things to protect…” He waved a hand vaguely. “The usual matters.”
“I see.” He leaned forward, elbows resting on his bony knees. “Are you someone else’s guardian right now?”
“I suppose you could say that.” There was that shadow of a smile again, that might have been just a play of the lights. “Though I haven’t had to interfere in a while. If I recall correctly, the last time I had to get involved was around six years ago, when a group of thugs cornered that person, in an alleyway in Prague.”
“That’s odd, the same thing happ--,” Bod stopped speaking, blinking as if to clear his thoughts. “Hey, that was me! I remember it clearly, there were five men after me, and after a while a police officer came and took care of the situation. At the time I was too relieved to think much about the matter, but now think about it, those men were stronger than the officer, and… wait a second…”
His eyes widened, seeing the truth about that night for the very first time. “…did you erase my memories of it? Did you play with my mind?” He sounded hurt, upset, just like when Scarlett had called him a monster.
Silas’ face was unreadable, but Bod thought he might have seen a flicker of sorrow in his blank eyes, just this once. “I am truly sorry for what I did, Bod,” and he did, for it showed in his voice, and Silas never lied. “But I had no other option. It was too soon after you left the Graveyard, and I didn’t think it would have been wise for you to see me that early.” As if to try to make amends, Silas walked the few steps to Bod and reached out, placing his hand on Bod’s head and ruffling his hair gently. “I did not tweak with your memories or your mind in any other occasion, before or after you left the Graveyard.”
Bod said nothing. He looked down, at Silas’ perfectly polished shoes, took a deep breath, and nodded. When he looked up again, Silas seemed somewhat… relieved. If such a thing was even possible for him.
He messed Bod’s hair one last time, before moving his hand away. “Now,” he began, before pulling the chair closer and sitting down again. “Tell me about your path so far. While you have a fairly interesting night life, I’m sure that it pales in comparison-- pardon the pun-- to what you live during daylight.”
With a small smile returning to his lips, Bod started talking once again.
*
Face your life
Its pain, its pleasure
Leave no path untaken…
*
They talked for hours. Or, Bod talked and described how his life had been since he’d left the Graveyard, and Silas had nodded and occasionally commented on a thing or another. The places he’d seen, the people he had met, and how many friends he had made in so many different cities, towns, and villages.
For Bod, it felt like only minutes had passed since the beggining of their conversation, for it had been too long since he had seen his former mentor and guardian. But, as always, Silas did not get swept away by the conversation, and had a clear notion of just how much time had passed.
“Bod,” he said, interrupting an exciting tale of a time Bod had gotten locked inside the London Zoo during the night. “I apologize for the interruption, but it will be daylight soon. I must leave.”
The younger man stopped talking instantly, the smile on his lips fading as quickly as if someone had turned off a switch. “Oh, okay,” was all he said. If Silas had to leave, it was because he truly had to, and Bod had been careless (and selfish) not to notice that the day would be dawning soon. Still, he couldn’t help the hopeful tone of his voice when he asked: “When will I see you again?”
The way the question had been phrased, so differently from last time, was not lost on Silas. “I cannot say,” he began, aware of how much the boy wanted a positive answer. “It depends on many things.” His guardian got up from the chair, and brushed an imaginary fleck of dust from his shoulder.
Bod nodded and didn’t push the issue any further. Silas nodded in return, and when it seemed that he was about to leave, Bod interrupted. “Wait!” He ran a hand through his own hair, nervously, a little surprised at his own outburst. “You said you wouldn’t think less of me if I acted affectionate. Right?” Silas tilted his head curiously to the side, and nodded once again. Bod blew out a breath.
“Well then, in that case.” The younger man got up, and took a step closer to his former guardian. “I, um. I had friends who were more affectionate than others, of course.” Another step. “One once said that a pat on the back was enough for a goodbye, but most said that you needed something more.” Another, final step. “But another one…” Bod stared at a place above Silas’ shoulder, eyes unseeing. “She said that if you wanted a special person to return, that you could do something.” He took a deep breath, and finally looked up. “That you could do this.”
Placing his hands on the taller man’s shoulders to brace himself, Bod leaned up and pressed his lips against Silas’ cold ones, unsure if he was doing things correctly. If he had been paying attention, he would have seen his former guardian’s dark eyes widen ever so slightly, but as it was, Nobody Owens thought that his first real kiss wasn’t being entirely successful.
But, as he began to pull away, he felt a hesitant hand being placed at his back. This time, however, it were those cold lips that searched his warm ones for another kiss, a kiss that was the same as before, and yet completely different: while Silas’ was as chaste as Bod’s had been, the fact that Silas had started it made Bod feel, if he were quite honest with himself, simply giddy.
They pulled back at the same time, and Bod leaned his forehead against Silas’ shoulder, noticing for the first time how strong his scent was. He smelled like blood, rain, and earth. He smelled like the little Graveyard on the hill.
He smelled like home.
“Will you make me forget this, too?” He spoke softly, voice muffled by his guardian’s clothes.
A pause. Silas’ hand tightened its hold, barely noticeable, on Bod’s back. Then, quietly: “No.”
“I’m glad.” The younger man smiled, and slowly, painfully slowly, pulled back. “Go, then. You must.”
Silas nodded, and reached up one last time. Nobody furrowed his brows, ready to get his hair mussed once again, but it never came. Instead, Silas ran his fingers lightly through Bod’s hair, in an odd version of a caress. Bod could feel his guardian’s sharp fingernails grazing lightly on his scalp, and closed his eyes at the surprisingly soft gesture.
When he opened them again, Silas was gone.
*
Nobody Owens curled up amidst all the photographs and trinkets in his bed, and fell asleep as the first rays of sunshine penetrated his window. As he moved in his sleep, another polaroid picture fell to the floor, this one quite different from all the others. It was a photograph of Bod, sleeping peacefully, from around two or three years ago. There was no one else in the picture, and no apparent indication of who the photographer had been… except for a letter, written in the back of the picture, in perfect black script: S.
Bod woke up hours later, feeling happier and more comfortable than he had felt in a long while, despite the soreness in his neck and the slight pain on his back, from sleeping in such awkward angles. He stretched lazily and rubbed at his eyes. A slow, happy smile tugged at his lips, as images of a kiss, an odd hug and a caress flooded his mind.
He hadn’t forgotten.
*
Six weeks later, Silas returned.
END