So, it's Valentine's Day, and I got seized with the sudden and ambitious urge to draw one of my OC couples for the occasion (ambitious because me? draw two people actively interacting with each other?). However, I'm torn between my current story and my OGs like Benn and Kathryn.
Who would you like to see art of?
Jeanne and Stanton (A Four-Dimensional Plot)
Benn and Kathryn (Rifters, Series 1)
Lyn and Zo (Rifters, Series 2)
Jarryd and Ashley (Waysides)
Rhys and Mara (besties, not romantic) (AFDP)
Gail and Michael (Terrarium Lights)
Other couple who I'm not remembering rn (please tag)
Unbiased button for Me and other spectators
I don't believe in love and would like you to draw a dragon
Voting ended onFeb 15, 2025
Brief explanations below the cut
Jeanne and Stanton — Coworkers. Stanton has had a crush on her for a while and wants to support her and help her have a better life, but Jeanne doesn't know how to be a person and has to figure out what being in love with someone could even look like. Plus he's technically her antagonist right now, because she's harboring the fugitive he's trying so hard to catch...
Benn and Kathryn — From Benn's perspective this was an intense enemies-to-lovers, and from Kathryn's, she just wanted to befriend the grumpy guy and then Whoops what are these feelings? They are The power couple. They got married and have twins and continue to roam the multiverse doing good and adopting children.
Lyn and Zo — Lyn (former college student) is depressed and wants to sacrifice herself for the greater good, and Zo (former assassin) thinks that's stupid because she's amazing and has so much to offer the world if she's alive and he WILL keep her from dying, so help him. Lyn is pining and in denial because it's less messy to just stuff the feelings into her back pocket and hope they go away. Zo is clueless and thinks that absolute devotion is just what being best friends is like. He's not wrong exactly, but the heart palpitations and urge to kiss her should give him a clue that there's more going on.
Jarryd and Ashley — you know that awkward moment when you're supposed to kidnap someone to be your grandfather's experiment, but then you get trapped in a broken-down spaceship, form a real connection, become friends, and then after mutually rescuing each other multiple times you fall in love? It was a weird few years for them.
Rhys and Mara — skeptic and gremlin. Rhys would like to be in his comfort zone, thank you very much, and Mara wants to Explore the World and get into trouble. Rhys would much rather be the side character, but unfortunately he's the protagonist—and now Mara's enabling him against his will.
Gail and Michael — they've been married for a few decades and love each other deeply. They don't have much screen time since Michael was traveling during most of the story, but when he comes back and finds his wife telling him ghost stories, he believes her and helps her build the ghost a terrarium.
Updated character art time, featuring Abigal "Gail" Goffrey!
Gail wants to do something meaningful with her life, now that her children have moved out and she has time on her hands. The ghost in her garden needs to find out who he is. Together, they just might solve both problems.
(First draft of her story can be found >>here!)
I finally drew her more smoothly and clearly, and figured out coloring. And added little bee buttons to her waistcoat, because bees are important.
Last time on Terrarium Lights: Gail discovered whether or not the immaterially non-existent can be touched. (Next part >>here)
Gail had mostly finished the terrarium for Mrs. Oberson—she was slow at it without Michael. It really only needed one thing more, but she was stuck wavering between driftwood or extra plants.
The lad came by every day. Each time, he appeared visibly relieved to have made it back another day, to still be a part of reality. Mostly he spent his time standing beside her as she did chores, or sitting nearby while she gardened or read or worked on the terrarium.
Sometimes he was as talkative as a windship broken loose from its moorings, other times he kept a quiet watch. So far, he hadn't brought up names again, or visiting town, but he did talk about his memories, and asked Gail questions about anything and everything he could imagine.
He told her about the vague snippets he remembered. There were more fantastical places that he was pretty sure he had been to—one he said floated above the clouds, higher than an airship could go, and with trees growing in and through it and holding the earth of it together. He also became more assured that someone had been with him, though he couldn't seem to place any distinct aspects about them other than that they were there.
"He was my friend, though," he said. "I remember that. I don't know what we were doing or why we were where we were, but… we were in it together. We had each others' backs."
He had much more distant memories of somewhere a lot more like the world Gail knew, like Santa Juliana. Streets with cabs and powered cycles and gearmounts. Sea and sails hovering in the distance. Airships and windships and letterships and more humming overhead.
In her turn, she told him about the lighthouse, and the yearly commemoration there, started four years ago by the lighthouse keepers as a way to honor those lost at sea. It was a time of remembering and mourning and celebrating those who had made it back to shore because of the lighthouse. Since David had been lost at sea, she went herself.
"Not all of us go," she said. "Benjamen and Timothy can find it hard to get here, and we've all agreed that we don't want to make more of David’s death than he would want. We want to remember his life, who he was, and be grateful as much as we can for the time we had with him. Michael and I have made it a habit to go, though, and Charity has gone twice. It can certainly be a hard time, though. He… he was very young."
She told him about her collection of bugs and sketches, and showed him her very informal notes on the denizens of the garden. She also pulled out the encyclopedia that her children had gotten her one Christmas, and confessing that she was touched by the present, but rarely used it—she much preferred observing her little friends on her own, without the weight of needing to understand the more formal knowledge surrounding them. Mostly she used it after she had finished her observations. Then it was very interesting and amusing to compare to her own scratchings.
Meanwhile, the lad showed a surprising aptitude with electrical knowledge. During their times together, he repeatedly asked questions about how power got generated this far out into the country without any visible lines, and had rattled off several different kinds of possible models or modes that might have be used. He’d been hoping Gail would recognize one of them, but without luck. He also seemed to understand how their generator worked with some kind of mix of electric powering and the heat and steam generated by their internal heating system and kitchen. Most of his questions about how it worked she did not understand at all, and he did not know any way to explain it to her, so he poked around the house and had to remain satisfied with knowing little. It proved useful, however, when he suggested a simple fix for the inconsistent flickering of the lights in Michael’s office. Thankfully, she understood enough about things once they reached indoors and interacted with normal life to be able to sufficiently regear the cogstow. Anything more complicated she would leave to Michael when he returned. She had no idea about the pipewires at all.
And yet, Gail still did not know how to regear the problem of communicating with her ghost about who he was.
For now, she found herself stuck with just praying, and keeping her eyes and ears open for the results.
"So why terrariums?" He asked one day. He was standing by the desk where some of the ingredients were kept, leaning over it to get a better view of the sand, gravel, ground charcoal, rocks, spray bottles, pieces of bark, and whatever other odds and ends had ended up tucked away in cubbies.
Gail was darning socks in the sitting room. She had zoomed her glasses in further so that she could see the details better—she had never been particularly skilled with needlework, even in her younger days when she’d been able to see without extra aid. The increased size of the world gave her a comical picture of her serious-faced companion staring at her from across the room, features distorted in the curve created by the more intense zoom (she had a cheaper pair of glasses).
"Hmmmm. Well, I can't quite remember how it started. It was an idea that Michael picked up in his travels, I think. He got a few books from somewhere and it… fit somehow. I like collecting odds and ends and we both like making things and working with our hands, even if I’m not as steady with it. I like plants well enough, but sometimes they can be a handful to manage, so I like the simplicity of it all once its done and set up. A lovely thing to look at, a world unto itself, almost. And," she added with a chuckle, "much easier to take care of than most gardens. Or worlds."
"That makes sense." He poked at one of the jars of rocks. "I agree that they are quite pretty. I like the moss."
"Me too." She barely avoided getting her fingers pricked by her needle. "It's a very peaceful creature, somehow."
"Yeah. I've noticed, too, that for all the materials you have to make them, you don't seem to have too many around the house. Do you tend to make them more for other people?"
"I do." She pulled the thread to. "Well, the collection is bit of me being a packrat when it comes to keeping materials, a bit of me being slow at the job, a bit of Michael traveling often, and a bit of us giving them away. They can be quite nice as gifts. For example, Mrs. Oberson, she has arthritis, and trouble in her back. She used to garden, but can't now. I thought she might like to have plants about her again, and ones that don't require much effort or memory to take care of—she's complained to me often enough that she can hardly rely on her own mind anymore. So I imagined she might like something to brighten the house up, bring new life to the place."
Previously on Terrarium Lights: the ghost continues to wrestles with what to do next; Gail tries to understand.
(Next part >>here)
"What I meant to say," she said over her shoulder, "is that I would make you as much bacon as you'd like."
Jonathon chuckled, a bit more lightheartedly this time.
Gail watched the eggs for a bit. "On the other side of the fear, there will be good things," she said quietly. "Like bacon."
"I know," Jonathon said in a small voice. "But I'm afraid. Of disappearing. Who will I be when I'm not me?"
"Someone else," Gail agreed. "But you'd be someone else in a year, no matter what form you took. To be a person is to be changing, even in small ways, even just by having been alive for another year. And I know that’s not the same as what you’re facing, but in a way it is. It’s just… a bigger change. That can be difficult, but it's not so bad."
"What if I don't like who I become?"
"Then become someone else in the next year."
“That sounds easier than I think it is.”
Gail chuckled. “Oh, for sure. It’s not easy. But it happens, and it’s possible, and we don’t have to do it alone.”
“‘Thou must save, and save by grace,’” Jonathon muttered. Gail nodded encouragingly.
Jonathon turned around to look at her notepad, letting his weight (as far as it existed) fall on the counter.
"You're still worried about Samuel, too," Gail guessed.
He nodded. "I don't know how his parents will find him if I go back, you know? I might not remember. And… what if I forget him? Not just where his body is, but who he was? What if this means leaving behind my friend, someone who seems to have almost been my brother? I have little enough of him left, anyway."
"Would he want you to stay a ghost for the sake of his memory?"
Jonathon's head flopped down onto the counter between his arms. "I don't know. I… I already can't remember."
Gail came over to pat his shoulder.
"I don't want to doom all the rest of my senses for the sake of my sight," he said, voice muffled by the counter, "but I don't want to lose my sight, either. I don't want to cut off future memories for the sake of what I have now, but what little I have is precious, meager and lacking as it is. I don't want to say good-bye to my friend and then never know him, but I don't want to move on without helping him, and so risk not being able to. I don't know if he even likes me anymore, but I want to help him anyway. I don't know what will happen if I stay, I don't know what will happen if I go, but I don't know that I have any other choice than to make a choice."
Gail rubbed his back slowly, wondering if he could even feel her.
"There doesn't seem to be any easy path," she said. "But… if it’s my place to say something, I do know that sometimes we must die if we want to live again."
"Like… like the Rock of Ages," he said, looking up slightly.
Gail nodded, not quite sure if he meant the hymn or the person. But either way, it worked. "It doesn't mean that the dying doesn't hurt."
Jonathon pushed himself up by his arms and stood there for a bit, propped up. Gail let him think as she rescued her eggs and put the second piece of toast in the remaining bacon grease.
“It’s all still a muddle,” he said, gazing intently at the counter with an almost defensive glare. “I still don’t know what all is the right thing to do, or the easiest or the best, or whatever.”
Gail flipped the toast, watching him, spatula in hand. “But you’ve reached some kind of decision, haven’t you.”
“As much as I can,” he said. “With all the uncertainty, I think there is still something that is plain to do.”
When he didn’t continue, Gail messed with the toast again.“Oh?”
"Ms. Gail," he said, frowning at the counter and pushing each word into being deliberately, "would you go with me to visit Samuel's ghost?"
She smiled at him. "Of course, dear. Just let me finish my breakfast, first."
Two attempts at drawing something of a scene moment with Gail (from Terrarium Lights). One went. a little better than the other (drawing characters consistently my beloathed).
Continuation of my Inkling's Challenge story, started >>here. Next part >>here.
Not sure if I'm supposed to tag @inklings-challenge anymore since times have moved on, but will do so just to be on the safe (the tag may be ignored if so desired).
Last time on Terrarium Lights: The ghost disappeared after getting an existential crisis when he realized he didn't know his own name, to everyone's surprise.
"I'm sorry."
Gail nearly jumped out of her skin, scattering her basket of freshly cleaned rocks across the dining room table. She wheeled around toward the kitchen, which had been empty a few moments earlier, to see the lad from before standing sheepishly in the middle of it.
She released her apron and took a deep breath.
"Oh?" She replied—with only a slight quiver in her voice—and allowed him to insert his own explanation.
Truth be told, she wasn't sure what he was apologizing for, unless it was scaring the living daylights out of her. It was, however, reassuring to see him again and to know she wouldn’t be stuck for the rest of her days with the mystery of what on God’s green Earth had happened.
"Well, I feel like I may have overreacted." He was looking at the floor, so she couldn't see the state of his eyes.
"About your memories?" She asked, and then mentally smacked her palm against her forehead. Perhaps it wouldn’t be wise to bring up the incident that had so upset him right the second he came back—in her defense, her heartbeat was still rather drowning out thought.
"Yeah."
"I see." Gail turned back to the table and started picking up the rocks—mostly shale and creek pebbles—from where they'd been flung, gathering her wits with them.
It had been several days since the ghost had come and gone.
At first she toyed with the idea that her mind was going on ahead of her to heaven. They did say solitude did odd things to mind, but while she didn't have concrete proof that the lad had been there, in the end she had decided to regard it as fact until proven otherwise. There were her sodden clothes and her pail of moss, confirming that she'd gone out in the rain at the very least.
After she'd settled that, she started to go over the interaction in her mind.
She had had no idea if he'd come back or not. Her gut reaction was that he would, someday. The whole venture was rather too strange and unfinished—he was clearly haunted by something, still. Whether or not she would be there to see it, she did not know.
Eventually, she decided that if he did return to her, she should handle him with more care and tact, and make him feel more generally comfortable before prodding at him again. That seemed like the best way to figure out what was going on, at least. From there—well, she didn't know. But one so rarely did know what one was doing, so that wasn't a great matter in the long run. Besides, if this was the Lord’s doing, he’d hardly abandon her here. Wasn’t His style.
And here the lad was, once again standing in her kitchen, though this time much shyer and more unsure, and she’d already prodded him more than she meant.
"I appreciate your thoughtfulness," she replied, rubbing her thumb across a smooth piece of shale. "Though I suppose I should apologize, myself, for startling you."
"Well, technically I think that was the kettle," he said with a nervous chuckle.
She snorted. "True. Dreadful loud that kettle is."
As she swept the last bits of rocks towards her, she heard him shuffling his feet. It was an odd sound. Not quite all there. "It… it doesn't seem to be raining anymore."
"Nice and sunny out, indeed." She kept an ear on him, still managing her rocks.
"Um. Thank you for letting me borrow your roof."
The rocks clattered back into the basket. "You're welcome to it as long as you might need."
"…Even if it's not raining anymore?"
She turned back round to face him and smiled. His eyes were a satisfying shade of brown. "Even then."
He beamed back.
Gail walked over to a makeshift desk to the side of the room and started sorting the rocks into their proper containers. Hesitantly, the lad hovered into the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room space.
“I… I still don’t really remember anything,” he said. “I think I have amnesia.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Gail gave him a sympathetic look. “I don’t suppose there’s anything I can do to help with that?” She gestured for him to come closer.
“Well, I don’t know.” Like a puppy prepared to be yelled at, he edged further into the house. “In all honesty, the fact that I couldn’t remember anything terrified me. Still does, kind of, but it’s not as shocking now, I suppose. I don’t know why I didn’t realize. I mean, how do you forget your entire life but just not think about it? Doesn’t make sense.” He trailed off with an attempted chuckle.
“Maybe it was something that happened recently?”
He squinted at what she was doing, seemingly half-intrigued about her activity, half-absorbed in his own nervous narrative. “I… I don’t think so. Or maybe the amnesia was recent? I don’t know. I kind of… remembered bits? But it’s very fuzzy, like it might have happened in some odd kind of dream, a long time ago. Or maybe not that long ago. Dreams can be weird. But so can memories. Like when something happens yesterday but it feels like it’s always been your past, that kind of thing. Or at least that’s what last time I was here felt like, I think, but that could just be because that’s all I can remember right now. But I don’t even know how long ago it was that I was here. I get the impression that memories are tricky.”
“True, that,” Gail chuckled. “You said you remembered something, though?” She rubbed her thumb over the ridges of a large creek pebble appreciatively, then dropped it into its jar with a satisfying clink.
“What are you doing?” He asked, tilting his head, curiosity temporarily overshadowing his dilemma.
“Oh, me? Sorting rocks.”
“Why?”
“If I don’t, they’ll just be a mess.” She waved her hand over the assortment. “This way it’s easier to get at the ones I need.” She wasn’t sure if he was dodging the question again or just distracted.
“O-oh.”
She chuckled again. “For terrariums, that is. I’m not just mad about rocks, though I do like them.”
“Terrariums?”
“It’s a hobby of me and my husband’s. While he’s away, I gather materials—and sometimes do a few myself—and then when he’s back, we work on one together.” She was sorting them roughly by size and color. Absently she wondered if she’d need to take a trip to the shore sometime soon to stock back up on driftwood.
“Could I… maybe… see one?” He had his cautious puppy act on again.
Resisting the urge to kid him a bit for his skittishness, she nodded and went to the living room (really only a bulge on the side of the dining room, but still rather nice for sitting), and picked up one of the first ones she and Michael done together, in the bottom of a large, broken canning jar that had once been the size of a small bucket.
“Here,” she said, and held it towards him. “The edges aren’t sharp anymore. We sanded what we could and covered the rest with a sealant.”
It was a simple terrarium, really. Not much more than moss arranged around a large lump of red flint they’d found when wandering along the creek, with a few small little plants stuck in. And the container wasn’t the prettiest, with the sealant smeared across most of the edges around the opening. Still, it was a good memory, so she liked to keep it watered and tended, and even though she didn’t know what kind of moss they’d gathered, it was one of her favorites—it flowered in the summer and smelled lovely.
"Can I touch it?" He asked. When she nodded, he slowly reached out and put his hand in the container, running his fingers along the rock and pressing their tips gently against the moss. "It's so strangely soft and not soft." He looked up and smiled and his eyes were very brown. "It feels nice. Almost scratchy, but comfortable. I like its texture."
"Isn't it just lovely?" Gail agreed. "Moss is one of those things that isn't hard to find, but is still so satisfying every time you do. I think it's one of the marks that God made this world with love."
The lad nodded absently. He was frowning slightly, and for a moment didn't seem quite all there, his edges ever so slightly blurring.
"I think I remember something about moss," he said. "I'm not sure. But it wasn't very green, and there were whole plains of it. Underground, I think. And blue. I think we might have been safe there, but I don't know." He looked back up at her. "Does any of that sound… familiar? Since you know about moss."
The lad looked so hopeful, Gail wished she could say yes. "Well,” she replied, pursing her lips as if in deep thought, “we don't have many caves around these parts. Soil's not built for it. And I don’t profess to know much about the subject one way or the other, but I can't say as I'm familiar with blue moss."
"Oh." Feeling along the edges of where the rock and moss met, he pressed his hand down again, softly. Gail noticed that it did not leave much of an impression, if any. "Maybe it was just the way it looked? Maybe it wasn't blue." He withdrew his hand. "But if there are no caves around here… I don't know. It was certainly underground." He frowned. "Well, I'm pretty sure. I… I guess I can't say for certain, can I? Since I don't know."
Gail resisted the urge to set her terrarium down and pat his back or try to hug him. The poor lad looked frightfully lost. "Perhaps you were a traveler in your time, before coming here. I will admit, I don't know much about what lies beyond my little corner of the world, so who's to say caverns of blue moss might'nt be out there, somewhere?"
Even as she said the words, they felt unlikely. Maybe because she didn't quite believe them herself—but it was true, at least, that she didn't know much about the world beyond Florida, or even beyond this northern slice of it. She could have hope in her own ignorance, for the lad's sake. Perhaps her Michael might know, or she could write to her son up in the Northern colonies. They were both much more widely traveled.
"As your memories come back, mayhaps you might learn to know more about it."
He nodded, stuffing his hands in his pocket, eyes still on the ground. "I hope so. It's… disconcerting, to know so little about what you can trust from your own head."
"We'll figure it out," Gail said, wondering if there was any way to physically console someone who couldn't be touched.
"I… I also really don't mean to drag you into this," he said. "We're both just strangers to each other. I wouldn't want to presume too much on your hospitality."
Gail clucked her tongue at him as she put the terrarium on the table, where he could still find it if he wanted. "Trust me, young man, this would be the best use of my time. I couldn't in good conscience just turn you out, anyway, and well, what can I say? I'm a meddlesome old lady. I like fixing other peoples' problems, if I can."
"Oh." He picked at the edge of his waistcoat. "That's… that's really kind of you. I… I'm not sure what to say to that."
"You don't have to say anything, if you'd rather not. You're welcome to just be here for a bit, if you'd like."
"I… I think I'd like that." He looked up at her again. "I wouldn't be a bother if I just stood by and watched you work?"
"No bother at all." Gail waved a dismissive hand. "I guarantee you'll be a lot easier to work around than toddlers, though admittedly it has been… a few years, since I've had to do that. I'll just be working on a new terrarium, anyway, for old Mrs. Oberson. She's been quite sickly for a while now, and having living things about you really brightens a room up."
He followed her back to the desk, where she pulled out a largeish jar and set it up, hunting down the different components she needed from the desk, and adjusting her glasses to a higher zoom setting to better view the details. The plan for this terrarium lay on a card pinned to the desk, half-recipe, half-sketch. Michael had helped her come up with it before he left, and now was as good a time as any to get it going. She’d need more time, too, since her hands weren’t as steady as they used to be.
Last time on Terrarium Lights: the ghost returned and tried to make sense of nonsensical memories. (next part >>here)
It turned out to be all very well and good to offer the lad help and a place to stay (as much as he could stay anywhere), but then she had to figure out what to do with him.
He seemed to be having trouble figuring out what to do with himself, too, and spent the rest of the day hovering at her shoulder—at which point they both discovered that he quite liked to talk, despite being firmly uncertain about anything he was saying. It was making working on the terrarium rather difficult, and she had trouble with the fine details at the best of times, but she found herself enjoying the company more than she expected.
It was nice to have sound in the house again.
By the end of the afternoon, she had learned he was pretty sure he had been traveling with someone else—the blue-moss cave was one of two places he was pretty sure he remembered, along with somewhere growing purple trees on blue and crimson rocks—he was pretty sure he had studied something at a university at one point, but had no idea what or where—he didn't know if he was from this area but he was pretty sure it seemed kind of familiar—he didn't know his name but he was pretty sure he knew what names were—and so on.
He asked her if she knew any names, and she found herself absently replying that she had no idea, before realizing her mistake.
To tell the truth, she had gotten distracted. When names got brought up, it occurred to her that if she could figure out his name, she might be able to find out who he was. If she started going through obituaries, maybe she could find out who he was—or had been. She was turning over the idea of looking through recent obituaries anyway, to see if any matched; while she wasn’t sure what had happened to the lad, obituaries about old folks dying peacefully in their sleep would hardly work.
Mainly her conundrum was that she didn’t know if she could tell him, either about the research itself or if she found out anything. The lad had gotten startled enough when realizing he couldn't remember his name; she had no idea what he would do if he realized he might be dead.
For now, she decided, it would be more helpful to the lad to listen to what he was saying and try to respond. She was about to rally her forces to his aid (her next strategy being to go through all the names from the Bible that she could remember), but the lad had gotten diverted again and was asking her about the papers open on the top of the desk.
"Oh, those?" she waved a hand. "I was trying to figure out if I'd be able to send a letter or two to Michael to pick up at his layover, but there don't seem to be any good letterships making their way out West. Probably wouldn’t get there in time. I forgot to put them away this morning."
Last night she had been trying to write a letter to him in her head, and had kept getting stuck on their guest. Hopefully, by the time Michael got back she'd be able to share information with him in some way that made sense; for now, she contented herself with keeping her diary updated and detailed.
"Who is Michael?"
"My husband." She took a second to fold the map and directory and timetables up, and stow them in their proper cubby.
"You're married?"
Gail had to chuckle at the surprise written all over the lad's face—the face of a child who finds out their parents' name isn't, in fact, "Mum." "Have been for the past thirty-three years, or at least so I've been led to believe."
"O-oh." He blinked. "I see. Do…do you have kids? I… I hadn't heard any… um…." He gestured vaguely around him.
"Four, but none living here," she said, resuming her work on the terrarium. "The youngest moved out a year ago, and she's working full-time as a professor now. Passed her last examinations for that station not six month hence."
"Ah. They’re all doing well for themselves, then…?" This sudden twist of information had rendered him back to incoherence.
In all fairness to the lad, Gail remembered it taking her some few decades to figure out how to talk to people. "Quite well, I'm happy to say. One took after their father, got into the shipping business. Moved rather far away, up north, where his wife’s family is from, but he writes often. A captain of his own airship now, in fact."
"Ah, congratulations," the lad said with awkward, but heartfelt, enthusiasm.
"The other is working in an orchard a few days journey away, seems quite happy with it." Gail knew quite well she could spend far longer than the lad would care to endure talking about her children, but kept the descriptions short. If he wanted to know more, he would. “From his letters, he seems like he’s getting rather taken with one of the other workers there, though I’m not sure he realizes it, himself. But they all seem to be well settled. I’m quite happy for them, though Heaven knows I’d like to see them more regular. ”
He cocked his head. "And the fourth?"
She carefully measured out how much gravel she’d need in between the layers—perhaps more carefully than she truly needed. "The Lord took him when he was a lad. Not much younger than you."
"Oh." He shuffled his feet. "I'm sorry to hear that."
Gail rested her hands on the desk, looking out the window at the bright, clear day. "Thank you for that. We miss him dearly."
Even after decades of practicing how to talk with others, she never quite knew what line to take in this particular conversation. David’s death had been something she had come to terms with, but it wasn't like it went away. One couldn't just brush over the soul-deep hurt, say that they'd been fortunate overall with getting to have him in their lives at all. But it wouldn't be right to dwell too much on the loss, not when there had been so much good.
She looked back at the ghost in her living room, standing there and watching her with soft sympathy; she wondered where his mother was, if she knew what had happened to him.
Gail dropped her plan of searching through the obituaries for the time being. Death wasn't a matter to be rushed; let him get there in his own time, when he was ready. She turned back to the desk, to the terrarium, and poured in the gravel.
"Maybe I can take you by the university sometime," she said, more abruptly than she meant. "It has been longer than I sometimes remember since I've visited my Charity, and I'm sure you'd find the place interesting. Deep into the city, it is—perhaps you’d recognize something of it. And we'd pass by the lighthouse on the way, too, if we did."
"Oh?" His tone was polite. He could tell that she was shifting the conversation, and was letting her.
"A nice place. A lighthouse and a café and the good souls that run both establishments, and it would break up the journey into the city. Though such a trip couldn’t be immediate. I'd have to let Professor Charity know ahead of time." She smiled to herself—the title still felt new and strange in her mouth, but she liked it. "The city might be nearby, but sometimes the letter system is abominably slow. Practically faster to send a whole package aboard a lettership to catch up with my Michael than to send a note to the university."
She could sense him nodding thoughtfully behind her, as if he knew what she meant. Maybe in some part of his memory, he did.
"I…I'm not sure if I'm quite ready for… something like that," the ghost said in a small voice. "I feel disheveled, and… and… I don't know where I can even go to get a change of clothes, or a bath, or anything like that. I don't… I don't know where I live."
"Ah." Gail turned in her chair, facing him as much as she could and with one arm hitched over the chair's back. "That is a dilemma. No idea at all? Perhaps if you remember a neighborhood of some kind we could take a look. Or I could, rather, if you'd prefer not to go yourself just yet."
Could he change his clothes? Should she urge him to try, and perhaps find out there was something wrong? She didn't want to lie to him and pretend he could be normal, but she also didn’t want to discourage or frighten him unnecessarily. But… he deserved to know.
He tugged at the bottom of his waistcoat again. "That's… that's very kind of you. I appreciate it, I really do, but… I have no idea. Honestly, I'm not even really sure where I've been that hasn't been here. Just… vague recollections of things like trees. Or that I was in a city once. But nothing clear, nothing that makes sense."
The ticking of the clock in the background became more present, more audible.
"I’m sorry to hear it," Gail said softly. "I will be honest, I'm not very sure what I can do to help, but… I do think it might be something that will get better with time. After all, you've been telling me bits and pieces of things you remember. Maybe more will come."
"True, but… I don't know." He looked around him, as if hoping something in the room would give him a clue. "Those feel like memories but they also feel… distant? Temporary? Not unimportant, but… I don't think I lived in a cavern of blue moss or whatever weird places I've thought up that don't seem to be from around here. It's all… dark. Did I have a family? A home? A… a change of clothes." He trailed off.
"It will come," Gail reaffirmed, unsure of what else to do. "At first, you didn't even realize that you had memories missing. So maybe, now that you know they are, you can look for them, and maybe you'll be able to hold on to something."
"Yeah." His shoulders slumped, somewhere between resignation and relief. "That's true. Like… what I'd imagine waking up out of a dream is like. I hope."
Gail nodded.
"So, um, yeah… I think for now I'd rather not try and go anywhere new."
"I understand. You're welcome to stay here as long as you need."
"Thanks." He smiled, but his eyes were foggy again. "Even here, every now and then… feels like I can't quite see it…"
"Well, it is getting on towards evening." Gail pushed back her chair. "It’s time for me to light the lamps. That should help."
The blank unfocus didn't change.
Pursing her lips, Gail looked him over, turning thoughts around in her head. "Well, I can't quite offer you a change of clothes—my Michael is of rather a different build than you." She snapped back into motion, busying herself with moving around the room and gearing on the lights, calibrating them deftly. "But if you'd like, you can look yourself over in the washroom. And if it helps, your clothes are fine. Your hair is a tad messy, with a few loose strands and all, but easy enough to put right.” She hesitated, hand on the last lamp. “Only thing with your clothes would be that stain on your shoulder."
"O-oh." The brown seeped back into his eyes, staring at her as she geared the lamp on and turned back to him. He reached up to touch his hair cautiously, as if he expected it to come alive and bite him. "I had forgotten about my hair."
"Just a simple fix needed," Gail assured him. "Washroom is right over there, and we've a decent sized mirror, too. You can go and check the matter out for yourself."
Nodding, he meandered his way over.
Gail went to close the blinds, noting the first stars beginning to poke out of the depths of navy sky.
"Lord, give me wisdom," she muttered. She didn't even know if he could see himself in the mirror, much less do anything to actually alter his appearance.
She didn’t like how she was edging on covering up the truth. She had always taught her children that honesty was better than secrets, and she had no intentions of turning hypocrite at her age.
But how could she break the news to him?
This was the best she could do, for now, to try and tell him—or show him—that something in particular was amiss, beyond what he was assuming.
A few minutes later, he returned with his hair neatly combed and tied back into a proper ponytail. He seemed to have made an effort to clean his face up some, as well. However, the bloodstain on his shoulder remained unchanged, rip and all.
"I'm afraid I couldn't find anything on my shoulder," he said apologetically, if a tad bewildered. "Is it still there…?"
Gail sized him up.
The injury or stain or whatever it was still clearly visible.
"Well, I suppose it might have just been a bit of grime, or shadow," she said, unthinkingly approaching him, "you look quite the charming lad." She dusted off his shoulder, adjusted his tie, as she would with her own son.
He beamed, the melancholy in his features giving way to bashful pride. "That's very kind of you, ma'am."
“Shall we go into the kitchen?” Gail gestured toward it, hoping he wouldn't notice the sudden strain in her smile. “It’s about time for me to get my bread kneaded and in the oven, if you’d like to hang around.”
He nodded and headed towards the kitchen.
Gail waited a moment, looking down at her hand.
The sensation still sat there, like her skin was reliving the moment of touching and not touching. His clothes, his body, had not reacted to her at all. But there had been something there. Nothing physical, nothing solid, nothing like a person--but something. Like the feeling of a blanket that's been drying in the sun but isn't done yet, warm, soft, but wet and clinging. Except not there at all. And still there was a prickling in her hand, like static build-up during a cold winter.
In her mind, too, there was something more, a sudden flash, like an unveiled lamp, a moment of brightness and lostness, emptiness.
She closed her hand around the feeling, keeping it her palm and engraving it in her mind.
It was odd, but it was him. Maybe it meant something. Maybe it could help her figure out some way to help him. And if nothing else, she had connected with him for an instant. That alone was value enough.
He, apparently, had not noticed anything odd.
Squaring her shoulders, she followed him into the kitchen, and decided that, for now, she would not bring up the clinging charge and heat that moved with her.
This is the last installment in this story--we have made it to the end. Thank you for coming this far with me.
Previously on Terrarium Lights: Gail works through some of her own grief
(Alternate Epilogue >>here)
Of course, Gail did not forget her promise. Once Michael settled in—and heard the story of the past few weeks several times over, and read her journal and the notes she and the lad had made, and walked the length of the coast with Gail—they headed to the lighthouse.
After some polite chin-wagging, Mrs. Seward put up a sign saying she'd be back to the café after a break, and ushered them towards the lighthouse. She saw what Gail was carrying and smiled approvingly. As they went, she explained that he was in a room in the stairwell there. It was brighter and airier than the rooms in the house, she said, and he had often stayed there before, so they felt it was more appropriate. Besides, easier access for the doctor to not have to go through either the café or the rest of their house.
The doctor was not in at the moment, but Mrs. Seward was pleased to report that, according to him, Jonathon was recovering splendidly—which Gail was pleased to hear.
"But… I'm afraid the worst we feared was true," Mrs. Seward said, whispering almost as they approached the steps. "He doesn't quite remember things. He seems to have kept impressions—he knows that he knew us, but he doesn't… quite… well, remember us. And he doesn't see very well anymore."
"Ah," Gail said. So it was as Jonathon had thought.
"We're sorry to hear that," Michael said softly.
"Still," Mrs. Seward said, drawing herself up with her hand on the doorhandle. "Our boy came back. And we are ever so grateful for that."
If either Gail or Michael saw a hint of tears in her eyes, they did not comment.
The room was, indeed, quite nice. It was small and cool, but large enough that it felt cozy instead of claustrophobic; the long, wide window on the wall let in a stream of sunlight, and looked out trees and, through them, the sea. When the window was open, Gail imagined that it smelled and felt quite fresh.
Jonathon was sitting on the bed, placed just under the window and piled with the surplus of blankets and pillows Gail had noticed upon entering. He looked different. "Solid" was the first word that came to mind. It amused Gail somewhat that she half-expected his eyes to be blank and colorless as he stared with a different kind of vacancy toward the window. Overall, he seemed to have more color in him. His cheeks had more warmth to them, his lips looked less dry, and his eyes were a rich brown. Perhaps he looked different because he was in a cleaner shirt and waistcoat, and there was no blood or injury to be seen.
When the door opened, he turned his head towards them.
"Hello, Jonathon," Mrs. Seward said. "You have some visitors. They’re friends of ours from church. You don't know them, but Mrs. Goffrey has been praying for you while you were sick."
"Oh," he said, his hands fiddling with the blankets. "That's very kind."
"My pleasure," Gail said with a chuckle. She shifted the weight of her gift in her arms. Honestly, she should have asked Michael to carry it.
He tilted his head at her voice.
"I'm afraid I was traveling just now, through the weeks that all the goings' on took place," Michael said, "so I’ve only started on my prayers recently. But I have heard a lot about you."
"Ah." His face squinted in an embarrassed smile. "Thank you, I think."
"I'll be back at the café if you need anything," Mrs. Seward said, looking back through the lighthouse door towards the rickety and ungeared wagon pulling up around the bend. "And you two are familiar with the area. Just pop in and say good-bye before heading out."
Gail nodded.
"So." Gail started, suddenly unsure of how to start a conversation with so familiar a stranger. “How… how have you been?”
"Truthfully, I'm not sure." Jonathon went back to rubbing his fingers along the hem of the blanket. "I don't have much to compare things to. But… I think the weather has been nice. I know Mrs. Seward has been dealing with a personal loss, but they haven't told me much. Apparently I was asleep for several weeks, but… I assume you must know that already."
"I had an inkling," Gail said with a chuckle.
She glanced around the room, looking for a suitable spot. The best place was perhaps the dresser beside his bed. The only thing on it was a framed picture of Jonathon, standing posed with… someone. He looked vaguely familiar.
"We have a present for you," Michael said. "Something my wife made for you."
"Oh." He blinked. "I… you didn't have to."
"No worries," Gail said brightly. "It’s something of a hobby of mine. Is it alright if I set it on the dresser by your bed?"
"What is it?" he asked.
"It's a terrarium," she said, coming closer.
"I… I'm not sure what that is," he admitted.
"Well, usually, they're made in glass jars and the like, and a little scene is made with rocks and moss and various other things. Like a little mini garden, but of moss. But I made this one a little different." Gail set it down on the bed beside him, the weight of it making the mattress bounce a bit, and gave him a chance to explore it. "We made this one wider and more open, and in what was supposed to be a clay garden pot. It broke a few years back—though don't worry, no edges anymore, we made sure to sand them all down—so it's solid and won't fall over easy if you bump it."
“Technically, it’s not really a terrarium anymore,” Michael inserted helpfully. “But we made it using similar principles, and neither of us could remember what the other type is called. Mossarium didn’t sound quite right.”
Gail chuckled. “We tried to make it more for feel and texture than looks, so that’s another reason why we made it bigger. Easier to put your hand in, if you want.”
He felt it gingerly, brushing his fingers along the edge of the clay, stopping at a sudden protuberance.
"That's a little lamp we attached to it," she said. "It gives off more warmth than light, and it should be easy enough to find and turn on if you need it. Michael helped me rig it. A friend of mine gave me the idea," she added more softly.
"Oh." Jonathon's forehead was creased as he fingered his way down to the moss. "That feels nice," he said, smiling slightly and gently pressing his hand down on it. He picked up one of the smooth stones lying in the moss and fingered it, rubbing his thumb along the irregular notches and blunt edges.
"There are some stones for extra feeling and texture," Gail said. "And the moss will flower in summer. It has a lovely smell."
"I… I don't know how well I can take care of it," he said, slowly setting the stone down as if he were afraid to break it. "Will that be a problem?"
Gail lifted it and slid it onto the dresser beside his table, bending down to plug the little lamp into the cogstow beside his bed. "Don't worry about that," she said, her head still done by the dresser.
"It doesn't need much water," Michael explained. He put a spray bottle in Samuel's hands and gave it a light tug, the gears clicking slightly as the water built up pressure and shot out. "A few sprays every few weeks should be quite enough. We're not sure how it will work with the lamp, but I suppose we'll see. We can repair and reconfigure things as needed, but I think it should be decently waterproofed."
"That's… it's all very thoughtful of you both," he said, in a tone of gratitude that bordered on distress. "Thank you."
"Our pleasure," Gail said, straightening up and dusting her hands off. "We like to help when we can."
"You seem like kind people," he said, still holding the spray bottle, "and we don't even know each other." He held the bottle in both hands, frowning down at it. "Do we…? I… I can't quite tell… but… somehow I feel like I've heard your voice before." He tilted his head towards Gail, not quite turning all the way.
"After a fashion," Gail replied with a chuckle. "We have met before, though it makes sense you wouldn't remember me."
"Ah. I'm sorry. It’s… it’s something I’m hoping to work through."
"No worries," Gail said. "But recovering is a difficult process, I'm sure you could use some time to get back on your feet. Speaking of which, we didn't want to stay too long today, but we plan on visiting again—just so long as you wouldn't mind. We can help tell you things about the area, or read to you, or do whatever you might like. Try and help you adjust or else just keep you company."
He smiled brightly. "I think I'd like that. It's… it's good to hear more voices."
"We'll come by soon, then," Michael said, patting the lad on his shoulder.
As they made their good-byes and prepared to leave, Gail turned again to the framed photo that was now beside the terrarium.
It was of two lads, one of them Jonathon, in front of a building that Gail recognized as belonging to the academy. They each had an arm around the others' shoulder, and were smiling. The lad on the left wore a big smile, as natural as if that's what his face was born to do, while Jonathon’s half-smile was bashful and unsure.
It clicked. It was odd, seeing Samuel in a much more normal setting, and in a more normal color palette—or at least as far as Gail could tell, considering the obvious limitations of photography. She wondered if it had been able to capture color, how he would look. What color his hair and eyes would be, when he was alive. She smiled at the picture and set it down gently.
She was glad that, in a way, he would still be around to look out for his friend.
