Page 44 of Scary & Bright
I heard the soft clatter of Krampus dropping his fork to his plate followed by a defeated sigh, and I forced my eyes open to face the creature before me. Rather than the deep anger I’d expected to see, I was met with an expression of pure anguish. His shoulders slumped over like a beaten dog, and his eyes were wide with sadness. His lie by omission had caused him no small amount of embarrassment, it seemed.
“Who told you?” he asked, his voice shaking as he spoke. “Actually, it doesn’t matter.” His mind quickly changed.
I wasn’t sure what to say. I wasn’t sure what there even was to say.
“I should have told you, but I guess I just hoped you wouldn’t ever have to find out,” he admitted, keeping his palms flat on the table and his eyes turned downward.
“I don’t know exactly what it does—your collar, I mean,” I continued, trying to be as transparent as possible to not make him feel cornered. “But I know it’s bad, and I get the feeling it’s something that I’d rather know beforehand than have to find out the hard way.” I sighed and set my own silverware down. “And I think you know I would have had to find out, eventually.”
“I guess we can throw it in with the rest of the awful inevitabilities we have to carry with us,” he said, raising his eyes to meet mine. “And I’ll tell you what it does, what to expect when the deadline comes and goes and you’re still alive, but you have to promise me you’re not going to try to get me to change my mind. I’ve already made peace with it.”
It was a promise I wasn’t entirely certain I was going to be able to keep, but I would make it purely for the sake of having a full understanding of the tormented creature before me. Maybe it would even give me an idea of how to combat these awful, painful circumstances.
“I promise,” I said softly, hoping he wouldn’t get a whiff of the conflicted nature of my vow.
His hands reached up to the iron ring around his neck and spun it for a moment.
“Um,” he began, tilting his head to one side like it was nearly impossible to find the words, or at least impossible to communicate them, “this thing will, um…” He took a deep breath, and it was painful to watch him struggle so much. “It will strangle me. Cut off the air to my lungs.”
Both my hands shot up and over my mouth in shock.
“But unfortunately, that’s not it,” he continued, still fidgeting with the ring around his neck. “You see, my brother and I can’t die from everyday means. I’ve tried to end my own life many times just from the awful combination of grief and exhaustion, but I’ve never been successful, so when I say this thing will strangle me, what I really mean is—”
“Torture,” I finished for him as the reality came to light. “All the pain of suffocating without the relief of death.”
“Yeah…” Krampus said as he began to chew the inside of his cheek. “Pretty bleak, huh?”
“More than bleak, Krampus,” I said softly, my mind immediately beginning to search for any loophole around this vicious end without breaking my promise. There were no obvious avenues. “I can’t let you—”
“You can and you will, Holly,” he insisted, forcing a smile. “I’m really not trying to be rude, but… you did promise me.”
And I had. I could see in his eyes that he was more than ready to change the subject. He was doing a less than mediocre job forcing himself to shove the heavy emotions down and enjoy the moment, but I could see him trying. The least I could do was try with him. Besides, he had gone through all this effort—it would be a shame to let it go entirely to waste.
“You’re right, you’re right,” I said with a lift in my voice, picking my silverware back up.
I could sense the tension in the air, but I had to admit I felt the tiniest twinge of relief at the sole notion that all the mysteries were officially out in the open. Just because I said I wasn’t going to try to convince him to change his mind didn’t mean I couldn’t try to come up with another solution. The gears were already turning in the back of my mind, while I kept the front of my mind as present in the moment as I could.
And for a creature already committed to the reality of his own eternal torment, Krampus looked remarkably content across the table from me. The pain in his eyes had faded away, and a familiar troublesome smirk peeked at the corners of his mouth.
“Anyway, don’t you want to know why I invited you to dinner this evening?” he asked, his voice breaking the silence and shoving the two of us into another direction entirely. It was clear he had absolutely zero intentions of allowing my emotional detour to derail the entire night.
“Are you implying that the opportunity to see me struggle in a pair of high heels wasn’t reason enough to put this all together?” I smirked before tasting the brussels sprouts. They were, as I expected, just as good as the wellington.
“Not at all,” Krampus shot back sarcastically. His occasional playful teasing was one of the things I liked most about him. He knew how to poke fun in an entertaining way, rather than just being a rude asshole. Often with men, that line was not only blurred but entirely nonexistent. “I actually have something I want you to have. But let’s not let our dinner get cold, and I’ll give it to you right after.” He winked, knowing full well that I was next to incapable of being patient.
“What is it?” I asked, completely surprised at the notion of a gift. He’d given me so much already—the clothes, the room, the space to be comfortable and find myself again, the confidence to come out of my shell.
“You’ll just have to wait and see.”
His smirk was tearing at my heart, and I could feel the burn beginning within me—the one that made me think of him touching me hard, and the sharp nip of his fangs against my lips.
So, we ate. And we drank. And we did our best to do what we had already been so successful in—ignoring the painful inevitable. Krampus admitted that he did have to manifest this meal out of nowhere rather than making it himself, which he said felt like cheating but was definitely worth it. I told him how long it took for me to remember how to use a curling iron. We laughed as the piano continued to fill the conservatory with music. In fact, we laughed so much that I could have sworn the double-paned glass windows fogged up behind the leaves with our breath. I had heard the term found family before, and I had spent plenty of years dismissing it. I told myself I’d already had a family, and there was no replacing it. No amount of friendships filled the void, and my ex-fiancé tried his best to be enough, but he wasn’t. Nothing was.
And yet…
I didn’t want to admit it, but this place, this man, suddenly felt like it could all be enough. I wasn’t sure which part of all this was fueling the understanding blossoming within me. It could be the concept of living at the bottom of the world, so far away from the standard, humdrum life of being just another cog in a capitalist system. Or, it could have been stemming purely from the tangible connection I felt growing stronger by the day with this miraculous creature across from me, but everything just felt so damned good. Every moment felt special in a way that I hadn’t let myself experience before.
“All right,” Krampus finally said as he wiped a tear of laughter away from under his eye. “Are you ready to see what I’ve got for you?”