Airy Nothing by Clarissa Pattern

Author:Clarissa Pattern [Pattern, Clarissa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: queer, YA, identity, coming of age, LGBT, gender, historical romance, Elizabethan, Shakespeare, theatre
Publisher: Clarissa Pattern
Published: 2021-08-22T22:00:00+00:00

Here’s ado to lock up honesty

And honor from th’ access of gentle visitors

John shifted on his mat, reaching out and searching with his arms. Where was Jetta? He didn’t remember falling asleep. He didn’t remember when he’s been last awake. Was he late stirring?

He couldn’t hear Ma or his sister moving about, nor smell the wet animal scent of their home. Where were they? Had Da beat him? He couldn’t remember that, either.

He rubbed the crustiness from his eyes and forced them open, pushing himself upright.

A boy, sparkling with red fiery light, smiled down at him, his eyes shining with the fresh green of new spring buds.

‘Sleep longer, Fair One. I needs go out, but I’ll return as soon as possible,’ the Faerieboy said.

‘You’re going to see the Butcher, like Moll suggested.’ He knew it was his voice speaking, but he didn’t feel connected to it, or understand the words his own tongue uttered.

‘It is the best way to find out how things lie,’ the Faerieboy said.

John struggled to his knees. With numb, prickling fingers, he took the ribbon of Ma’s protective pouch from around his neck and stretched out to knot it around the Faerieboy’s. The moment it touched him, the long-dead flowers danced into life with new, white blossoms that glowed from within. The threads of the ribbon unwound and remade themselves, in colours of sunlight and dead night and all shades in between.

The Faerieboy laughed. He tucked John’s hair behind his ear, and settled him back down to sleep. He laid a warm hand over John’s eyes, and they sank closed as though weighted.

‘Dream sweetly until I return,’ the Faerieboy said softly.

‘I will try,’ he replied.

But the world was chill and empty. The Faerieboy had left him alone. And deep within his chest, John understood that somehow the faerie had got it wrong: he would only be able to dream sweetly when Jack returned. Until then, all would be darkness and nightmares.

*

*

*

John’s eyes flicked open. Had he been asleep? The light in the basement varied little between night and day, but there was a slight difference in the shadows that he recognised as morning. His body was crunched up and aching. Something had touched him. The hobgoblin?

He leaned up on one elbow and peered around the basement. The sharp claws of a rat pricked over his bare feet as his movement sent it scuttling away. He yanked his knees up tightly, heart thumping. Black Jack and Moll were always laughing about stories of hungry rats nibbling people’s toes off as they slept. But neither of them paid any more attention to the rats than they did to the smudgy birds everywhere, ready to sweep down and scuffle with the rodents over scraps.

John put a hand down and felt his toes, wiggling them one at a time. Then he worked his way back, checking them again. Satisfied, he stretched his legs out and sat up fully.

Moll had left out a clean smock for him, and he wriggled into it, then paused.

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