Page 25 of Better in Black
The truth is, you lied for Clary, Jocelyn.
I lied for you. Because silence was what you wanted from me. But now—now that you’re lying in that bed, too silent, terrifyingly silent, now that I sit beside you every day praying to the Angel that I’ll hear your voice again—now I can’t help peering into my own negative spaces. And hiding there: the truth. I wanted silence too.
—
Every day, I go to the hospital. I smile at the nurses and the orderlies. They all know me now. Rose, whose cat is diabetic; Jim, who lives with his mother but tells his dates she’s just an elderly roommate; Paula, who plants a new species of flower in her garden for every patient she loses. I pretend not to notice that they feel sorry for me, because they see me burning with hope that one day you will wake up. Because every day, they are more certain you will not.
Every day, I sit at your bedside. I hold your hand. I tell you stories about your daughter, about the brave warrior she’s become. About the fierceness with which she fought for you. About the truth alive in her you were terrified to see: She is a Shadowhunter, Jocelyn. She’s discovered herself, Jocelyn. We raised Clary to be a walking half-truth. Now? She’s finally whole.
I’ve told you about Jonathan Christopher. I told you your son is alive, your son ishere,within your reach—and I’ll admit when that didn’t stir you, it was harder to believe you were listening. Still. I’ve told you of the battles, the deaths. I’ve even told you of every terrible thing Valentine has done since his return, in case rage proves strong enough to do what love has not, and brings you back to us.
Every night, when the nurses tell me it’s time to leave, I go home. It’s harder there, where I can’t see your chest rise and fall, where I have nothing but my own faith to get me through the night. I cook dinner, and I think of you. I take care of Clary, as much as she’ll let me, and I think of you. I lie in bed, and I don’t sleep, and I think of you. I imagine telling you other stories.Mystory, and the storyof our life together. I’d like to think our friendship is more than a half-truth, but it’s never been a whole one.
I’ve promised myself: When you wake up, I’ll tell you everything. When you return to me, I’ll finally show myself to you, and risk the consequences. When, when, when—I still believe inwhen,notif.
But the waiting, Jocelyn. The waiting hurts. And the words are piling up.
It’s late. I can hear sirens, motorbikes, delivery trucks, somewhere in the distance a mournful wolf. The music of Manhattan.
I’m adding my voice to the song. Let this letter—a letter to you, my dear, my dearest, that you can only read when you come back to me—be my howl to the moon.
—
I don’t remember not knowing you. Which means I don’t remember the first time I met you, or the first time I knew we would be friends, much less the first time I noticed you were beautiful. But I remember the first time I lied to you. Was that the real beginning, or the beginning of the end?
It was in Brocelind Forest, and it was dark. That deep, velvet dark of night you only find in Idris. We never talk about Idris. But I know what you miss most is its light, a light unpolluted by neon or electricity. The sun shimmering on Lake Lyn. Sunset pinking over the Brocelind Plain. Moonlight glittering on the demon towers, which themselves glow. When I allow myself to miss Idris, what I miss most is those woods. That perfect, impenetrable dark.
“It’s shameful, a Shadowhunter being afraid of the dark.” My father would never have said it to my face. Maybe he didn’t realize how much I eavesdropped when I was supposed to be asleep. Or maybe he did, and it was a message meant for me.
“He’s a sensitive boy,” my mother told him.
“He’s a coward,” my father said. “And you encourage it. His only friend is agirl.That Jocelyn Fairchild. It’s ridiculous. When I was his age, I spent the night alone in Brocelind Forest. All of us did. Lucian cringes away from the very idea.”
“Because he isn’t a fool,” said my mother. “Brocelind is far more full of dangers than it was when you were young. Luke knows that. He’s more my son than yours, that way.”
They never raised their voices, my parents. It was worse, somehow, the way they disagreed. Cold, sharp. They used words to slice at each other like razors, to open wounds that would never close.
“You think you’re protecting him,” my father said. “But you’re destroying him. He’s a warrior by blood, and a cowardly warrior lives only so long.”
If my mother had an answer to that, it was too quiet to hear from my bedroom in our little house. Many other families had giant manor houses, sprawling over the green fields of Idris. Ours was a cottage—small, humble. It seemed the wrong sort of structure to try to contain my father, whose fierceness was as outsized as his pride.
In the morning, when I told my parents I wanted to spend the night alone in Brocelind Forest—that I wanted to prove to myself I could face the darkness and whatever lurked within it—a rare smile spread across my father’s face.
I didn’t tell you I was going, because you would have insisted on coming along. I packed nothing but a dagger. My father’s favored weapon. One that, until that night, he’d never let me touch.
As I left the house—wearing gear, carrying a single backpack with food, water, a seraph blade, and my dagger—my mother whispered, “You don’t have to do this.” But I saw the pride on my father’s face, and knew that I did.
I trekked into the trees at dusk, when the sky was darkening to sapphire. At first, it was beautiful, and I thought of you and your paints. The intense colors inside the forest seemed to beckon an artist: deep green moss starred with white flowers, the yellow undersides of leaves, patches of sunlight where bluebells grew.
The shadows lengthened as I trudged further into the forest’s heart. By the time darkness settled over Brocelind like a black-gloved hand, it was too late to turn back.
I heard the crunch of leaves behind me and whirled around, as I’d been trained to do. But my training had taken place at home, or in the training room at your manor house. I hadn’t even gone to the Academy yet. I was unprepared for the sharpness of real fear, for the sense that every sound was a threat.
We all knew werewolf packs roamed those woods, and not all of them were fond of Shadowhunters. We knew the trees concealed rogue vampires thirsty for a taste of human blood. Faeries with long crystal nails like stabbing knives, manticores with double rows of grinning jaws. We’d all heard the stories, bodies tossed to the edge of the tree line, shredded or drained. Academy students who ventured into the woods and were never seen again. Full-grown Shadowhunters caught off guard by a demon melting out of the shadows.
I dropped to a crouch, my back against a tree, as the light drained away. Took out my witchlight rune-stone and clutched it, my shield against the shadows. I was certain I would die that night. And I would die knowing I was a coward.
Back then, I thought bravery meant a lack of fear. I know better now.
