Yet I couldn’t help but say them.
“I want to come back here someday and see you both again. I want to have more fights with you, Blood, and beat you sometimes and be beaten sometimes, and then we’ll say stupid crap to each other. I want to do chores with you again, Mary, and maybe you’ll tell me how much I’ve improved. I want you to see my kids, my grandkids, and I want you to teach them all kinds of things, like you taught me.” That had been my dream. My sweet reverie, which some part of me had always known would never come true.
“How could you say you’re going to disappear now?! You can’t go! You can’t, I can’t take it! How am I meant to go on without you?!” My voice was trembling. My tears spilled out uncontrollably. “Don’t go… Please… I don’t care if you cheat… Please just stay…”
I knew how pathetic I must have looked to them as they watched me. Crying, screaming, throwing a tantrum. Just like a child. But even so, I had to tell them.
“Mary—”
“Yes, I know.”
They looked at each other and nodded. Then, they both balled their hands into fists, and clonked me on top of the head. It didn’t hurt. It was just a gentle knock.
“No. Now stop acting like a baby.”
“Blood is quite right. Be reasonable.”
After they told me off so gently, I couldn’t contain my unbearable sadness anymore. I cried my eyes out, tears flowing in streams down my cheeks. My face crumpled up, and I could hardly see through the tears. I heaved with sobs, over and over again.
When was the last time I had cried like this? The feelings I was full of wouldn’t even come out as words anymore.
“Hahah, I think that’s the first fatherly thing I’ve done in ages.”
“Will didn’t need a lot of looking after, did he?”
They laughed together.
“Come on, Will.” Blood turned to me. “We’d do anything for you, you know that. But come on. Some things you just don’t do. How are you meant to go on without us? I’ll tell you how: you find a way. Us humans sometimes lose stuff we think we can’t live without. But what you’ll find is, we don’t die so easy, so long as we keep on eating and sleeping. And we find new things that are important to us, as well.”
Blood pulled me close to him, and for the first time since I was a baby, he hugged me. As expected, it was a hug without a hint of warmth, nothing but hard bone and holes that let the cold air in. He ruffled my hair in the exact same way he’d done ever since I was a child. That absolutely uncomfortable feeling drew tears from me again.
“When you get out there, make yourself a lot of good buds, pick up a few pretty chicks, and have some fun.”
“Blood,” Mary said in a drawn-out, admonishing voice, “you mustn’t encourage him to be unfaithful. Will, always be loyal in love and marriage! Good gracious, this man…” Mary tutted at him.
“Oh, and Will,” she continued, “you swore a strong oath to the god of the flame and succeeded in carrying out deicide. These are the acts of a legendary hero. You have a turbulent fate ahead of you.” Mary was sitting perfectly upright as she spoke. Her words were solemn, like a priest delivering a message from the gods. “There will be times when you will suffer a loss. There will be times when you are blamed unjustly. You may be betrayed by those you help, the good you do may be forgotten, and you may lose what you have built up and be left with nothing but enemies to show for it.”
Her serious atmosphere quickly softened. She beckoned me over to her, and held me tight. “Love people anyway. Do good anyway. Don’t be afraid of loss. Create, don’t destroy. Where there is sin, grant forgiveness; where there is despair, hope; where there is sorrow, joy. And protect the weak from all kinds of violence. Just as you defied that immortal god for our sake.”
She probably understood that this would be our final embrace. “Will, William, my son. My darling son, Blood’s darling son.” I could feel her arms trembling as she held me. Mine were as well. “May the protection of the good gods and the spirits of courage always be with you.”
Mary’s face suddenly looked blurred and doubled to me. It wasn’t because of the tears. It was probably her spectral body, separating out from her physical one. I now saw the slender form of a woman standing there, with luxuriant blonde hair and downcast, emerald-green eyes. She had the look of a mother, graceful and kind.
“Listen,” Blood said. “Always move forward and have confidence in the outcome. All a man needs is determination, and he can try anything. You’ve got a habit of sinking into deep thought. Don’t let it stop you from moving.”
Blood’s form started looking blurred, like double vision, too. I now saw red hair like a lion. Sharp eyes, befitting a warrior. A well-sculpted, muscular body. He bore the look of a father, wild and jaunty.
I engraved their appearances and the words they’d given me into my heart. I was sure I’d never forget them. They would shine upon my life like Gracefeel’s flame.
We stayed like that, in silence, for a while.
Someone behind us cleared his throat. I turned around to see Gus. Four glasses and an expensive-looking bottle of firewater he’d brought from somewhere were levitating in front of him. The sight of him floating there on his own, looking completely out of place, was somehow hilarious. We all cracked up.
After that, we all drank together. The first liquor I’d ever drunk as part of a group of four had a mellow fragrance and strength enough to burn my throat. I would never forget it.
That night, guided by the divine torch that was Gracefeel’s lantern, my parents returned to samsara.
Final Chapter
A refreshing wind blew past.
It was dawn, and a thin morning mist hung in the air at the foot of the hill. A city of stone was spread out below us, built up to the edge of a vast lake. It felt medieval, or even older. I could see tall towers and an aqueduct built with a series of beautiful arches.
All of it was aged and in ruins.
Many of the buildings’ roofs had collapsed, and the plaster on the walls had fallen off, leaving the buildings in a state of pitiful disrepair. Grass grew through gaps in the streets’ stone paving, and green vines and moss clung to the buildings. The city was decaying away among the greenery, as though it were enjoying a quiet doze after all of the activity that must once have taken place here.
The morning sun shone softly over it all.
It was here, on this hill overlooking the city, that I decided to make Mary and Blood’s graves. I had so many memories of this temple hill, where you could look over the lake and the city in ruins. That was why I’d decided to bury them here.
I looked over their graves in silence.
I wanted to return here one day. I knew I wouldn’t be able to see Mary or Blood again. I knew they’d returned to samsara. But I thought I’d at least like to come to these graves and tell them how I’d grown.
I wanted to show them my friends and my family, as had once been my dream. To come back as an adult, the kind of adult they could look at and be reassured, knowing that their child was living a proper life.
“So we’ll be apart for a little while.” I put my hands together, and prayed in silence for a while. Then, I told the two graves that I’d be on my way.
“All done?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “So, um…” There was no good way to say this. “Gus… Why aren’t you dead?”
“That’s a fine question to ask an old man in his last years! My grandson wants me dead! Demonspawn!”
“Demonspawn?! Oh, come on, that hurts! I was only thinking about your hoard of treasures and how it’ll all be mine when you die!”