Chapter 11
Shane was the reason Finn left for good. Not that anyone else in town knows this, or that he can be precisely sure.
Shane’s initial pleasure in the filth of their secret was wearing off quickly, Finn’s derogatory talk going rancid in his ears. He kept showing up at his place, though it was clear now Shane wasn’t putting himself in a better situation, that he was still in the same pit as he’d always been.
He finds himself tangled with Finn again and again. He'll never know what was different about the last night, what happened to make things change. Maybe it was only that he'd reached his limit.
His body is cold with sweat and his head is starting to hurt. Finn’s arm is draped over him like a constraint. He pushes it off, gets out of Finn’s bed and goes to the fridge for a beer.
“Come back to bed.” Finn says in his huskiest whine. It grates at Shane’s nerves.
“In a second.” He says, opening his bottle and downing half of it in one go, hoping the cool fizz will sooth the pit of growing disgust in this stomach.
“Come back to bed.” Finn purrs again, taking up a ridiculous posture. What had once thrilled him was getting weary.
“I said in a second.” He repeats through gritted teeth.
“Do what I say, country fag.” Finn says with a sneer.
“And if I don’t?” Shane says slowly, placing the now empty bottle on the counter and leveling a stare at the other man.
“Oh, you can’t resist.” Finn says with a dripping confidence.
“Right.” He nods, thoughtful a second. Then reaches into Finn’s fridge and takes the rest of the six pack, scoops his clothes that lay discarded by the door into his other arm, and walks naked out the door. He hears Finn’s protests behind him, but knows he won’t follow. At night, Finn's afraid of his own farm.
He felt a surge of power, maintained it as he made his way to cindersap, enjoyed the stolen brews on the dock there. It began to fade when he was halfway through them, was gone by the time he finished. Why’d he let that stupid man take up so much of his time? Why’d he let himself be manipulated into a quasi-relationship?
When Finn left the next day he felt an absurd burst of pleasure. As did everyone else in town. He’d celebrated by taking Jas to the beach and making her shriek with joy by pretending to toss her into the waves. It had been a good day. He’d felt free. He’d gone home and made them all dinner, Marnie rosy with laughter, forgetting to ‘coincidentally’ run into Lewis at the bar.
Throughout the rest of fall he made an effort to be sober, made an effort to be present in his make-shift family’s life. He slipped a few times, but nothing too bad. Then winter came and the monotony came and the thought that he was still a loser working at Joja with no escape plan came and wouldn’t leave. The ‘not too bad’ slips became the regular.
Sinking back into that routine felt like sinking back into himself. That’s right, he thought, you can’t escape your DNA. He continued on this trajectory, soon conjuring up images of morbid accidents resulting in his death. Then it became bigger, it became the cliffs beckoning to him, him knowing exactly what he’d do when the time came, that thought a comforting hand on his shoulder.
In was in the throes of this when he met the new farmer. She showed up half a year after Finn had left and Shane knew nobody wanted anything to do with her since she was related to him.
If Finn was the old man’s first choice to inherit the farm, how bad is this one gonna be? Being the general concern.
“Hey Shane, this is the new farmer.” Emily had tried to introduce them at the bar, she at least having the decency to hide her negative prejudice.
“Hi-” This tanned young person had begun to say to him.
“No.” He said.
“No?” She looked taken aback, but in an amused way.
“No.” He repeated, downing his beer and signalling for another one.
And she’d laughed, like she didn’t believe him. That had irritated him. Everyone knew to take his foul temper seriously.
She didn’t last long at the bar, most likely due to the cold shoulder she was getting from everyone. She didn’t try to talk to him again either, though he’d watch her awhile, studying her face for any hint of Finn.
Every time she saw him after that she would say hi and he would say some variation of ‘fuck off’ and she’d laugh, but never press forward. He wondered if she thought that was going to make him like her, because it definitely wasn’t. He wondered if she was so low on social interaction that being verbally abused felt like a good conversation.
She would tell him later that she’d first laughed out of surprise, because she didn’t think his absolute foulness could be real. Then she’d laughed every time afterwards because she couldn’t believe the dedication he put into maintaining a single state. She never believed it was genuine, even when he did.
The spring passed. He only got worse. When he found himself feeling the same in summer he figured he always would, if not worse. A storm came. Seemed a good enough time to fuck off as any.
It was the wizard who found him shit-faced and breathing squelching mud down his throat. He’d resolved to roll off the side of the cliff into the dark depths of the calling sea, but he’d become so senseless he hadn’t even managed it. He was so gone he couldn’t feel anything and probably would have died from drowning in mud if Rasmodius hadn’t come along and kicked him over so he was face up. He barely registered this happening.
The wizard then knelt, and with horrifying ease for anyone, let alone someone of his age, picked Shane up by his shirt with a single hand. He was immensely tall, not shrunken by his years in the slightest. Shane’s legs dangled, toes barely skimming the mud, and still the wizard seemed to tower over him. Lightning cracked a flash of illumination across the wizard’s impassive old face.
Shane’s head had lolled and he’d mumbled to be put down again. “Just throw me over the side.” Though it came out more like an incoherent moan.
The wizard understood nonetheless. “I will not.”
He passed out under the piercing gaze of the wizard’s eye and for a while he thought maybe the crazy old man had thrown him over the edge, such was his oblivion. Though then the thought struck him that if that were true he wouldn’t be having these thoughts at all.
It crept into his awareness that it wasn’t oblivion embracing him, it was warm clean sheets. When he opened his eyes he didn’t know where he was. There was an IV in his arm and the methodical beeping of some machine he seemed to be attached to.
He continued staring at the ceiling, daring not to think. There was a picture taped there, something to focus on while the doctor jabbed you he assumed. It was of a clear blue sea going on for miles, calm, beckoning. The irony of it made him want to laugh. He would have if his throat hadn’t burned.
He became aware of the open door when the silhouette of someone looking in threw a shadow across the room.
“You’re awake.”
Shane didn’t make a sound. Harvey’s voice, the voice of someone he knew, had broken the spell of unreality. He felt a tear collecting in his eye. There was no avoiding that he was still in the valley. Alive.
Harvey quietly began checking his vitals, injecting something into his IV. Then he pulled his stool up and took a seat beside Shane, letting out a soft breath.
“I had to pump your stomach, and you’re dangerously dehydrated.”
Shane kept his watery eyes on the ceiling.
“It was a close call.”
Shane says nothing.
“I made a couple calls to Zuzu, there’s space in a rehabilitation and wellbeing center there that will accept you, but the choice is yours. We can talk about alternatives if you want.”
He still says nothing, though he feels a slight tremor working its way into his lower lip.
Harvey gets up, “we’ll talk about this more when you’re rested.”
The doctor walks towards the door. Shane’s eyes leave the picture on the ceiling, fall to Harvey.
“Who brought me in?” His voice croaked. He had an image of purple in his mind, of height and strength, but it didn’t seem like it could be real.
Harvey gives him a puzzled look, “you brought yourself in.”
Shane returns the puzzled look.
Realizing he doesn’t remember this Harvey goes on, “you managed to get in here through a locked door, lock it behind you, and… I found you in this bed. I don’t know how you managed it in the state you were in.”
Shane’s frown deepens. They both know it’s impossible, but only Shane knows that there’s no way he did that of his own accord.
“It was only by chance I had a whim to come down and check if someone was here. A strange coincidence."
The day fills itself with strange coincidences.
First Marnie and Jas, which isn’t really that much of a coincidence seeing as Marnie is his emergency contact, but when they hear squawking outside Jas goes to check and comes back with Charlie, Shane’s favourite blue chicken, in her arms.
“She followed us all the way from the farm!” Jas says excitedly, putting her in Shane’s lap. Charlie immediately settles in his lap, her squawks turning to coos.
Harvey’s horrified when he finds out there was a farm animal in his clinic, but he makes some attempt to hide it, mumbling something that sounds like “animal therapy.”
Emily comes by with a bean hotpot which smells weird but when he drinks it his head immediately feels better. She says she had a vision that told her to come, but after that she’s mostly silent, just sits there humming and knitting a ludicrously bright-coloured scarf. She doesn’t even ask what happened.
When she’s about to leave she wraps the scarf around his neck.
“I can’t wear this.” He says, his voice muffled by the thick wool.
“Don’t be silly.” She pats his cheek, “it looks lovely on you.”
“Lovely isn’t really my style.”
“Nothing’s fixed, Shane.” She gives him sad eyes then and he feels himself clenching his fists and has to look away.
The weirdest is when Evelyn comes in.
“Yoba, Harvey’s really gotta work on that whole ‘patient confidentiality’ thing.” He mutters, looking up at the ceiling.
“You leave the good doctor out it, young man.” She sits on the chair beside the bed, “you been in this town as long as I have and you learn to pick up when something is off.”
“It’s a little late for that.”
“Oh, I think it’s just in time.” She pulls a cookie tin out of her massive purse and places it on his bedside table. “You know you remind me of my George, when we were young.”
Shane freezes at this. At this time George was bedridden, everyone in town knew he was near death. Evelyn had taken to wandering aimlessly around town when she wasn’t taking painstaking care of him. There was a lot of speculation that she was losing her mind under the grief.
“You’re harsh and mean, but I know what’s under there. Don’t try to fool me.” She wags an old knarred finger at him. “Being sick makes him go back to the safety of that defense,” she sighs now, looking off to something Shane can’t see. “It’s unpleasant. It’s very unpleasant.”
This is really not the heartening speech Shane would expect from an old lady. In fact, he never thought he’d ever get a speech, or even a word beyond hello, from Evelyn.
“But he’s old and scared, underneath it. So I forgive him. Maybe too much. It’s very difficult. To know the right thing to say. What’s right for yourself and right for other people… I figure we usually get it wrong, don’t you?”
“Uhh… sure.”
“Now you feel better. You’re a sharp young lad, can’t have you wasting your precious youth.” And she got up and left, leaving Shane to feel utterly bewildered.
Later, his memory back in small fragments, he becomes convinced that the wizard had orchestrated the entire day. Him getting to the clinic and Harvey just happening to check if he was there in the dead of night, Charlie sneaking out of the coop to visit him, Emily’s vision and unusual presence of mind to not blab his ears off, whatever the hell Evelyn’s visit had been about.
He felt extremely angry to be played with like this. What was that old bastard trying to do, messing with his head? Trying to make him feel important? Like he mattered? Well, it wasn’t going to work, and he was going to tell the wizard what he thought about this meddling.
Harvey wanted to keep him another night for observation – which Shane suspected actually meant keeping him away from booze and steep cliffs – and Shane agreed with no intention of staying. As soon as the doctor retired to his quarters, assuring Shane he could be down at a moment’s notice if he needed him, Shane slipped out the back door.
The summer sun was low in the sky when he got to the tower. At first he just glared at it. Then he knocked, and once he’d started knocking he began pounding, which soon devolved to kicking the door and shouting.
“Open up you lousy fuck! I know what you did!” He continued screaming and kicking, but not for very long. His head hurt and he was starting to get the shakes from alcohol withdrawal. Should he just go back to the Stardrop and forget it all? The wizard clearly wasn’t answering.
He started walking but the vigorous anger that had compelled him out here had left him and now he only felt sick. He collapsed at the base of a tree, hanging his head between his knees to ease the nausea.
“Hey?” Came a tentative voice from through the trees.
He groans, hoping the voice will go away. He’s really really had enough chats for one day.
No such luck. The farmer appears through the woods, a fishing rod slung over her shoulder.
“Shane?” She asks, he just lifts a hand in a weak gesture of greeting. He doesn’t even have the energy to tell her to fuck off. “That you yelling at Rasmodius?”
Shane sighs, “yelling at nothing. Fucker won’t face me.” He tries not to think about how dumb that sounds coming out of his mouth considering how pathetic he looks at the moment.
She sits near him beneath the tree. “What he do to you?”
Saved my life, but it’s not like he can say that.
“Got any beer?” He asks instead, looking over at her through bleary eyes.
She’s caught off guard. “Uh, not on me.”
“At the farm?”
“I might.” But she’s looking at his shaking hands with a degree of scepticism. He rubs the sweat from his forehead and hides his hands in his hoodie.
“Lead the way.” The mutters, stumbling to his feet. He doesn’t give a fuck how rude he’s coming off right now, doesn’t care at all that he’s only ever been horrible to her. He relies on the belief that she’s the kind of person who is weak to make people like them and will go along with his bad-temper out of some sort of need to prove she’s a good friend. He’d seen this quality twisted in Finn. He’d been so desperate for people to like him he’d become a pretentious ass to protect himself when they didn’t.
They walk to the farm in silence. Shane makes a point of not looking at her, though he can feel her searching glances sweeping him over. He wonders how far he can push her, wonders if he can make her leave town too.
Her property is more cleared out than he expects it to be. The weeds beaten back, new healthy growth popping up all over the place. He doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t care.
Her house is still dilapidated though it looks like she’s patched it up quite a bit, inside is cool and dark. He hasn’t been in here since he’d left Finn that night. It’s not the same but it reeks of memory. The stench of his ever pathetic self.
She tells him to sit at the wobbly kitchen table and goes to her tiny fridge, she pulls something out and pours it into a glass. This makes him feel he got it right, she is a people-pleaser, going to unnecessary effort.
She places the glass of faintly green liquid in front of him. He doesn’t question it, just assumes it’s some weird farm brew. He knocks it back in one go only to splutter it out again. Vinegar.
“What the fuck?”
“Pickle juice. Good for hangovers.” She says, sitting across from him in a relaxed slouch, hands in her sweater pockets.
“I’m not hung over.” He spits.
“You can’t make me complicit in your self-destruction.” She says, giving him a hard stare. For a second he’s taken aback. There is something of Finn in her straightforward hardness, but it’s application is different. Finn’s hard statements were always attempts to manipulate, petty claims for control.
“Fine, I’ll go somewhere else.” He gets up and walks for the door.
When his hand is on the handle she says, “no one in this town is going to help you.” It’s exactly something Finn would have said. But he would have sad it to alienate him, and he has the feeling she’s implying the exact opposite.
He grips the handle hard but doesn’t move to open the door, “oh yeah? You’re just a stranger here, how the fuck should you know?” He says it with venom. He knows that the other villagers aren’t affording her the same kindness they normally would due to her family ties to Finn. Knows she hasn’t made a single friend in the months that she’s been here. He says it to cut.
She doesn’t reply and without seeing her face he can’t judge if it’s because he hit the mark or that she’s realizing what he said might be true. That everyone’s been watching him drink himself into a stupor every night for nearly a year.
Though they all had, in a way, tried to stop him. It was his choice. Only Finn had ever enabled it.
He rests his head against the door, feeling a shuddering breath force its way out of his lungs. “You’re not like him, are you?”
She doesn’t answer or ask him to elaborate, just asks him where he wants to go.
He rubs his forehead, squeezing his eyes shut like he can’t believe what he’s about to say. “Better make it the clinic.”